Middletown Show Analysis of Movement

Brian Eno’s “Middletown” is a show centered on an eponymous town located somewhere vaguely in Mid-west America. It’s location and culture effects the characters in this play when much of the beginning of the show acts as an introduction to the show and how much “middle” is in this town, how very simple, lowly, and very lacking the town is and is just this sort of old town that is so historically and culturally ambiguous that it even makes the townsfolk wonder. I saw that in Act One when much of the characters really were given a lot of room to spout on in this platonic like lecture; hand communication galore. But intermixed in this show you saw choreography that was plucked straight from the news, especially when the cop character chokes out a homeless man in a move that dangerously resembled the Eric Garner murder.

            The dialogue is mixed in halfway between every day colloquialisms and gestures that followed something like “I dunno” or “somethin’ like that” but then were followed by juxtapositions that counter acted the their movements and then lead to more philosophical hand waving.

            But I don’t mean to negatively critique the show. There were very simple moments that shined in the play. The movement of a slowly gestating pregnant woman and her eventual total lumbering, character movements when they were sitting down summarizing the end of the First Act, and also the only character of some celebrity who’s an astronaut; his zero gravity movements of him in the space station were incredibly controlled and buoyant. But the Second Act was different in many many ways. The movements became much less a forced gesture and started to tone down into a very natural conversation you’d here at every street corner in America. It was so close and intimate; it was stunning to see. The biggest difference to see was this depiction of a Native American dance of a life being born (I know it wasn’t a rain dance, but it had the same meaning of sacredness that someone who doesn’t know what those look like (me) could see).

            It was an interesting mix of so many different movements that added a flavor to the show but was a little too repetitive, but overall was a very good show.