We Really Like "We Never Like Talking About The End"
"We Never Like Talking About The End" opened at On the Boards last night and we just picked up tickets for Saturday night, too. It's an evening of song (here's our favorite), dance, and video that makes you laugh out loud while contemplating your mortality. Think of a bitter, buttery morsel of dark, dark chocolate.
Here's the set-up: it's a rehearsal space, a piano, drums, and guitars at the back, a table and entertainment center to the left and a table, microwave, and fridge to the far right. Two musicians -- the superb Maggie Brown and light designer Dave Proscia -- and Dayna Hanson chat about near-death experiences, run through some new songs, gently kid each other about writing depressing music.
Ezra Dickinson, Wade Madsen, and Marissa Niederhauser make up a trio of dancers who can hear the music, but don't interact with the musicians much. They struck us as a band of spirits -- besides dancing they act out descriptions of near-death experiences or seances.
Predictably, there's a lot of literal dancing around the topic of death. The prevailing attitude is a detached, reflexively ironic pose. The focus is not so much about teary-eyed empathy as it is with simply looking at how we act when death comes up, the stories we tell. The rehearsal "frame" for the show is wonderfully apt because it captures a diffident, day-to-day approach that never looks up at life's horizon.
The musician's chit-chat is filled with snappy whippers and comebacks. A dancer will start a routine, the others may join in then break off -- the dances are a mix of nifty footwork, leaps, and compulsive gestures that normally mean an increase in your neuroleptic dosage.
A few moments come to sudden life: Ezra and Marissa have a flirtatious duet, and Wade Madsen (looking like House's blonder, artistic brother) overflows with charisma and commitment. He putters about, a third wheel: "Anyone want popcorn?" he asks, over by the microwave. But his solo -- a real glimpse of living every day like it was the last -- slugged us in the stomach and knocked the wind out of us.
We Never Like Talking About The End
On the Boards
Now through December 2, 8:00pm
Tickets: $18
206-217-9888
