In trying to capture the times of our modern plague, the sum of the Synetic artists who have made these short performance works have shown us life as it has been reduced: clowns in cramped spaces, unraveling minds, and chaos.
Rachael Small pushes boundaries, creating one of the wackiest of all of the Synetic videos in the Boccaccio-inspired series. Gone mostly is the human element and Synetic’s celebration of the physical body’s expressiveness. The creator has chosen to tell her story almost entirely with dolls. She may have taken her inspiration from “Toy Story” when playthings come to life. If so, it’s a “Toy Story” as Stephen King might have written it.
There is nothing certainly that relates to Boccaccio Day 9, Story 9 nor the compressed narration of the original which she has carefully included. Its suburban housewife character in a doll-like get-up is almost as painted and expressionless as the creatures in her doll collection. She has baked a plate of muffins that she sets on a table then disappears.
The score for this film feature a cantante accompanied by an accordion or bandaneon whose words spill out faster and faster until it feels out of control.
Dolls come to life, well sort of, and, in a quick succession of still shots (think clay animation,) establish their own muffin-eating party. Despite the colorful costumes of the dolly wee-folk dolls, there’s something more “el dia de los muertos” about this gathering. Our housewife Small returns, finds a muffin eaten into, raises an eyebrow, glances at the culprits (clearly with jam on their faces,) and shrugs – like a 50’s hostess on thorazine. She’ll probably go back and bake some more, only to be devoured by dolls.
Chris Rushing speeds things up quite a bit, pacing his clown story as a silent screen comedy. He only breaks the rule of no speaking to tell a chicken joke. Otherwise he uses inter-titles, changing tempi of tinkly piano and banjo, and some funny sound effects to tell his story. (When the classic character of the suspicious father listens at the door to the sounds of his daughter making whoopee, the assorted sounds Rushing has collected are most unlikely and entertaining.)
Rushing plays all three characters of the classic set up of father, daughter, and daughter’s suitor. High marks to this artist who actually has based his work firmly in the Boccaccio story of Day 4, Story 1. He’s succeeded in finding a way for the update by translating its most grizzly bits into an entertaining clown story (I appreciated for instance how he found a way to “fill” the body of the lover with balloons, so when Papa popped the guy to extract his heart he discovers the suitor, as it were, to be full of hot air.) Rushing has also broken down the plot elements with both invention and clean execution of both sound and storyboard-sequenced visuals.
Thomas Beheler has also selected a novel form storytelling in rapid-fire stick-figure drawing. He has taken on the impressive challenge to do all of the ten stories in Day 8 in this way. Lickety-split, he barrels through Boccaccio plots. To my mind, it wasn’t as satisfying or hilarious as it promised to be.
Ryan Sellers is a Synetic regular and an accomplished mime, who uses clean arrests, strong lines, and clear sequenced movements to tell his story. He has most loosely taken one simple element from Boccaccio’s Day 2, Story 1 and roots his update in the situational premise of a poor man (maybe an artist down on his luck in the time of Covid.) As he goes out into the park to sit, he places his hat on the ground and another fellow (also played by Sellars) starts putting money into the hat. Poor man gets greedy and wily. He guilts the passer-by to throw in more dollar bills. But like all such ruses, the man identifying as homeless beggar gets caught out and ends like many a good classic silent screen comedy in a big chase, running on and finally out of the screen.
Will Hayes has made one of the most ambitious, plot-and-character-filled videos of the entire series, and, in certain ways, it does follow the Boccaccio tale of a king suspicious of his wife’s attentions and conjugal disinterest in his royal highness.
The video has some technical difficulties, however, including lighting. Several scenes are shot so in the dark, it’s hard to distinguish the characters or follow the plot. It also suffers from sloppy editing so it feels a little flat in the redundancy.
The best part of the film is when the guys get into a cage and have a go at parodying Saturday Afternoon wrestling meets “Fight Club.” Here we get to see Synetic bodies flex and show their stuff while entertaining us with a story about male rivalry. We even get a quick run through of special holds and attacks (“and the king’s favorite, the super secret spine shatterer,” (performed with loud bear growl or maybe it was a nod to Godzilla.) I would have been happy with just this excerpt.
Da’Von Moody closes out our viewing of Day 8 in a video that feels reminiscent of some of the earliest works in the series: an artist isolated at home trying to get through as the days of enforced isolation turn to weeks and then months. In a way his video works like a musical reprise. Again, like some of the earlier videos, he captures media watching with statistics and events beamed into our isolated homes.
The work is recorded with a cell phone so it doesn’t have the polish of some of the others, but this makes it feel all the more authentic to the story. We are taken into the cramped and intimate details of our lonely existences. The shots on the narrow balcony when Moody looks out are especially poignant. The hallways of apartment buildings that lead nowhere but to more shut doors really show us what we have become.
Moody gets a visitor. They greet and we think the guys are friends, but as in the film Pandemic, we soon understand that isolation leads to scarcity and scarcity leads to desperation and violence. I couldn’t clearly follow the events or relationship as laid out, but this piece captured some important truths of the way we live now – right to the final shot of hoarded stacked toilet paper rolls.
We are so separated, and this aloneness feels bereft and chaotic at the same time.
Day 7 of Synetic Theater’s The Decameron debuted July 16, 2020.
Day 8 of Synetic Theater’s The Decameron debuted July 17, 2020.
Tickets to watch The Decameron start at just $10 for the entire series and are available now.
DCTS reviews The Decameron
Hello just wanted to point out that the the main character in Da’Von Moody’s piece is actually his roommate and that Moody himself is the visitor.