Eureka!

Photo/Jocelyn Gonzales

If one is going to call Edgar Allen Poe's Eureka a prose poem (it's an essay), one might as well call Hanon Reznikov's theatrical adaptation of it a play. But if one wants to be honest to the hard work that Judith Malina has put into the choreography, it's far closer to interpretive dance: Fuerzabruta for the New Age crowd. It's a beautiful idea, re-creating the Big Bang by using the audience (and dancing/acting cast) as component parts, but being so close to the action, striving to follow the cues, makes us work too hard to appreciate, let alone hear, "the rhythmical creation of beauty in words." The end result feels like doing the work of an Alexander class while watching Philip Glass's Koyaanisqatsi, with a big self-congratulatory "Let The Sunshine In"-type conclusion. The Living Theater's committment to larger-than-theater work is admirable, but the question you need to ask is, do you feel transcendental, punk? Well, do you?

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