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The New York Times
Two Friends Start a Journey, but One Will Not Return
January 23, 2009
Theatergoers who hike to a space as off the beaten trail as the Access Theater are generally the types who enjoy something experimentally interesting. Neal Bell and the Rabbit Hole Ensemble are obliging nicely with “Shadow of Himself,” a version of “Gilgamesh” staged with an unabashed minimalism.
The stage, four flights up in TriBeCa, is bare, the actors provide the sound effects, and you get the impression that the company would have done without lighting as well, if that had been possible. As it is, the lighting (by Kevin Hardy) is one of the production’s more intriguing features; sometimes cast members are illuminating one another with hand-held ellipsoidals, a type of stage light.
As in “Gilgamesh,” the ancient epic poem pieced together from stone-tablet fragments, Gil (Matt W. Cody) starts out as a vain ruler (“Only death can defeat me, and even he would tremble before me”) whose habits include sleeping with his male subjects’ wives on their wedding night.
But Gil understands the price of his arrogance. “No man is my equal,” he says forlornly. “I am completely alone.”
Eventually Gil fights and then befriends NK (Mark Cajigao), his look-alike equal, and they become inseparable. But not for long: a monster must be fought, and only one of them survives. The king who started out intoxicated with himself is in the end reduced to a long cri de coeur.
Mr. Bell sprinkles his lyrical script with modern touches and even a little whimsy. (During Gil’s obnoxious phase, the four other cast members, Greek chorus style, chant a ridiculous litany of all the bad fortune they hope will befall him.) The story and the staging (Edward Elefterion directed) eventually run out of surprises. But the cast, with Emily Hartford, Adam Swiderski and Daniel Ajl Kitrosser in the supporting roles, never gives up.
“Shadow of Himself” continues through Jan. 31 at the Access Theater, 380 Broadway, at White Street, TriBeCa, (212) 352-3101, theatermania.com.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
The Village Voice review:
Shadow of Himself Revamps Gilgamesh With the F-Bomb
January 30th 2009
Rabbit Hole Ensemble and Obie Award–winning playwright Neal Bell prove a potent combination in Shadow of Himself, a new interpretation of the original—and still greatest—bromance. The Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, one of the oldest known works of literature, traces the passionate, though presumably platonic, relationship between the haughty, domineering king and Enkidu, a half-feral intruder whom Gilgamesh befriends and ultimately brings with him on a doomed quest. Rabbit Hole’s highly physical, expressive style, executed with minimal tech, benefits from Bell’s muscular language, and the result feels urgent and riveting under Edward Elefterion’s fast-paced direction. The script crackles with contemporary verbiage, copious F-bombs, and references to Vietnam and Anderson Cooper’s sexuality. But at the same time, it conjures a surprising degree of primitive poetry, eliciting the magic and terror of a still-animistic world only recently emerged into the light of civilization.
The almost complete lack of props or costumes allows the actors to endow their characters with a mythic, a-temporal aura. Matt W. Cody, as “Gil”, flexes his noble prom-king brow with amusing contempt as he asserts sexual rights over his angry female subjects, but he really begins to shine as the tragedy and pathos of the journey deepens. Mark Cajigao brings shaggy unpredictability to his role as the regretfully human “NK.” Daniel AJL Kitrosser and Adam Swiderski are lovable comic relief as loyal soldiers of the kingdom, though their sadistic/tender routine eventually becomes somewhat tiring—who really needs their insecure homophobia in a play as fraught with subtle themes of masculinity and eroticism as this one? Emily Hartford is sometimes less convincing in her multiple roles: Mother or whore, she always seems the same. Bottom line, though, Shadow should not to be missed in the final two days of its run.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
broadwayworld.com review:
Shadow of Himself: I'm a Stranger Here Myself
January 13, 2009
The Epic of Gilgamesh is a poem from ancient Mesopotamia which is popularly known as the oldest surviving work of literary fiction. It concerns the King Gilgamesh and his efforts to defy the world, gods, and death itself.
Obie winner Neal Bell has taken the story and re-told it as Shadow of Himself, structuring it into an action-packed and funny meditation on masculinity, in a tone which, though still epic, has a specifically modern and relatable feel. It's a fascinating and stimulating piece.
