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OffOffOnline:
Into the Strata Digging in the Dark reviewed July 12, 2006
Inspired by the centennial of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake,
Digging in the Dark is theater troupe Capacitor's attempt to represent the
earth's shifting levels through the shifting of human bodies. Under the inspired
direction of Jodi Lomask, this dazzling mix of dance, performance art, acrobatics,
and clowning takes us on a high-flying trip to the center of the earth and
back.
On the bare stage of the cavernous American Theater of Actors, with a 25-foot
projection screen as a backdrop, the first image is of a man suspended high
in the air and diving downward, forcefully swimming as he plunges violently
into the earth. The "Terra Itinerary" provided in the program carefully
describes a journey through 13 scenes/layers of earth, including the crust,
lithosphere, mantle, and core.
Lomask's choreography and design spring believably from a text crammed with
geological terms. Bending and folding, colliding and diverging, her performers
embody the text and transform it into something wondrous, something human.
Although Capacitor has undertaken metaphysical projects like this before (including
Within Outer Spaces, a comparison of heavenly bodies and human ones), this
one is particularly notable in its fusing of the human with the natural. Within
each of us, Digging in the Dark seems to suggest, there are multiple layers
that shift both spectacularly and violently.
Six bold and dynamic young dancers (three men and three women) make up the
versatile ensemble. Simulating the continental crust, they come to the stage
one by one and begin to move together like cogs in a machine—the movement
is at once frantic and fluid. As each performer steps out of the group with
a haughty expression, the others quickly flip the offending dancer over and
back into the mass, suggesting the fracturing of rock as it breaks apart.
