notjustaboutsex

photo: Steven Pisano

Stepping into the East Village Basement Theatre to see SLAP is a time traveler’s delight. You carefully walk down icy stairs and find yourself in a space that is infused with the feeling of the sixties…because that’s what it is. Ellen Stewart had her first La Mama theatre here and now it is used for all sorts of artistic events. For the show Slap, the living room feel is transformed into a very basic theatre where once during the show, the lighting designer, Watoku Ueno, had to leave the back of the theatre to fiddle with plugs next to my left foot.

Time is a theme here…David Burliuk, Ukranian born and the subject of the show, was a painter, poet and organizer of the movement called Futurism, performing through Europe, Siberia and Japan, before landing in New York in 1922. He is interpreted by the great poet impresario, Bob Holman of Bowery Poetry Club fame, lending a little W.C. Fields to the madness of this strange and wonderful show. His co-horts on stage include Susan Hwang, as a Scythian goddess and viper, playing so many stringed instruments, you cannot keep count. On stage is narrator Julian Kytasty with his beautiful impregnated lute, the bandura. He keeps the story moving along as Burliuk travels the steppes of time in pursuit of something, though one is never quite sure what that is.

All of the music and movement madness makes this show a delight and is a reminder of when theatre was less concerned with box office and had real fun with itself. The paintings made by Burliuk are projected on the wall…they, too, are wonderful, a sort of Fauve/Cubism that really helps carry the travelogue along.  The players have co-created on Slap with director Virlana Tkacz who is terrific at molding story material as well as finding extra chairs for late comers.

I won’t give any of the audience participation moments away…just rest assured that yelling out is encouraged. And don’t we have a lot to yell about these days?

The Yara Arts Group is behind this confection… step into the future and the past at the same time—delight in the poetry, music, art and fun of one of East Village’s earliest genius residents, David Burliuk. There’s a reason they all landed here for a moment or two. And Veselka is across the street in case you find you’re hungry after so much travelling.