Louder

Photo/Asle Nielsen

Verdensteatret's louder wades into the torrent of the Mekong River, but when it tries to recreate that environment in an eccentrically orchestrated soundscape, all sense of meaning ends up washed away. There's nothing wrong with performance art, but this masochistically loud bit of theater is divorced of meaning; stripped down to cold wires, absent puppets, and mechanized spider legs, it has the numbing effect of watching Foley artists at play in a field of possessed megaphones. This is to take nothing away from the pure experimentation, or the unique effect and visuals: the sight of two men sawing at high-tension, near-invisible wires makes it look as if they are playing air, a Zen-like anti-Blue Man effect. But illusion is all, and the uncomfortable sensation of lying on an airport tarmac in the midst of a hurricane fails to conjure up as much resonance for me as it does for the vibrating cables or the emotionless performers.