Milwaukee’s Truepenny Theater Company presents a vibrant and entertaining dip into the pool of Absurdism in their production of Savannah Reich’s Dali’s Liquid Ladies. Although much of their time is spent in cloyingly light (and consistently hilarious) performances that might more accurately be called parodies of Absurdism (or Dadaism, or whatever “weird” you choose), those parodies are refreshingly entertaining throughout. The brief moments of sincerity are effective if a bit weakly performed, but it is in fact the overarching comedic plot that displays a darker truth about the real relationship between absolute freedom and art in the real world.
Reich describes her script as “A dark and disturbing comedy about three mermaids plotting to kill Salvador Dali at the 1939 World’s Fair.” Both the title and description attempt (I think) to cast the mermaids as the central figures of the premise, but this ultimately proves an impossibility with Reich’s plot. The Ladies (Molly Corkins, Keighley Sadler, and Kat Wodtke) provide excellent, physically informed, and polished performances; it is the script itself that prevents any of them from standing out. But more on that later.
The production itself is outstanding and refreshing. Staged at The Fortress, this studio of challenging accessibility is transformed by set designer Luke Farley into a beautiful, whimsical, and cozy environment, conducive to relaxing entertainment but featuring enough of the overblown and the weird to keep the audience primed for the unusual. Much of the set is decorative (and amazingly so), but the trophy and triumph of Farley’s work is Salvador Dali’s throne: an office chair adorned with huge papier-mache backing in the shape of wings (formed, one assumes, from newspaper clippings about Dali himself), crowned by a three-pronged, stylized crown; in case there was any doubt of who was considered the god of this world.
Don Russel’s lighting is similarly beautifying and unique. Floor lights are a rare feature in unconventional spaces (usually due to budgetary concerns), but there is no substitute when looking to create striking artwork out of the human face.
Leslie Vaglica’s professionally executed costumes, in addition to their physical beauty and functional quality, served to highlight the Ladies as both the objects of an artist’s control and the subjects of their own view on art. Each ‘mermaid’ spends most of her time in a monochrome robe that is uniquely secured and (in more than one case) serves a double function. Sadler’s robe zips up, for example, allowing her to dive entirely inside like a cotton womb and operate a flashlight, essentially becoming a spectral blob. Each of Dali’s models is at least partially nude during at least one point in the play, and the body suits underneath each robe (by their absence or presence) strongly demarcate everyone’s nakedness as either an artistic expression or a moment of honest vulnerability. This is equally true of a fifth, yet to be revealed character, whom I’ll mention in a moment. Dali, meanwhile, the allegedly unique and extraordinary artist, spends nearly the entirety of the play in a suit and tie (and, it must be said, the comically exaggerated mustache), casting him at least to our eyes as little more than another contemporary authority figure. This proves vitally important to another point I hope to make later.
The actors themselves, meanwhile, are well-cast for the super-normative environment of Dali’s Liquid Ladies. The Ladies are frequently demanded by the script and Dali himself to make statues of themselves, leaping into seemingly spontaneous collaborations of human-machinery. Director Tessara Morgan stages oft-exciting and oft-amusing conversation-pieces from her actors, in an eerie but still hilarious echo of Dali’s own directorial work.
Dali himself, or a reasonable approximation thereof, is brought to life convincingly and compellingly by a committed performance from Nick Narcisi. Under Morgan’s direction, Narcisi’ Dali is a Brechtian gest infused with a little more subtlety than either Brecht or Dali might seem to desire, but which is happily accepted for this performance. Dali is the counterpoint to everyone else onstage in every way: still when they are animated, sure when they are uncertain, slow and enunciated when they are flustered and stammering, and (almost) always in total control. Dali even commands the lights, frequently ordering their alteration as it serves his presentation, speeches, and musings.
It is in this respect, of Dali’s total dominance over others in the name of his alleged freedom (both artistic and social), that Dali’s Liquid Ladies gives the impression of being either woefully out of touch or searingly relevant: the fact that I am still unsure which is the case says a lot about the role of irony and self-awareness in contemporary art.
Ages ago, I read a blog criticizing scripts for almost exclusively relegating women to the role of observer and reactor. This blogger suggested that in the vast majority of plays, whether romantic or political or absurd, it is a woman’s lot to watch, fascinated, a unique and idiosyncratic man make his mark on the world. Most damningly, this blogger laid this allegation squarely at the feet of woman playwrights: that they were equally if not more likely to perpetuate this stereotype. Even in plays where the central characters are all women, even in lesbian love stories, the lead is frequently an observer watching a more interesting person who defies convention (and often, relatability).
