The Memphis Flyer, May
17 - 23, 2001
by CHRIS DAVIS
Ho, Ho, Horrorshow
I know it's not the critic's place to solicit funding, but somebody really does need to give Our Own Voice Theatre Company a lot of money so they can afford to run their shows for at least a month. One weekend just isn't enough time for them to build the regular audience they deserve. It'sfrustrating for a critic to sit down and write a glowing review of a show that has already ended, especially when it's a show he knows nobody saw. But such is life for this ephemeral troupe, which has too often been pigeonholed as nothing more than an outlet for the mentally disadvantaged.
Against all odds, this group, which is made up of a fistful of local theater artists working hand in hand with mental-healthcare consumers, continues to produce the most challenging, innovative theater in Memphis. I'd go so far as to say they might be the most interesting performance troupe in the South, and on a good day I'd even say they were the most consistently surprising, entertaining, and thought-provoking group working outside of Chicago. What they lack in terms of spit and polish is more than compensated for in cleverness and raw courage.
Our Own Voice recently staged Spurt of Blood, the seminal, if never-performed, prototype for Antonin Artaud's often misunderstood Theatre of Cruelty. Those who missed it missed not the best but certainly the most exciting theatrical event of the year. Using puppets ranging in size from the standard sock to colossal cardboard constructions with exploding breasts, bits of rubble, broken toys, and scrap fabric, Our Own Voice served up a very funny, sometimes startling visual feast. They successfully presented the collision of stars, battles in the heavens, full-scale apocalypse, armies of cockroaches, and a sweet teenage tale of forbidden love to boot. Brilliant and beautiful, hysterical and unnerving, Spurt of Blood was everything it needed to be and more. E.E. Cummings' Santa Claus, with Bill Baker as Death and Andy Diggs as a somewhat serious incarnation of that jolly fat elf, made a fine companion piece for Spurt of Blood. This overwrought bit of surrealist drama was like a nightmarish Warner Bros. cartoon before the most whacked-out feature you can imagine.