We went in to Hey Girl!, the performance piece by Italian experimental theatre troupe Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio, at On the Boards last night with high expectations. We'd be dishonest if we didn't admit we were somewhat disappointed, but we still recommend the show highly. After all, it features some of the greatest stage magic we've ever seen, with effects and images that stick with you longer than the inkling you have while watching that, thematically, this isn't nearly as clever as the effects.

For a performance art piece, the concept of Hey Girl! is fairly simple and straightforward. The show's director, Romeo Castellucci, has said he was inspired to create the show upon seeing a group of women gathered at a bus stop; the idea morphed into the show, which is really quite simply about women becoming. That's not meant to sound as esoteric as it comes off; in the same way that those women at the bus stop prepared themselves--make-up, clothes, hair--to go out, the visions and icons we visit in Hey Girl! make up themselves, through experience and circumstance.

There's a certain irony to the show, though--for an homage to the "lineage of womanhood" (as OtB puts it), it's very much so a show about women by a man, despite the close collaboration Castellucci purportedly has with his sister and wife, both co-founders of Socìetas Raffaello Sanzio. For instance, Castellucci uses nudity as tabula rasa in a way we doubt most female artists would. The show opens as a waifish Italian actress emerges from an oozing silicon shell, as though from the primordial ooze (we're reminded of a line from a Modest Mouse song: "The point was fast but it was too blunt to miss"). Writhing around nude, the woman acts out the base pains and agonies of life (or so we imagine) before dressing in simple t-shirt and jeans (an ensemble that first includes a white cotton pair of panties, a detail we wouldn't note except for the fact that it aches to suggest virginal simplicity and innocence). She then goes on to engage a series of rather brilliantly conceived theatrical devices.

First there's the sword, about as long as the actress is tall, that's lying on the floor. As she puts on her makeup, she leans over it and places her lipstick on the blade, which surprisingly begins to sizzle. Eventually, she lays a folded sheet atop the sword, which begins to smoke and smolder, burning the emblem of a cross into the fabric, which then serves as her cape as she holds the sword aloft and a raging rock anthem kicks in--a Joan of Arc for today's world. Then she casts the sword aside and comments (in English--most parts of the show are translated, though dialogue is scarce) ironically, "I hate symbols."

The rest of the show extends from there. A second actress, this one black, is brought on to perform the part of a slave woman, which frankly struck as strangely ethnocentric (a slave has to be black? the default is white?). Two-way mirrors explode, walls turn into paintings, there are cool light effects, and all the while the silicon ooze slowly drips from the table. The final tableau features the black actress (apparently Cuban) painted silver in imitation of Coco Chanel, while the white Italian suffers through the Annunciation: a laser beam shoots into her ear, the Virgin Mary receiving God's child.

The show is phenomenal to look at, but strangely thin and shallow. We honestly didn't leave fascinated by the concepts referenced (we won't go so far as to say "explored"). That's the problem with performance art quite frequently, we find: a rather simple concept which pushes few boundaries, and a lack of polyvalence in the artistic product. We preferred Radiohole's recent performance at OtB because it took itself less seriously and dared more humor. But Hey Girl! is still a cut above most of the theatre in the town, and the amazing technical achievement leaves us--again--irritated that there isn't more artistic collaboration in the performance world. Straight plays and performance art desperately need one another, and the strong collision of the two can (and does--we've seen it) produce amazing results. But in the interim, we have to make due with what we've got. Hey Girl! is dazzling and memorable, as cool in its own way as Star Wars was when it came out in the '70s. It's not something to miss, but hurry--the show was sold out when we arrived last night, and only plays through Sunday.

"Hey Girl!" @ On the Boards // thru Sun., Jan. Feb 3, 8 pm // tix $24