Gil (Matt W. Cody), a king, thinks he can do whatever he pleases because he's the strongest, most handsome, and best at everything. This includes taking women first on their wedding night, and the usual corrupt king stuff. Two of his soldiers (Daniel Ajl Kitrosser and Adam Swiderski) find a wild man in the woods (Edward Elefterion (the play's director, standing in for the injured Mark Cajigao the night I attended)), who, once civilized into humanity by a temple prostitute (Emily Hartford), comes to the city, where he meets the king- they are evenly matched in nearly every respect, and they quite quickly become the only thing the other lives for. Gil becomes a better king now that he has love to occupy his time, and decides to do something about dead bodies that have been floating down the river. They go on a campaign to destroy the gods that have been demanding these sacrifices, and Gil's friend is killed. Gil then attempts to get to the underworld and retrieve him.
NYIT award-winning Rabbit Hole Ensemble's trademark minimalist style works wonderfully here- only the necessary props, all the characters wear blank T-shirts and cargo pants, with some additions to play different roles (costumes and props by Michael Tester). And they always make wonderful use of light (designed by Kevin Hardy).
The five performers are all terrific. Cody, a resident artist with Rabbit Hole Ensemble, truly captures the arrogance of the character, and still lets us feel his sense of wonder and loss. Kitrosser and Swiderski have an excellent chemistry as the two soldiers who are in a constant battle to prove to each other how manly they are. Hartford (another frequent Rabbit Hole collaborator), gives finely nuanced performances as all the women of the piece, and is especially powerful as Gil's mother.
Elefterion gave a great performance as NK, the wild man- my friend who came with me didn't even know till afterward which one was the replacement.
It's a highly effective piece of theatre- I recommend it.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
offoffonline.com review:
BFF
reviewed January 15, 2009
The Mesopotamian poem The Epic of Gilgamesh, widely believed to be among the world’s oldest surviving pieces of written literature, tells the story of King Gilgamesh and his wild friend Enkidu (NK). To adequately stage the Gilgamesh saga, which includes god-kings and bestial creatures, opulent palaces and apocalyptic floods, lush wilderness and foreboding underworlds, a production would need either a Broadway-level budget or the solidly minimalist production aesthetic of the Rabbit Hole Ensemble.
The Brooklyn-based group, which describes its work as “strong stories, told simply and theatrically, without much technology,” is well suited to the task of depicting the ancient story onstage. Under the direction of Rabbit Hole Artistic Director Edward Elefterion, Shadow of Himself, playwright Neal Bell’s Gilgamesh adaptation becomes a sharply poignant meditation on masculinity and friendship.
As per Rabbit Hole’s signature style, the five-person cast creates much of the production’s effects, from reciting chants and beating a small drum to forming scenic structures with their bodies, which enhances Shadow of Himself’s mythic nature. Whenever they are not central to the action, the actors’ presence along the sides of the bare black stage further supports the production’s spirit of collective storytelling.
Each of the male actors portrays a single primary character, while Emily Hartford, the sole actress of the cast, plays a smattering of female roles. Adhering to gendered casting in a production that emphasizes the versatility of its ensemble focuses the story’s epic scope to issues of gender, specifically of male power and the impact it has on companionship. The main characters include Gil (Matt W. Cody) the powerful king, and NK (Mark Cajigao), the only individual who matches Gil’s strength and beauty. Prior to the arrival of NK, in keeping with the Gilgamesh story, Gil is an unrepentant rapist who terrorizes his subjects until he finds his match in NK, at which point the two become best friends who travel the world on epic quests. It’s literally the stuff of legends.
Shadow of Himself echoes the relationship between Gil and NK with a pair of soldiers (Daniel Ajl Kitrosser and Adam Swiderski), a fun and effective means of examining friendship in different forms. Though neither relationship becomes explicitly sexual, both are alternately (and sometimes simultaneously) violent and tender. According to the mythology, Gil is part god and NK is part beast; in Shadow of Himself, their otherworldliness manifests itself in elevated language. This sets up a contrast between them and the more mundane soldiers, who call each other dude like Bill and Ted, and throw around the f-word like Mike Blagojevich. Similarly, the soldiers are more cognizant of sex than are Gil and NK. Once the business of raping brides comes to an end, Gil and NK are too focused on their love for one another to become embroiled with women.
Yet if the relationship between Gil and NK isn’t consummated, it’s not exactly platonic either. They may be too gallant or too naïve to consciously sexualize each other, yet they fall asleep in each others’ arms and cannot imagine a life apart. When their inevitable separation occurs, the play’s focus on coping with loss emphasizes the depths of their friendship.
