Ever wondered what it’s like to get rickrolled in real life? Then come see this play! The grand finale of I See You is the acknowledgment of the players that the average Fringegoer may not exactly appreciate it. The piece is a series of vignettes combining movement, acting and sound, occasionally captivating, but hardly creating a coherent work. That chaos fits with the play’s inane description for itself on the Fringe website and the title that doesn’t seem to have any connection to the action.
It’s a like a troupe cooped themselves up on an organic farm outside of Ashville, North Carolina without technology or running water, and this is what they came up with. In fact, that’s exactly what it is.
I have no idea where things are going when I See You opens up with two clowns playing with a mess of tangled wires attached to a Fisher Price See ‘n Say, a dance done in shadows with flickering LED lights to the tune of a didgeridoo, and a hand puppet sequence. Then comes a movement that reminds me of a seven-person human centipede, then human dying larvae, then a game of leap frog, a mosh pit, duck duck goose, freeze tag and Star Wars. Is there more to it? Not that I can gather.
Then I remember reading in the press documentation that the project has something to do with the paradox of technology and ecology and living on a farm. They’re acting out farm chores, growing faster, louder, madder and more violent through their movements? Maybe.
The “athletic and sensitive” movement can be enjoyable, and One Body Works hits a high note with a Skype scene in which each actor, sweaty from their dancing, takes time out for a rare vocal scene, isolating themselves within a chorus of theoretical conversations. You have to focus to zero in on each one, but you can imagine them finding an Internet connection after a hard day of farming, longing for a far-away brother or long-lost love. Shortly after, it’s back to another modern dance movement that’s difficult to reconcile with an overall theme, eventually putting a reviewer in the audience to sleep. No, not I! But I do know the feeling.
I See You has remaining performances July 20, 22, 23, and 24. Tickets are available online.