Taping Hip-Hop, Aping Wagner

It's generally not a good sign when the producers think it necessary to hand out a plot synopsis before a show begins. But, then again, King Kong, the Musical, Part 1: Lohengrin, this year's product of the Peter Ivers Visiting Artist Residency, is a show that defies generalizations.

And it is, in every sense of the word, a show. It has an infectious energy that seems to vibrate (literally, when the music is turned up loud enough) in the walls themselves, an energy that quickly captures every member of the audience. King Kong may not be the defining musical of this theater season, but it undoubtedly is the theatrical event of the year at Harvard.

Directed by visiting artist Diane Paulus of the Project 400 Theater Group, a New York-based theater company whose stated mission is to redefine what people think theater is, King Kong is a show that is as challenging as it is engaging. Loosely based on Richard Wagner's 1848 opera Lohengrin, which in turn was based on a German version of an Arthurian legend, Paulus's multimedia production tells the story of the virtuous knight Lohengrin and his efforts to save and marry Elsa, a princess unjustly accused of murder.

Of course, had I not read the producer's handy plot synopsis, I would not be able to tell you that. It would be something of an under-statement to say that it is hard to follow the storyline of King Kong. Rather, it seems that the musical actively tries to prevent you from following it. But that, oddly enough, is part of its charm.

Anyone who tells you that they watch opera for the plot is lying. The attraction of opera is in the experience of beautiful music, elaborate costumes and massive sets. The actual content of the opera is secondary at best. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of King Kong is that it is able to take this emphasis on theatrical experience over story-line--the essence of opera--and make it relevant to audiences today. (The type that wouldn't enjoy Wagner's original score, at least.)

Though it would seem to have little in common with bellowing Italian tenors and symphony orchestras, King Kong is, at heart, an opera. A hip-hop opera. An opera for modern audiences. Or should I say postmodern audiences?

Because they are so focused on creating a full experience, all operas must represent some sort of aesthetic principle--the playfulness and humor of the early Mozart, the heaviness of Wagner. More than with a play or musical, all the elements of a well-done--opera music, costumes, lights, scenery--should resonate with a single effect. The aesthetic of King Kong is one of decontextualization and deconstruction, of presenting the familiar as unfamiliar.

The creation of this aesthetic begins as soon as the theater doors open. Where one expects to find a stage, there is instead a dance floor. The actors, out of character, are milling about in costume and conversing with friends. Is this a play or a party? Is there a difference? It's hard even to tell exactly when the play begins. It could be when the actors get into character, when the lights go down, when the music (masterfully mixed by Reeve Hohlt '99) begins or when the action actually starts. The audience's expectations of what a show should be--something that you watch, not something in which you participate something with a definite beginning, not a slow evolution--are destabilized. And the fun is just beginning.

As King Kong gather energy and begins to rocket towards its conclusion, the scenes grows progressively more jarring. The entrance of Lohengrin (played with unsettling gangsta coldness by Andres Ramos Nolasco '99, the first of several actors and actresses to play the part before the end of the show), perhaps one of the greatest single scene of any production this semester, is a case in point. Though they are garbed in virtuous white, Lohengrin and his posse burst into the Ex more like characters out of Boyz'n the Hood than heroes of an Arthurian legend. Wearing stuffed animals--those archetypal symbols of sweetness and caring--on their heads like helmets, they perform an absurd dance as a show of force. Paulus and costume designers Amy Rose Berliner '02 and Amanda Whitman '01 toss around concepts of good and bad, passivity and force, absurdity and authority more freely than professors of postmodern literary theory.

Add to that a wrestling match brilliantly coordinated by lighting designer Ryan McGee and set designer Sarah Knight '00 to resemble a pep rally from Hell, a shlocky interactive wedding (with, admitedly, an infinitely-better-than-average wedding band performance by Harvard's own B-Side), and the show's pinnacle--a hilarious gender-bending, mimed depiction of Elsa and Lohengrin's wedding night (performed with just the right mix of sincerity and tounge-in-cheek self-awareness and down-right bravery by Jordin Ruderman and Joseph Subotnik '00) and you'll begin to understand the aesthetics of King Kong.

And, oh yes, then there's the title. With the exception of a single line at the very end of the play, Paulus's production has absolutely nothing to do with enormous, city-destroying gorillas. Then again, the brilliance of the show is that it defies any sort of certainty, it attacks all of our expectations. Maybe the lack of reference to the other King Kong is in itself a way of showing....

Or maybe I've just read too much literary theory.