ACT's bizarro 'Black Rider' a bang-up season opener

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Sep 3, 2004 | by Chad Jones, STAFF WRITER

'THE Black Rider: The Casting of the Magic Bullets" is profoundly weird in the most wonderfully theatrical way imaginable.

An avant-garde opus created by the maverick director/designer Robert Wilson, genre-bending musician Tom Waits and the late Beat writer William S. Burroughs, "The Black Rider" opens the new American Conservatory Theater season with -- what else? -- a bang.

This Faustian tale of making deals with the devil comes from German folklore, more specifically from a story called "Der Freischutz (The Free-Shooter)" from an early 19th-century book of ghost stories.

Though filtered through the very American sensibilities of Wilson, Waits and Burroughs, "The Black Rider" feels highly Germanic. That may have to do with Wilson's high-art, highly Expressionistic way of telling the story.

This is a fractured tale both in look and structure. Wilson, who is responsible for sets and lighting as well as directing the actors, creates a dark world of blacks, grays and browns that is constantly pierced by color.

In one scene it's the red, long-tailed tuxedo worn by British rock star Marianne Faithfull as Pegleg, the androgynous devil. In another scene, it's a giant purple stag that's being stalked by hunters.

The washes of color that sweep through Wilson's lighting can be spectacular -- like watching an intriguing painting come to life right in front of you.

There is a museum quality about "The Black Rider," especially in its jagged, often bizarre stage pictures, which are so carefully and beautifully composed.

But this is hardly a static piece of modern art. Thanks

largely to Waits' diverse, diverting score and to Burroughs' wry rhymes, there's humor throughout most of the show's nearly three hours.

From the opening moments, when Jack Willis, bald head gleaming and bulky body cloaked in a black coat, enters the Geary Theater, the show is fun and intriguing.

"The Black Rider" is a wild ride, with unexpected pleasures and laughs often emerging from the story of Wilhelm, a pencil pusher who wants to marry the lovely Kathchen. Alas, the young lady's father insists that his daughter marry a man who can hunt, a man like the annoying Robert, whose half-short, half-long hair makes him look like an extra in a Tim Burton film.

Willing to do anything to become an expert marksman, Wilhelm, played with dexterity by Matt McGrath, receives magic bullets from Pegleg. What Wilhelm doesn't realize is that the swift and easy resolution to his problems will have a high cost.

This simple story gets an additional layer of meaning from Burroughs, whose own tangle with the devil (and drug addiction) resulted in the accidental shooting death of his wife.

That murder reverberates strongly throughout "The Black Rider" and lends a curious sort of weight to the frequent levity that often dominates the show.

As Kathchen, the soon-to-be bride, Mary Margaret O'Hara is so delightfully weird she nearly defies description. In a big Act 2 song, she sounds like an accomplished jazz singer and a power tool.

The 12-member cast is uniformly extraordinary, including Monika Tahal and Sona Cervena, who sing an amazing sort of aria of bird and forest noises.

As if there weren't enough amazing things happening on stage -- a wedding in costumes seemingly made of paper (designs by Frida Parmeggiani) -- the action in the pit is also fantastic.

Bent Clausen leads an orchestra of musicians playing things like saws, toy pianos, didgeridoos and glass harmonicas. They capably handle Waits' music, which can conjure a Kurt Weill ditty or the sound of chaos in hell.

Perhaps inevitably, some artsy pretension creeps into Act 2, but by then, the magic bullets are cast. Wilson, Waits, Burroughs and their cast have hunted us down. Perhaps the devil has something to do with it, but we are their willing prey.