Nature Theater of Oklahoma, “No Dice”: A theater review in leads
The only thing disappointing about Nature Theater of Oklahoma is that this crew of misfit thespians is not actually from Oklahoma. Rather, the ensemble–a mercurial cast of talented actors led by co-directors Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper–lifting its name from Kafka’s Amerika, is from New York, and is currently presenting its four-hour farcical behemoth, No Dice, as part of Soho Rep’s current season…
Positive anxiety might be the best way to describe the tense, exhausting, hilarious, and endearingly dissociated attitudes personified by the psychotically attuned cast of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s No Dice, which is currently running at a converted children’s gymnasium below Canal Street as part of Soho Rep’s 2007–2008 season…
Nature Theater of Oklahoma has brought a new kind of dinner theater to audience-goers. As you walk through the orange, space-age foyer of a converted children’s gymnasium in Tribeca, co-directors Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper greet you at a table as they serve up PB&J and Ham-n-Cheese sandwiches, also offering a spare and self-conscious beverage selection of Dr. Pepper, Diet Coke, and bottled water. As you down your oddly satisfying sandwich, you have no idea what to prepare for from this New York-based theater troupe. A sign on a door off to the side that reads “No adults are allowed in the bouncy castle,” hints at a kind of self-aware zaniness that is about to come…
Casual American banter is in the spotlight for four hours during Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s (near) comedic masterpiece, No Dice, currently running at Soho Rep. Conceived and directed by Pavol Liska and Kelly Copper, the play lifts its text from transcripts of phone conversations between Mr. Liska and his sassy, elderly mother, as well as between members of the company. A crew of motley and highly gifted actors assume anxiety-ridden personalities and heighten the delivery of every stutter, non-word, truncated phrase and cliff-hanging ellipsis that make up the bulk of everyday discourse. What results is a maddening yet lyrical reflection on the expressive if clumsy agility of American English, how conversation is its own kind of entertainment, and how we’re all having the same conversations about that new allergy medicine, the latest theatrical phenomenon to pass through town, and the depressing rote knowledge of the early evening television lineup…
A teeth gritting red-head (Anne Gridley) in character shoes gripes about a rewardless day job, or, as she calls it, “endless fucking bullshit.” A man dressed in a cowboy hat and dress shirt with the sleeves cut off (Zachary Oberzan), admits, in a bad Russian accent (that mysteriously comes and goes) and with no little trepidation, that he actually really likes Mel Gibson’s portrayal of “Hamlet.” A woman in a Marie Antoinette wig (Kristin Worall) says nothing, but tiptoes over to a keyboard and begins playing an improvised version of Erik Satie’s Gnossiemme No.1. An elastic man sporting a Pirate hat and a pair of lenseless glass frames with Jewish side-locks attached (Robert M. Johanson), overseriously and breathlessly confesses that he hasn’t been playing music anymore. And a bat boy with ears and cape (Thomas Hummel), frets at an office cubicle, silently attentive to the manic conversation that swirls around him while executing a series of arm gestures intended to evoke some kind of mundanely anesthetizing office work. This is the world of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s latest offering, No Dice…
The fact that Anne Gridley’s choppy red wig made a steady, incremental backslide from her forehead over the course of the first two hours of Nature Theater of Oklahoma’s latest comic meditation on language, No Dice, currently running at Soho Rep, only added to the nerve-wracked unpredictability of the script that is taken verbatim from recorded telephone conversations. And when she grabbed the wrist of Robert M. Johanson, who, dressed in a pirate hat and the tightest pants and shirt you’ve ever seen, reached tremulously up to prevent the wig from doing a nose-dive off the back of her head, you understood that the actors are in on the absurdity of the universe they inhabit, and that, ironically, they aren’t afraid to deal with reality…
“No Dice” runs through December 31 as part of Soho Rep’s 2007-2008 Season.
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