Review: Synetic’s artists interpret three stories from 14th century plague novel, The Decameron. Day 1

When society seems bound together in a single shared experience, that is often the time when a work of art resurfaces, offering itself up as metaphor and speaking directly to the times. During the last several months of the health pandemic caused by COVID-19, that work is Giovanni Boccaccio’s literary classic, “The Decameron,” a work set during the great the plague of 1347.

Life has infected us all, it seems, and mysteriously but not surprisingly organizations have seized onto Boccaccio’s work to create responses in a variety of artistic forms. The Library of Congress announced its own Boccaccio Project, the commission of several composers to create instrumental works in response to the text. When the country first shut down, IN Series Artistic Director Tim Nelson approached some of his collaborating colleagues and proposed an opera on the subject. Artistic Director Paata Tsikurishvili grabbed onto the work as something imminently suitable to the physical theater style of his Synetic Theater company.

Tsikurishvili is brilliant when he pounces on an image mined from a text that becomes the thread for physical exploration, as he has done so many times with his “wordless Shakespeare” productions. “Today it feels like we are all mimes trapped in our invisible boxes,” was his response to the world of “The Decameron”.

Boccaccio organized his own premise about a gathering of ten friends, who have escaped the plague in the city and retreated to a Tuscan villa for fresh air and to amuse themselves in safety by each in turn sharing stories. Ten storytellers each telling ten tales.

Tsikurishvili rightfully assessed that the project would be a great opportunity to reassemble his company virtually and give members an opportunity to stretch their capacities, creating narrative scenarios, pulling in music, and in many cases filming themselves by whatever means possible. While not following strictly Boccaccio’s order, Synetic has given us a series of short works to be rolled out over ten days.

First work is by Maria Simpkins, who took her inspiration from the Proem (Prologue.)

In her response, and with mentoring assistance from company member Vato Tsikurishvili, she explores the question, “When we’re wading through the melancholy that escorts this pandemic what can we reach for to find comfort?”

Simpkins shows us a woman isolated at home. Lonely. Frightened. Angry. She tries meditation, yoga, reading, and escape in sleep. Without knowing her exact storyline, we recognize her anxiety and know she has suffered great loss. Echoes from “The Decameron” flutter through my brain, “A great number departed this life without anyone at all to witness their going.”

These days we are used to seeing people masked. Simpkins does the opposite; she lets us in behind the mask. She is most powerfully revealed when the camera lingers close up on her still but expressive face. Her face shows strength and determined fight but also great beauty in her vulnerability.

The piece also shows how our worldview has shrunk to a small screen, bombarding us with statistics and corona maps from which it is hard to look away.  A great moment is achieved with just a banner headline. “Ethnic minority coronavirus patients more likely to die.”

Just as we know from Boccaccio that the 14th century urban poor and servant class were disproportionately at risk to die of the plague, so Simpkins reminds us, in our own pandemic, African Americans and other minorities are most at risk. Simpkins has given us strong medicine for our times in a work of less than five minutes, but the piece at the end reaches out in hope.

Irene Hamilton has based her short work on Story 5 of Day One in “The Decameron,” in which “The Marchioness of Montferrat hampers the unwanted advances of the King over dinner.” The piece unfolds like a bad dinner date – although, come to think of it, any dinner date would be welcome right now, even a bad one.

Synetic’s approach to  “script diving,” bringing to light the new and quirky, was evident in the piece. In Boccaccio’s original, there’s a tiny phrase setting up the Fifth Story, where it describes how the Marchioness “with the aid of a chicken banquet” foils the King’s amorous plans. Hamilton has picked up on the current conversation around harassment and used the story to show a woman who uses various means to resist a man who wields great power. It all boils down to a two-fisted fight — with roasted chickens as gloves.

Hamilton’s creative enterprise has been greatly added by the cinematographic skills of Olivia Santos, who has suffused the entire work in fuschia pink and red grape lighting, creating a world of hedonistic lushness. Hamilton and cohort Dustyn Bain (the King) use the experiment to flex their stage combat skills, which Synetic’s training are generally outstanding. The music by Sashathem with its strong dance rhythms evokes the highly charged atmosphere of sparring dance partners.

The third piece on this program is by far the most developed piece dramatically. Double in length to the other two and with mentorship from Paata Tsikurishvili, co-creators Dallas and Tori Tolentino have managed to transform a cautionary tale (Day 9, Story 7) of a willful and careless wife into a story about a couple’s love and loss in the time of covid.  In doing so, they have integrated elements of cinematic symbolism, sound (coughing though no dialogue,) and dance.

The talented couple has found a way to share deeply and intimately something of their own journey during this time and yet they assuredly carry us into their imagined work by focusing on small elements to tell the story. The elements are haunting. An orange bounces in “slo-mo” down the stairs. A bathroom door is pushed open only to reveal leafy woods in where lurks a ferocious maw of a wolf.  A woman who has discarded her mask outside coughs up specks of blood in a sink. A man lies curled beside a lace wedding dress emptied of any human form.

I, for one, am eager to tune in to the rest of The Decameron as interpreted by Synetic’s creative teams.

Day 1 of Synetic Theater’s The Decameron debuted July 10, 2020.

Tickets available now to watch The Decameron.

DCTS reviews The Decameron