The actors bring a disciplined sense of commitment to embodying specific characters while creating the effects that bring the world of the play to life. Still, at just an hour and a half, the production feels overlong. It’s easy to see where the story is headed, a common challenge of staging archetypal legends, and though the actors do their best to keep the energy up, the unchanging austerity so central to the production eventually grows repetitious. Though occasional prop pieces, designed by Michael Tester, add welcome flourishes, audiences who prefer lavish productions may want to wait for the upscale production value version of the Gilgamesh story before they see its depiction onstage; fans of epic legends and energized experimental theater should see Shadow of Himself.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
showbusinessweekly.com review:
Shadow of Himself
reviewed January 2009
What do Anderson Cooper, cargo khaki pants and a 7th century B.C. epic have in common? All are featured in the eccentric Rabbit Hole Ensemble production of Shadow of Himself — a 21st century allegory about masculinity, power and mortality.
Shadow of Himself — inspired by The Epic of Gilgamesh — follows Gil (Matt W. Cody), a godlike king who finds himself questioning his ruthless ruling tactics when he finds a worthy counterpart in a monster-turned-mortal named NK (Mark Cajigao). As the two embark on a journey to kill the legendary monster Humbaba, Gil and NK face extreme adversity from the gods, ultimately resulting in a significant sacrifice. Through this misfortune, Gil ultimately learns what is most important in life: meaningful connections with others.
Sparse costumes, limited props, human-made sound effects and a nearly nonexistent set counterbalance the epic nature of the story. Rabbit Hole’s minimalist aesthetic, though counterintuitive to such a grand narrative, works in this production. Perhaps no other approach to the stagecraft could allow audiences to comprehend such a massive, fantastical story.
The production features impressive acting by the five cast members. While Cody and Cajigao give engrossing performances as the play’s leads, supporting cast members Daniel Ajl Kitrosser and Adam Swiderski also make notable impressions — especially in their portrayals of wild animals in a growling match. Emily Hartford provides a neutralizing presence amid the pervasive virility with her tender approach to the various female characters.
While showcasing innovative technical approaches and captivating performances, Shadow of Himself fails to engage audiences with its fundamental message. The play’s cerebral language and whimsical narrative hinders its ability to provide a clear, relatable moral with which we can connect. The modern allegory becomes lost amidst the high art, and initially curious spectators leave the production less inspired by the parable and more confused by the content.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
TheaterOnline.com review:
Shadow of Himself
reviewed January 2009
I cannot think of many plays, contemporary or otherwise, that have at the center of them the tenderness and mutual admiration of male friendship, and within that friendship, love. Mostly, men depicted in drama are adversaries, lovers, ex-lovers, war buddies, or, as in a large number of Neil LaBute plays, sexists vs. weaklings (Mamet too, but Mamet did it first, broke ground with language usage and rhythms, owing a debt to Pinter. Mamet also did it better than LaBute, as he never seemed to be terribly interested in shock value.) In Neal Bell’s adaptation of the epic poem Gilgamesh, re-titled cleverly as “Shadow of Himself,” male friendship is showcased in this bare bones, stripped down production by the Rabbit Hole Ensemble at the Access theatre, ably directed by Edward Elefterion.
Gil (Matt C. Cody) begins as a brutal and vain king (sleeping with the wives of his subjects on their wedding nights; arm wrestling to stave off boredom) who, tired of being the biggest and the best, seeks an equal. Enter NK (Mark Cajigao) a half-wild, half-man. They fight, end in a draw, and become inseparable, until they set out to kill the giant in the forest; only one will walk out alive. After that, Gil becomes preoccupied with loss, finding his friend, and mortality, which is a nice change from his previous pre-occupation: his fear of being forgotten once he’s dead. When Gil tries to cross over the River of Death to get to NK and a watchman threatens him, saying, “I could stop your heart,” Gil replies, “It’s too late.” Love for his friend changes him for the better, from selfish to selfless.
The cast (Emily Hartford, Adam Swiderski, and Daniel Ajl Kitrosser) does an excellent job playing many individual parts and acting as a chorus, as well as some lighting and all sound effects (and Kevin Hardy’s lighting design, the only luxury in this production, is terrific.) Particularly good is the litany of ill the public wish for their King: “Let his blow-dryer fall into the bath, let him find a suspicious mole… Let him have a root canal, let him be audited…”
Bell’s adaptation freely moves from lyricism to modernism, but the shifts were a little jarring at times, as if to say the parts to be moved by had the most fluid language, and the parts to be jolted by were rife with contemporary allusions. A case in point were the two goon soldiers, ordinary mortals and a counterpoint to Gil and NK: their struggle against their own friendship and mutual love became repetitive (“I’m going to make a man out of you”) leading to violence and torture. It’s a long road to their acceptance, a little too long, and a little too predictable a view the two roles soldiers seem to fall into: the weakling and the bully. And the initially well-represented female roles dropped out entirely three quarters of the way through the play.
