Review: “Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name” at HERE
Review: “Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name” at HERE
“An engaging and educational array of microscope-slide scenes that root a grandiose figure in realistic, flawed humanity”
It’s been a busy Q2 for Broadway DNA, licensing new work around the world, producing a world premiere new play, publishing a new piece with the International Theatre Institute, and speaking at conferences around the country and world. As the Broadway DNA Blog restarts our usual biweekly newsletter and critical offerings shortly, please excuse this belated review from the exquisite June world premiere of the music-movement monodrama “Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name.” Thank you for supporting Broadway DNA’s vision to demystify cultural exchange through international producing, licensing, and criticism to empower theatrical discussion around the world.
The journey begins at the door. After your wrists are anointed with oil, a soundscape emerges from your phone’s digital program alongside the intention: “This space allows for thought, meditation, and reflection. / This is a time for experiencing possibilities, / embracing contradictions, / and suspending certainty.” Enter Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name.
Created and performed by Sylvia Milo and Nathan Davis, the ethos of the legendary Mary Magdalene is on full display in this unique, carefully-crafted music-movement monologue. The prismatic work approaches scenes as fractals describing one person, self-similar but at different scales. Seven Magdalene archetypes move from whore to weeping to wise, with each iteration and implication of her legend, sainthood, and womanhood inviting us to interrogate what we hold to be “true” across the myths, beliefs, and contradictions that have surrounded her for over 2,000 years.
Milo embodies these archetypes with confident, chameleonic, and quiet fluidity, as if she is allowing us to be spectators to a private trance. Movement direction by Janice Orlandi and choreography by Natalie Lomonte and Joanna Kotze parade and peacock Milo’s Magdalene with aplomb, creating space for her complexity and charisma with each gesture. The intimacy of the piece is underscored literally by Davis’ accompaniment onstage using old and new instruments in tandem, hammering and harmonizing to paint the strife and seduction of the scenework. Davis’ vision and voice in the piece is undeniable; his transcendent use of sand and water as instruments elevates the piece through the tactile embodiment of spiritual flow.
Each tableau draws from ancient texts, artworks, and contemporary musings on the larger-than-life figure, set against a backdrop of field recordings and location markers brought to vibrant life by Monica Duncan’s video projection design incorporating video portraits by Maria Baranova. Nick Houfek’s lighting design draws us into Magdalene’s inner and outer circles; diffused light softens the stark contrasts of the story and creates a warm, inviting glow whether she’s solo or bringing audience members on stage for a fourth-wall breaking full moon circle. Houfek’s interplay of light and shadow also enhances the textures of Magdalena Dąbrowska and Carlotta Frascara’s robed and bangled costume pieces, providing a timeless, ethereal quality.
No strangers to artistic interrogation and interpretation of “hidden” women’s stories, Milo & Davis’ previous Off-Broadway monodrama The Other Mozart lives on through international presentations totalling over 300 performances to date in four languages, including a run in London at St. James Theatre, a run in Munich at the Pasinger Fabrik, and in Hong Kong at the Hong Kong Cultural Center. It was also presented in Vienna at the Mozarthaus Vienna and in Salzburg at the invitation of the Mozarteum Foundation (inside the Mozarts’ Wohnhaus apartment). What Mozart offers an international audience in opulence, Magdalene offers in intellect.
More of a puzzle than a prescription on what to think or believe, Magdalene strives for spirituality over stakes, ritual over written plot. The conflict is internal, against the viewer’s preconceived notions of who Magdalene was, and it is not until the denouement that we learn of her compelling missing (or expelled) Gospel that stirs an otherwise passive viewer education into excitement. Due to the vignette nature of the monodrama, we don’t follow a hero’s climactic journey, a linear storytelling expression rooted in the masculine anyway, but rather a more seasonal, shattered peek into time in the feminist cyclical tradition. Time is suspended here in the room, with Magdalene existing outside of it as a product of our projections, conjectures, and beliefs shapeshifting in each scene. When Milo stops the show to invite select female-identifying audience members to join her for a full moon circle, the interruptive feminist technique posits purposeful space for reflection from the program’s invocation. But jumping back into the passivity of an identity tableau after the immersive interaction robs the finale of energized catharsis. A passive, intellectualized viewing experience prevails in the piece (unless you’re so compelled to join on stage for those brief moments), perfect for academic lectures and performance festivals in the world arts scene and that could only gain from a lobby journal experience or some kind of post-show mint activity to chew on.
Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name is a carefully-crafted scholastic love letter and an engaging array of microscope-slide scenes that root a grandiose figure in realistic, flawed humanity with artistry and grace.
Production credits
“MAGDALENE: I AM THE UTTERANCE OF MY NAME”
Created and Performed by Sylvia Milo and Nathan Davis
Production credits include script and direction by Milo and music and sound design by Davis. The creative team includes Janice Orlandi (movement director), Natalie Lomonte (choreographer), Joanna Kotze (additional movement), Monica Duncan (video and projection design, incorporating video portraits by Maria Baranova), Magdalena Dąbrowska (costume design) with leaf dress and hood by Carlotta Frascara and wig in video by Małgorzata Chrastek, Nick Houfek (lighting design), Jess Applebaum (dramaturg), Kodi Lynn Milburn (stage manager, hair and makeup), Nora Bohannon and Daniely Duarte (production assistants), and Little Matchstick Factory (producer).
“Magdalene: I am the utterance of my name” ran June 13 - 30, 2024, at HERE (145 Sixth Avenue, Manhattan). Running time is 75 minutes with no intermission. For more information visit www.utteranceofmyname.com/.