Sound of No Hands Clapping

GOLDEN BUDDHAS, Greek Gods, Zen mystics, tigers, bulls, earthy wood nymphs, and even such personified abstractions as Stygian Sleep and Pleasure cavort their way across the Loeb's colorful arena to execute in rapid-fire "Laugh-In" style succession the Chicago Project's string of Chinese Wisecrackers. This melange was originally conceived as class exercises and improvisation lessons at Columbia College of Communication in Chicago, a radio, film, and performing arts conservatory. Transformed by Director Don Sanders and members of the Columbia theatre collective into a fusion of fifteen comic vignettes, the performance intertwines Zen mysticism and Greek myths, an at times successful mixture because it is stirred with such a light hand.

The players generate a sparkly and engaging atmosphere, as they run the gamut from pure kneeslapping comedy to bawdy jokes and nude appearances. Pan and Cupid swing rosy-cheeked down from thereafters, babies are eaten alive, a sexy maiden is transformed for punishment by Juno into a credible cow with amazingly bovine expressions, a jive-ass-hipster Zeus with greaser shades trysts with earthling maidens, and the verdict is pronounced upon Narcissus. "The sucker came up from inside of him, and that's a rumble nobody can cool."

All the vital elements of a substantially effective performance are present, but one last surefire connection is lacking--the play doesn't trigger the emotions. As a result, no progress or momentum is realized from the beginning of the evening to the end. Only one's media-programmed sense of humor is affected, reacting in knee-jerking kind, and the rest remains strangely but decidedly untouched. The performance of Chinese Wisecrackers leaves one with the aftertaste of cotton candy: an elaborated string of one-liners are no more satisfying than an anticipated huge mass of lip-smacking pink confection--both melt away in mouth and memory in a very short time.

The super-charged energy the actors generate to maintain a lively pace and thus enthusiastic interest, soon dissipates as one walks away from the play, appearing frenetic in retrospect. And the short developed one-liners which inevitably rise in frenzy to a punch line grow tiresome in their episodic pace, the constant up, down, bang, slap dash, stage clearing, re-engagement of one's attention once more.

ONE OF THE BEST Chinese wisecrackers is a compact tidbit of Zen that involves two tigers who pursue their helpless victim. Leaving them angrily howling below, he climbs a rope, only to find two mice gnawing through it from above. Represented by chattering dentures extended on long poles, they are about to sever his lifeline, when he spies a strawberry. Seizing and eating it, he reaches a complete enlightenment of Zen, found through the perfection of the fruit, and abandoning his mortal fate with a blissful cry of "Strawberry!", he drops to the waiting tigers below as the stage blacks out.

Chicago Project's interjection of Western humor is partly successful, but too many lines drop flat; they depend on word play and completely skim over any meaning. It strikes one as hollow, callous, and unfeeling to continually place religion and ancient divine myths in a jazzed up context, ignoring any of their intrinsic significance. Stripped of sentiment and understanding, the jokes--and the play--remain barren.