Dali’s Liquid Ladies is the epitome of this trope. The three women (Dali himself proclaims their names irrelevant) obey, react, idolize, resent, and counterattack. They appear to have little or no motivation or identity outside of their relationship to Dali. Even the play’s climax, wherein the Ladies presumably free themselves from the artist’s amorphous hold on them, requires that they work as an inseparable unit, free of personality. They are a Greek chorus for any purpose, and each one’s very rare opportunities to stand apart from the others is quickly drowned in Dali’s enormous personality.
Of course, you can’t very well write a play about Dali without focusing on the title character. It would seem to make sense that this level of idolatry exists in a play about Dali and his artistic possession of three women. However, the play has a fifth character. A young member of the 1930s Nazi party (the Lost Nazi, played with precise naivete and immediately disarming charm by Ben Yela) stumbles into Dali’s experimentation and is quickly seduced into becoming the fourth cog in the genius’ creative machine. Even so, the Lost Nazi is the only character Dali spends time with as a person: they eventually share stories of their childhood. The Ladies, meanwhile, chase after Dali with the blind worship of a pollyanna pursuing a Byronic hero, to the by-turns contemptuous and unseeing disdain of the man himself. Even the show’s use of nudity reinforces this sexual divide. The Lost Nazi has a nude scene in which he embraces a new identity, literally shedding his old one, and recreates himself as someone more confident, more open, and more at home in his own body. The Ladies, meanwhile, get naked because a man told them to, or because they wish to elicit the attention of a man. There is one exception to this, where Opal (Corkins) tells a moving, silent story with the application of blue paint to her nude body (again, I think we see here Vaglica’s delineation between sincere nakedness and costume-accentuated nudity), but even in this, we see a stark contrast. Opal communicates seemingly to herself, while the Lost Nazi’s sequence allows him to very openly and boldly communicate with the audience. Even the costuming highlights this: the Lost Nazi, nameless though he largely is, has an identity separate from everyone else, and no matter how lost he becomes in Dali’s world, that identity remains, as does the new one he adopts. For the Ladies, meanwhile, their uniqueness doesn’t extend much farther than the color of their robes.
But Dali’s Liquid Ladies doesn’t just present the misogynist dehumanization of women; it is also an hour-long display of a self-proclaimed auteur and advocate of absolute freedom using artistic absolutism to emotionally enslave others. Several times Dali praises himself for being free: he has no filter between his feelings and their expression, he does not allow the public to tell him what to create, and (he ironically proclaims near the show’s climax) he does not need anyone. This last and most obvious untruth is immediately undercut, as the lights refuse to obey him the instant he makes this final boast. That stumble gives me great hope that this play is in fact far subtler than its broad send-ups of modern art imply.
In Dali we see every egoist hypocrite with a compelling personality, proudly celebrating their own independence, blithely unaware of the people they enslave by their own freedom. It’s very easy for a wealthy celebrity to say he doesn’t need anyone: he can wait for people to come to him. It’s very easy for a powerful and privileged person to advocate freedom, and if lesser people give up their freedom in the hopes of getting a crust of bread from your own largess, well it’s hardly your fault now is it?
In its climax, Morgan’s direction appears to give us a man consumed by his own art rather than his own enormous hubris, though Reich’s script does at least lay the groundwork for either conclusion. Certainly the Ladies’ hand in things suggests that Dali’s ignorance of the consequences of his actions is self-destructive, but these mermaids’ lack of personal identity leaves me wondering how much this play actually cares about lesser mortals.
Leaving aside the socio-political, however, Truepenny Theater provides a compellingly entertaining evening that is exactly as challenging as you choose. Physical performances are consistently more sincere and committed than verbal, particularly the rare opportunities for sincerity offered by the play’s soliloquies, but considering that over ninety percent of the play is predicated on physical commitment, this is clearly a smart decision to make. It’s well worth your time and money (suggested donation of $20, and a firm commitment to not turn anyone away due to financial hardship), and even featured a smoothly delightful pre-show music act. Dali’s Liquid Ladies is a hilarious, unique, and quite possibly unsettling time that I recommend to anyone.