However, these are small quibbles for “Shadow of Himself.” Both Bell and Elefterion are clear-eyed and direct with what they want to get across, and that is largely achieved here.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
www.nytheatre.com review:
Shadow of Himself
reviewed January 25, 2009
In Shadow of Himself, playwright Neal Bell re-tells the story of Gilgamesh with updated modern sensibilities: a contemporary plotline concerning the back-and-forth exchanges between two nameless soldiers sits next to the primary one, which focuses on Gilgamesh and his companion Enkidu (re-named Gil and NK here, respectively); disembodied voices call out Gil with taunts like "Let him be audited! Let him have a root canal!"; a woman refuses sexual intercourse with Gil with this salty brush-off: "Fuck yourself. You're closer." Each of these moments is individually humorous and engaging, but cumulatively they're superfluous. In his desire to emphasize the parts of Gilgamesh's story that are thematically relevant today—the corrupting influence of hubris, the extremes to which unchecked aggression will make men swing—Bell's added-on dramatic devices make it seem as if he doesn't trust his source material, even though it's got all the elements he's looking for. Despite a vigorous and well-executed production by Rabbit Hole Ensemble, Shadow of Himself undercuts itself throughout.
The original story tells of a legendary mythical leader named Gilgamesh who is half man and half god. Accordingly, he thinks he's a big shot. He assumes, because of his half divine heritage, that there is no man alive who can best him on any front. However, Gilgamesh soon meets his match in Enkidu, a wild man who rivals him in every arena. Together, they become friends and light out for the territories looking for adventures and testing each other's boundaries. When Enkidu dies while battling Humbaba, the beastly guardian of the woods, Gilgamesh's anguish brings him down to earth (existentially speaking) as he learns how his arrogance has shaped his existence.
That story pretty much plays out as is in Shadow of Himself. Gil is a strutting cocksure rooster whose overbearing confidence blinds him to the fact that no one likes him. NK starts out as a wildebeest whose power Gil fears, so he sends a woman into the forest to tame him. But her amorous affections turn NK into a man instead. Later, after NK dies, Gil realizes that he has experienced true friendship, perhaps for the first time in his life, and the absence of it crushes him. His solution: a lonely quest for meaning and immortality that eventually leads him to the sole human survivor of an ancient global flood (a clever nod to the epic of Atrahasis).
Bell positions his two unnamed soldiers—who are sometimes, inexplicably, in Gil's employ, and other times unquestionably more modern—as symbols of man's inhumanity towards one another. Soldier 1 constantly seeks approval from his counterpart while Soldier 2 hurls an unending stream of insults and hatred. It seems as if the point Bell is trying to make is that warfare constantly shifts men's identities into archetypal roles: bully, sycophant, coward, protector, hero, villain. In other instances, the playwright compares Gil's penchant for intense challenges—say, for instance, his desire to find a challenger who can best him—to contemporary examples like an S & M fetishist looking for a beating. While both devices make their points well enough, they aren't necessary. Gil's story is strong enough to make the play's themes resonant (there is a reason, after all, why Gilgamesh lives on after 4,000 years). Furthermore, the author's devices detract from (and, in some cases, trivialize) the story's inherent potency.
Nevertheless, Rabbit Hole Ensemble does an admirable job trying to activate Bell's text. Their signature low-fi approach suits the material well. The actors, adorned only in t-shirts and khakis, make all the necessary sound effects themselves and perform on an otherwise bare stage. It's up to director Edward Elefterion and lighting designer Kevin Hardy to create the physical parameters of each of the play's locations and, as usual, they do a bang-up job. Shadow of Himself gets a visceral shot of moody atmospherics thanks to Hardy's lights, and Elefterion's story theatre-influenced staging is imaginative and evocative.
The five person cast is equally splendid. Matt W. Cody nails Gil's conceited, jaded entitlement, and charts his subsequent emotional fall convincingly. As NK, Mark Cajigao makes a good foil, providing the yang to Cody's yin, and complementing his co-star quite nicely. In a variety of other roles (including the aforementioned soldiers and the gruesome Humbaba), Emily Hartford, Daniel Ajl Kitrosser, and Adam Swiderski all shine, changing personas sometimes faster than one can blink. All five actors flesh out the production with impressive physicality and humor.
Shadow of Himself is a well-intentioned effort by Bell that falls short of its mark. But, as a vehicle for Rabbit Hole Ensemble, it's another feather in their cap.
Playing:
January 8th-31st, 2009
Thursday-Sundays at 8pm
The Access Theater
380 Broadway New York, NY 10013
