A monumental black box, imposing and quiet, fills the view of the audience. A disembodied Voice speaks in the stillness meditating on the box. Later, a Communist dictator reads propaganda while a long-winded lady gives confession to a silent minister perched languorously on a ledge, and an old woman recounts to the audience, in maudlin verse, how her children abandoned her one by one. This is "Box Mao Box," a free production playing tonight at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. in Aidekman Arts Center's Remis Sculpture Court.
A 3P's/Bare Bodkin independent production directed by sophomore Joe Pikowski, Edward Albee's "Box Mao Box" is actually two plays, "The Box" and "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-tung," meant to be intertwined and presented as one. "The Box" is shorter and more abstract; there are no characters, no movements and no plotlines, just the box and a Voice. Like musical variations on a theme, the Voice's monologue uses the concept of a box as a jumping-off point to discuss human nature, art, corruption and decay.
"Quotations," which Albee regarded as an "outgrowth of and extension of 'Box,'" develops these ideas through the particular perspectives of characters. Unsurprisingly, Chairman Mao is present, reading quotations from his "Little Red Book" directly to the audience. Opposite him is an old woman, amidst the trash and detritus of her impoverished life, reciting 19th century poet Will Carleton's "Over the Hill to the Poor House," a purposefully over-sentimental text that nonetheless speaks to the disintegration of family values. Above them all is the Long-Winded Lady, telling a wordless minister of the trials of her life: her husband's death, her failing relationship with her daughter and her fall from an ocean liner into the sea.
None of the three is aware of the others; each is simply interrupting the other monologues in a theatrical version of musical counterpoint. "Quotations" is punctuated by refrains of "Box," with the Voice now revealed as sophomore Samantha Tempchin, duct-tape over her mouth and her lines for this segment typed into a laptop and spoken with a voice program. She reprises her earlier disembodied performance after "Quotations" concludes.
Choosing to stage the play in the Sculpture Court, Pikowski has brought an excellent example of "found space" theater to Tufts, as his irregular performance space enhances the absurdity and meaning of the work he is presenting. His talented cast helps the audience to overcome and embrace the bizarre nature of the work, see it on its own terms, and allow its thought-provoking questions to percolate. Experimental theater isn't always for everyone, but if you've never experienced it before, "Box Mao Box" is a great place to start.
