Background: Struggling out from under The Peloponnesian War, Athens was looking for scapegoats to absolve the government. Socrates, now thought to be the founder of western philosophical tradition, was vocal about changing status quo. When an oracle declared him the wisest man in Athens, being apparently of rational mind, he set out to prove the statement wrong by interviewing a wide variety of learned men. His disappointed conclusion? The oracle was correct.

This evidently humiliated those he interviewed who turned on him. Socrates was tried and found guilty of wrong doing, impiety, and the corruption of young minds. The philosopher was so righteous he declined to pay a fine instead of being put to death and refused to leave his cell when an escape was arranged. Death was induced by drinking hemlock, a poison that took over the body bit by bit. His last documented words were “Crito, we owe a rooster to Asclepius. Please, don’t forget to pay the debt.” No kidding.

Synead Cydney Nichols and Kat Edmonson

Socrates never wrote a word. We know of him only because of Plato who described his teacher as a “gadfly” (someone who persists in asking provocative/inconvenient questions). It’s a term Taylor Mac uses in lyrics. The playwright says it was Plato’s “Apology” (substantially his defense) that inspired him to write Hang, a kind of bizarre, extravagant jazz opera with more lyric mouthful than Stephen Sondheim and Lin Manuel Miranda combined.

“It’s so much what’s happening in the culture now. The prosecutors are essentially the GOP,” Mac tells interviewer Eric Ostrow from the series Live at the Lortel. “I think of it as a fevered dream. A prayer that asks us to wonder together…a radical fairy ritual…I wanted to bring back the ephemeral queer of Socrates rather than the Plato academic.” (Mac is a strong advocate of queer rights and art.) “When I was 14, I went to an AIDS walk in San Francisco. It was the first time I ever saw a homosexual. People were dying but there was a lot of joy. They were building community because they were being torn apart. When you look at history, you see that again and again.”

The theater is festooned with looped white fabric bearing tiny lights. Every pillar and chair has been colorfully hand painted. Hanging pots erupt with netting that flickers as if lit. Large round settees covered by green carpet/grass are strewn beside oversized, inflated, beanbag looking seats. There’s a large table/bar on wheels, hung with beading. A band, dressed as Greek hoi polloi, sits one short level up.

Wesley Garlington, El Beh and Taylor Mac

1920s music – jazz saxes, percussion, trumpet begins atmospheric rather than melodic. Composer Matt Ray uses every genre imaginable (excepting perhaps hip-hop) with stop/start progression creating vignettes. There’s a lot of gospel and New Orleans influence. While musicians are fine together, with saxophonist Jessica Lurie a standout, long, intermittent solos are just irritating. The piece would not suffer cutting twenty minutes of this.

Socrates and his disciples file in a riot of hue and pattern, feathers, ribbons, braids, capes, Wigstock-like headdresses – one with a birds nest, one sprouting spotted mushrooms, florid make-up, and elaborately painted boots. “Let us all weep for you/Let us wail/Let us be mourners…” sounds like a revival meeting, not a dirge. “If it’s good enough for Socrates, it’s good enough for me,” the group sings. They wail, roll on the floor, kick, pound …the philosopher appears very uncomfortable. Everyone wants to hold his hand. Terrific singer/actress Kat Edmonson (a highlight at every turn) calls him “a silly old codger.”

Trebien Pollard

“Desist this great harangue,” Socrates commands the assembled. All the condemned wants to do until the end is “hang.” The mob wants to discuss, debate! Exuberant movement is often synchronized which tends to feel freeing rather than regimented. There’s a scribe, presumably Plato, taking notes (Ryan Chittaphong). Lyrics, a multitude of ideas, poetry and sometimes nonsense go by fast. Mac is too smart for most of us by half. “I’m a gadfly,” Socrates admits. “Well, somebody’s got to be.”

Wesley Garlington sings and gambols, braids and feathers flying like those of a flapper, hot Caribbean color flashing… Plato notes, “I get how you equate low brow humor with education.”…Aristophanes’ play The Clouds is referenced (a battle between poetry and philosophy.)… “Is virtue only found in things that last?/If so then you and I don’t stand a chance,” Queen Esther sings R & B sultry… Suddenly everyone sports an ersatz Socrates-like beard replete with planted flowers. These are ceremoniously discarded in a painted birdbath, i.e. urn, and set aflame.

Kat Edmonson, Taylor Mac, and El Beh

“I wouldn’t tell the tale how you devoured/Our every argument deflowered…” leads us to the trial. “The dudes in the panel wore last year’s sad sandals” begins a lyric that appears to be an ancient Greek’s take on Noel Coward’s “Marvelous Party.” Party! Party! blaring brass declares… “What do you mean by virtue? What do you mean by good?” The company rhythmically steps, claps, nods, bounces, and repeats the chant.

Like someone possessed by spirit, Trebien Pollard sinuously gyrates. Curling ram’s horns and multi-layered/neatly tattered purple make this feel tribal… Three witches (no escaping Shakespeare’s portents) lead by El Beh wear black, Spanish headdresses and tiered gowns. The characters manage to fit Mitch McConnell and Jaberwocky into a verse …“An old accusation is too much inured to ever be cured…” The hang grows sweeter with overt flirting… Eventually we come to the death. Socrates changes to pleated white, his shaved head exposed. “He was the wisest and justest and best,” his followers declare. A coda finds the philosopher sitting on stairs conversing with Plato. He calls himself a fool. It’s “goner humor.”

Ryan Chittaphong and Queen Esther

Inmates have taken over the asylum. There’s a surfeit of content here. When you throw spaghetti on the wall to see if it’s done, some sticks, some doesn’t. Most of this is entertaining, much obscure. The production is skillful and filled with talent. And a hoot.

The show is faaabulous to look at. I sincerely think Mac’s longtime collaborator Machine Dazzle should be given a MacArthur Grant. (Mac already earned one.) Dazzle’s concoctions are far and away the most original in theater. He manages to combine color, texture, and attitude in fanciful, resplendent ways that allow actors to move. Innovative use of materials never looks cheap. Brava.

Kudos to Lighting Designer Kate McGee whose subtlety ricochets against flash with skill on both fronts and to Sound Designer Cricket S. Myers who keeps most of the wildly varied music and vocal balanced and clear.

“My job as an artist is to inspire people to dig a little deeper into their considerations. I think of myself as a diviner.” Taylor Mac

Also featuring: Kenneth Ard and Synead Cydney Nichols.

Live at the Lortel

Photos by Maria Baranova

HERE Arts Center 145 Sixth Avenue

presents
The Hang
Book and Lyrics by Taylor Mac
Music/Music Direction- Matt Ray
Directed by Niegel Smith
Choreography- Chanon Judson
Scenic and Costume Design- Machine Dazzle
Make-Up Design- Anastasia Durasova

The post The Hang – Socrates’ Death, A Histrionic Celebration of Iconoclasts appeared first on Woman Around Town.