The Chairs
(Photo © Keith Pattison)
The Gordons haven't just happened on chairs, which fill the stage by the time Ionesco reaches his conclusion. They've had a personal and artistic interest in folding chairs since Gordon choreographed Chair for Merce Cunningham-veteran Setterfield and himself in the '70s; he planned the dance as a means by which she could recover from injuries suffered in an automobile accident. For approximately 30 years now, the Gordons have been sitting in, stepping on, falling off of, and entwining themselves about chairs. To stress the point, director-choreographer Gordon has a large screen wheeled on stage just after his treatment of The Chairs begins, whereupon he runs a video of himself and Setterfield performing his dance piece back in the day. The pair are instantly on view, moving with the limber grace that mesmerized audiences then and still has the power to enchant -- especially when Gordon splits the screen and shows Setterfield, with cropped white hair replacing a fuller 'do, reviving the work today.
For Gordon and Setterfield, chairs are a personal metaphor. The stage auteur had an inspiration when he compounded his associations with the metaphor Ionesco had in mind as he shaped observations about the exhilaration and boredom of connubial bliss: In Gordon's version of The Chairs, the accumulating folding chairs -- each black and numbered -- become the final grouping that the play's couple amasses while hosting a crowd of imaginary guests. For Gordon's purposes, the chairs are arranged in rows rather than piled chockablock, as often occurs. They suggest a final Gordon-Setterfield performance.
Ionesco's couple are living what could be their last day together and, during it, are indulging in old habits. She praises his abilities and then undercuts him by mentioning what he could have amounted to. He tries to rile her -- initially here with an annoying rendition of "You Are My Sunshine" -- but also reassures her. He tries to find solace at her knee before deciding that it's not going to happen. She talks about the child who abandoned them but he insists that there is no such offspring. (Inquiring theater minds want to know: Is this where Edward Albee's George and Martha got the idea to invent an imaginary kid?) They prepare for the arrival of what in 12-step groups is called a higher power -- or is it an oracle of some sort? What sort of wisdom the superior being will impart is something that Ionesco never quite specifies. Eventually, the two seniors go off separately and possibly forever. (It's also possible, the way I read it, that they'll repeat the same agenda on the following day.)
Gordon is working with Michael Feingold's new translation, which is most notable for being downright funny. (This is Feingold direct from his Belle Epoque song translations.) Rarely have Ionesco's two aging figures gotten as many laughs as Gordon and Setterfield score, and they're big laughs; Ionesco's characters didn't elicit anything approaching these guffaws a few years back when Simon McBurney had Geraldine McEwan and Richard Briers play the lines for the desolation undeniably inherent in them. (If I remember correctly, Village Voice chief theater critic Feingold expressed great displeasure with McBurney's version. Now we more clearly can see why.)
(Photo © Keith Pattison)