Review: Angelus Novus/National Headquarters

I sat in the front because I knew there would be issues with the sound -having been in a place with such awesomely high ceilings…
As for the issue of someone from the past deserving better.. I think your unnecessarily harsh.
What was portrayed, regardless of it’s influence, was and is an amazing commentary on our as a people’s issue with our selves and that – which we believe, is. Our mind’s and sight being clouded by the tenable. You yourself projecting your own views on a piece you had no part in other than bystander does no justice to a perspective new and fresh and strangely reminiscent as is that of the Headquarters’.

That line from the angel about not only being a crutch but a force is SUPER!

Thank you National Headquarters for producing something new and excitingly funny… if not a bit chaotic.

pardon my impassioned grammar, particularly my misspelling of The Rite of Spring.

Re: “Benjamin deserves better.”

Dear Lisa,

Thank you for coming to see my performance. I am sorry you did not enjoy it.

Here is an excerpt from the NATIONAL HEADQUARTERS website, wherein I explicitly state that ANGELUS NOVUS is in no way an adaptation of the work of Paul Klee nor Walter Benjamin:

“The Klee painting and Benjamin writings aren’t the only sources of inspiration for the project. Contemporary politics and popular culture play a huge part in creating the actual content of the piece. After all, the goal is not necessarily to convey or translate Klee and Benjamin’s “Angel of History” scenario for a live audience; we are simply using these materials as a foundation on which to build our story, which acknowledges the past while moving toward the future. And I think a contemporary story must reference contemporary society. This is how and why things like North Korea’s Mass Games, middle management, pharmaceutical commercials, hip-hop, and karaoke have found their way into the play–which, by the way, is also a play within a play. It is a historical re-enactment of a fictitious community who decides to put up a series of historical re-enactments, told through a variety of performance styles (e.g. music video, mime.) Sound confusing? This is the information age! If you can handle split-second subliminal messaging (television commercials), internet pop-up ads, RSS feed, and an iphone, you can certainly handle a multi-dimensional theatrical experience.”

You can read more about ANGELUS NOVUS by visiting the “Questions Answered” page at: http://www.nationalheadquarters.org/angelus%20novus/questions.htm

The text I have excerpted above can be found under the heading:

“I DON’T CARE ABOUT ALL YOUR THEORY. HOW WILL THIS EXPERIENCE BE RELEVANT TO ME?”

Although, admittedly, this first iteration of ANGELUS NOVUS fell short of some of these ambitions – for example, opting to enact a commercial for “The Army’s iTeam” in lieu of a pharmaceutical spoof, or only taking the North Korean influence as far as a brief cameo by Kim Jong-Il — your review only confirms our success at offering an “original, multi-dimensional theatrical experience” by way of mixing form and function.

Ultimately, it is of very little consequence that this experience is one you were either unable or unwilling to grasp. You are still just a critic. And only one of many.

We, meanwhile, are the next generation of artists whose voices and visions will only grow louder and clearer with time. It is only a matter of time before works like ANGELUS NOVUS are popularized, commercialized, and commodified – at which point like-minded and –hearted artists will have to work even harder to baffle and “bewilder”– as The Chicago Reader’s Laura Molzahn put it. 🙂

What matters is that a great many spectators in the weeks and months since ANGELUS NOVUS have made it known both publicly and privately that they found it not only engaging and inspiring, but even enlightening—with regards to both process AND product. The two are inextricable.

Or did it not occur to you that we perhaps hadn’t subscribed to the same formulaic processes by which most Chicago theatre productions are created?

That we did not adhere to the conventional order to which many companies adhere when their priority is not experimentation, expression, and inquiry, but the selling of tickets?

Or were you simply grumpy that night?

Rumor has it you complained about the number of stairs you had to climb in order to enter the performance space. Even my own mother didn’t complain about the number of stairs she had to climb, and she’s 62 and complains about everything! How is it that a non-theater-going “regular person” such as my mother was both able to understand the productions “narrative basics” and forgive its “lofty ambition,” while a seasoned professional such as yourself was not?

(You might say it’s because she’s my mother, but let it be known my mother would have much preferred and I’m sure continues to hope that one day I forfeit my artistic ambitions for a more lucrative career in medicine or law. That is to say, my mother does not enjoy nor understand theater in the same way a professional theater critic ought to. For shame for being outsmarted by a regular person!)

Finally: Can it be possible that this is the most conceptual and ambitious project you have seen in Chicago?

If so, then all the more reason to celebrate!

Thanks Newcity writers and readers for your interest and support!
Angeline

Whether or not an artist should respond to criticism is a decision that can be left only to the one who makes it. In this case, the artist is not, however, responding to criticism, she is responding to a review. Criticism is something which requires of the judge 1) an attempt to understand the case as good or better than anybody and 2) careful consideration over time. I think that is what W. Benjamin deserved, and probably preferred, to say nothing of what theater companies around town might appreciate. However, a critique is almost never to be found in any Chicago publication or periodical, including this one. A review is at best a patronage, and always an opinion, and a negative one isn’t worth writing. Moreover, if you accept payment to air your bad opinion, you deserve whatever gets tossed back your way. People have done worse for money, but people have also lived happier with less grief. I would go on, but I have a train to catch.