Upbeat and whimsical, The Face Zone meanders between philosophical musings and autobiographical tales in a Sark-esque combination of drawings and poetry. Bopping from thought to thought, Martin Graff’s one-man show is like going to a jam-packed party where you brush up against a lot of eclectic folks, but you don’t get fully introduced to any of them.
Graff showcases his range of artistic endeavors in The Face Zone, which include poetry, drawing, and music. He combines his spoken word performance with projections of his visual art, and frames these segments by playing his piano compositions.
[adsanity_rotating align=”aligncenter” time=”10″ group_id=”1455″ /]
The show is like an illustrated book of his freewheeling psyche and, as its affable author, Graff flips through the pages and points out his favorite parts. His poetry encompasses a range of topics from the stress of hunting for parking spaces in strip malls and a meditative moment on a beach near Hong Kong to his formidable chin beard giving him cred at a tough biker gathering. Graff offers up an abundance of ideas in his reveries on living and uses his fanciful drawings as the jumping-off point for each new stream of thoughts.
The Face Zone closes July 27, 2019 Details and tickets
While each artistic dimension of the show has compelling facets, I would have liked to see a fuller interlacing of the words, images, and music. The moments in the performance when Graff’s images and poetry play off each other in humorous or clever ways demonstrates what he can do, but also draws attention to the times when there is less of a strong connection between the two. The piano interludes help to give the show structure, but since they are distinctly separate from the poetry and image sections, they end up feeling tonally detached.
Graff keeps the pacing moving, so even if one poem doesn’t quite connect, he is soon on to a new one. The show is brief, but the length works with this collection of short poems. Even with the sometimes heady subject matter, Graff’s peppering of humorous observations and quirky bits throughout the show keeps things fizzing.
The Face Zone is a fanciful show that takes you on a whirlwind tour through Graff’s perspectives on the meaning of life. His world seems crammed with a kaleidoscopic swirl of thoughts, feelings, and experiences that are interesting to get a peek into, even if a peek is all you get.
You must be logged in to post a comment.