Review: LOVE AND INFORMATION at Appollon Art Space

New theatre. New play. New actors. New experience. This was all new 'information' to me. And I liked it!

Matt Hansen directs a different kind of theater experience at the Appollon Art Space in South Omaha. LOVE AND INFORMATION, written by British playwright Caryl Churchill in 2012, is a patchwork of short vignettes, all focusing on information: how we send it, how we receive it, and how we understand it. And even how we remember it.

Called by some as a work that appeals to the short attention span of the technology dependent, the play is formatted into seven separate sections. Each section is comprised of several topics ranging from sex to science, from God to mathematics. Eleven actors enact a mixed bag of roles that are not specific to gender, age, or race. There are around 57 different scenes, some a few seconds long and others a bit longer. None is longer than a few minutes. The scenes change to piped in music. Interludes find all actors on stage expressing themselves out loud (really loud!) at the same time. The effect is a dizzying information overload.

Couple the frenetic activity with the connection of the audience to the actors via iMessage. Volunteers vote their preferences in each section. They help process the information and determine the direction of the play. Everyone is involved in the manipulation of information, be it fact or fiction.

Which is which? There is the person who has fallen in love with a virtual person on the computer. No one can convince that person that love isn't real just because the love interest is built with bits and bytes instead of flesh and blood. An elderly woman cannot make her husband remember their love because he suffers from dementia. A savant remembers detailed descriptions such as the color of his teacup years ago. Military-like persons try to force secret intelligence from a captive while a young woman willingly divulges a family secret to her child. A scientist describes in minute detail memory experiments conducted on chickens. A child describes an inability to feel pain while a doctor confirms his patient's fear of death. Two persons exhibit completely different reactions to a catastrophic earthquake. Same facts. Different reactions.

There is just too much happening to summarize the plot. In fact, there really is no plot. It is a steady stream of words, be they English or in Morse Code or in semaphore. Churchill captures truth in tiny slivers. The unrelenting bombardment of information is exhausting and exhilarating.

Set in an unadorned space with no more than a few pieces of furniture and a door on wheels, there is a paucity of the visual which serves to underscore the words and emotion of the expressive actors.

I have to confess that I was startled and confused when the play began...actually, before the play began when random interactions with the audience aroused my curiosity. As I got caught up in the insanity of the show, I began to see the brilliance of the work. LOVE AND INFORMATION is worth experiencing. Do something new. You will be processing it for some time to come.

Showing August 16-18, 8:00 PM and August 18, 2:00 PM

https://loveandinformation.brownpapertickets.com

Photo: Aimee Correa by Christine Swerczek