‘Absurdity’ lives up to its name

“You couldn’t walk on the stage; you’d fall in,” founder and director John Flax said. “There was no electricity. People had to use Porta-Potties. A little old lady told me she thought they shouldn’t restore the building; they should give it to Theater Grottesco.”

That kind of tenacious spirit has kept the Santa Fe company alive for 30 years.

	If you go WHAT: “Exquisite Absurdity” by Theater Grottesco WHERE: Center for Contemporary Arts, Muñoz Waxman Gallery, 1050 Old Pecos Trail WHEN: 7 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and at 4 p.m. Sundays through April 7 HOW MUCH: $25/general; $10/students. Thursdays are pay what you wish. Call 505-474-8400 or go to www.theatergrottesco.org

To celebrate that anniversary, Grottesco is staging the retrospective “Exquisite Absurdity.” The collaboration between the troupe and the Center for Contemporary Arts will transform the Muñoz Waxman Gallery into a theater space.

It isn’t so much a “best of” show as a performance of “ideas we built on,” Flax explained.

“We focused on experiments that took us to new places. We said, ‘OK, the first dance piece was…’ and how that urged us to a new area.”

Flax launched Grottesco in Paris with Elizabeth Wiseman in 1983; the name is Italian for absurd, splendid or jubilant. Since moving to Santa Fe in 1996, it has performed in seven countries, 30 states and most major U.S. cities.

For the uninitiated, Theater Grottesco isn’t Shakespeare in the Park or any other traditional dramatic form. It incorporates a range of styles while combining and creating others. It’s Cirque du Soleil-meets-Bugsby Berkeley-meets-mime on a budget.

“We do original, physical theater,” Flax said. “Anything we can say without words, we will. You have to have trained or be skilled in mime in order to speak physically.”

Members of Theater Grottesco rehearse “Exquisite Absurdity,” the company’s retrospective to launch its 30th anniversary celebration. Cast members are, from left, David Salowich, John Flax, Elizabeth Wiseman and Todd Anderson. (Eddie Moore/Albuquerque Journal)

In “The Angel’s Cradle,” the players create musical instruments from garbage — broken pipes, trash can lids and oil bins.

“It’s probably our best-known show,” Flax said. “We played it off-Broadway in 1999 across from ‘The Lion King.’”

The plot involves a homeless man who falls through a manhole to discover people living underground in a buffoon civilization helmed by a society of outcasts. Their deformities and eccentricities have only grown through their isolation. Although their world seems harsh, they live in gentle harmony in the sub-basement of a deserted department store decomposed into a kind of urban catacombs.

“It’s a cultural clash between two marginalized groups,” Flax explained.

Grottesco is also resurrecting “This Is Life As We Know It,” featuring five interweaving story-lines with different styles of dance in a collage of TV advertising and news snippets, runway modeling and discordant sound effects.

“We’re using that one as a springboard into next year,” Flax said. “We’re trying to reconstruct the whole piece. It gives us a chance to work on the work so that it never dies. There’s some we’ve done 100 times.”

Wiseman will perform in the short 1989-1993 piece “The Chores Trilogy” about a woman alone. The audience watches as she mows the lawn and repairs the roof.

“It’s a woman alone and it’s her thoughts,” Flax said. “We call them performance poetry pieces.”

After “Exquisite Absurdity,” Grottesco will produce three guest companies in weeklong residencies of performances and master classes.

From April 8-14 the Lisa Fay/Jeff Glassman Duo, an internationally acclaimed couple from Illinois, will perform “Depth of a Moment: In Four Parts.” They apply complex composed structures to ordinary human behavior, creating physical performance pieces ranging from the humorous to the disarming to the disorienting.

“They could be having this conversation while they’re standing and their bodies can do a dance piece that completely contradicts what they’re saying,” Flax said.

From April 15-21 Sandglass Theater of Vermont will combine puppets, music, actors and visual imagery in “D-Generation: an Exaltation of Larks,” a play about dementia, play, joy and communication.

“In order to make the puppets live, it all comes from the breath,” Flax said. “It’s exactly the root of our work.”