Playwright: Carlos Murillo At: Theatre Seven at Chicago Dramatists, 1105 W. Chicago. Tickets: 773-853-3158; www.theatreseven.org; $12-$24. Runs through: April 4
After 95 minutes of Mimesophobia, I had a lot of information about the play but no understanding of it. The title (explained twice) is not fear of Marcel Marceau, but “MIM-es-oh-phobia,” a fear of slavish imitation (think a Mimeograph machine). I believe playwright Carlos Murillo made up the word. But fear of imitation isn’t what the play’s about. Rather, it’s about life-altering moments—a birth, a death, a marriage, the loss of virginity—which sharply draw lines between “before” and “after.” Observes one character, “Apocalypse is no further away than the tick of a clock.” What isn’t offered is a connection between the two concepts.
Mimesophobia is consciously artificial, framed by two narrators who frequently remind viewers and other actors that it’s “a re-enactment” and not slice-of-life realism. Announcing everything but explaining nothing, the narrators invite the audience to imagine they are at a Hollywood film premiere, and then set up the backstory of the film and of the supposed real-life events upon which the film is based. A convoluted tale of a murder-suicide, it involves a professor, his star pupil, his two daughters and his son-in-law. The two young filmmakers who seize upon this story just happen to meet the star pupil as they struggle with their script. The narrators move us back-and-forth in time, between “movie” moments and “real” moments until art imitates life imitates art imitates life in a theatrical version of an Escher engraving.
Mimesophobia is brief enough to remain mostly intriguing. Murillo—an author/director well-known in Chicago—is a master of language and intellect, both amply apparent in Mimesophobia (hey, just consider the title). It’s also stagy enough to be entertaining as directed by Margot Bordelon. The narrators banter and the two filmmakers indulge in comic mania. But, ultimately, the play is an intellectual exercise void of real emotional connection to its audience, or at least to me. At its most basic, Mimesophobia explores uses of the stage itself; of recreated images in theater or on film; of the presentational (acknowledging artifice) versus the representational (disguising artifice) in art. Murillo seems more interested here in exploring theories of performance than in providing clarity for audiences.
Theatre Seven delivers the verbose script with gusto and a confident mastery of the linguistics themselves. Opening the small stage to its fullest extent creates an airy-but-still-intimate feel which defies the confining sense of the black-painted walls. The costume rack is visible on one side as are actors before they enter a scene, underscoring the artificiality of the event. Scenic designer John Wilson softens the blackness with multi-hued floorboards and curious icicles (?) painted on the walls. I don’t understand them, but then I don’t understand the play even though it gives me ideas.