The Telephone Pole Man Sept.17th-Oct. 24th 1998 Victory Gardens Theatre Chicago, IL. Contact TRIBE! trbemail@aol.com 773-404-6146 212-946-5088
THE TELEPHONE POLE MAN Tribe, at Victory Gardens Theater. We never see the title character, though descriptions identify him as "pierced, poked, and punctured" on his modern cross. We do see the profound effect he has on the witnesses to his agony: a newspaper deliveryman goes postal, two skateboarding slackers go straight, a cancer-riddled matron finds new life, and an art grabber buys the crucified martyr for his private collection. Every young playwright creates something like The Telephone Pole Man--its text crammed with ideas, motifs, and influences (in this case, Albee, Ionesco, and Shepard). But under Keith Geller's direction, Carey Friedman's welter of social satire, youthful exuberance, and Joycean lyricism is given shape and panache by actors anchored firmly in each slippery moment. They're assisted by a bevy of complicated gizmos and stunts--video screens, distorted audio montages, skin lesions the sufferer rips off in a spontaneous recovery, ingenious props and costumes (including a suit that replicates itself so the wearer can never remove it), and even a gratuitous Jackie Chan-style fight. The results are deja vu, but care has obviously gone into this debut production. -- Mary Shen Barnidge
Theater review, `The Telephone Pole Man' By Chris Jones SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE Wednesday, October 7, 1998 If you are going to attract attention through shocking images and idiosyncratic performance styles, you'd better have verve and confidence. Both of those qualities are very much alive in the frenetic production of ``The Telephone Pole Man'' by Tribe, a New York-based performance collective that is expanding its operations to Chicago. Written by Carey Friedman and directed by Keith Geller, this eclectic show concerns a performance artist whose artwork consists of himself hanging upside down from a telephone pole (or something like that). During the course of this 90-minute affair, author Friedman focuses on the effect of this artifact on the people who consume it. Buried deep in a play full of obscene dialogue and overblown images are some useful observations of the sensual impact of art on its consumers. And there's also a very arresting and ambitious performance on display from Patricia Donegan. But this often hyperkinetic show displays much immaturity, and the themes are hidden in a mire of visual and thematic confusion. There is a certain flashy craft in evidence, and Friedman's verbal riffs are clever in places. But even the avant-garde takes discipline -- and this new Tribe needs to develop that skill.
The Telephone Pole Man Tribe, a New York-based collective rapidly growing a Chicago branch, offers up Carey Friedman's "The Telephone Man" as their first Midwest offering. This densely layered tale attempts to tell the intersecting stories of a timid newspaper delivery man, an ivory-towered big business mogul, his dying wife and two refugees from a Mountain Dew commercial, each of whom finds a different type of salvation when a performance artist mysteriously appears, "pierced, poked and prostrate on a pole." Violence, sex and the need for ownership collide in this piece, forming a postmodern dramatic ooze which engulfs the stage, replete with hand-held games, strobe lights and monitors. As is always the case with evolution, ideas slowly emerge and solidify, largely because the talented cast draws out Friedman's wry humor, transforming careful and clever repetitions into meaningful exchanges of new information and emotion. Still, this treatise on the value of art and the origins of faith could stand to be a lot clearer. Friedman said that he finally feels finished with this production of his play. But after viewing the fruits of his blood and mushed-up guts, I still feel horribly mixed up. (Nicole Bernardi-Reis) Victory Gardens Theater, 2257 N. Lincoln,(773)871-3000. Thu-Fri 8:30pm/Sat 5:30pm & 9pm. $15, $5 off with ad. Through Oct 24.