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In the spirit of the Mission District of San Francisco, where young
artists still hang-out, work on each other’s projects and make no money, Erika Shuch
has created a new dance/theatre piece, All You Need, that gets at a very
disturbing subject matter with the lightness of pop music, with which it is filled.
The central story, in a piece made up of layers both obvious and not,
is that of the recent case of Yuppy cannibalism in Germany, where the devourer ran an ad
and considered 300 applicants before, in fact, finally killing and eating one. Shuch
barely touches on the horror of the incident, creating a love story instead, where the
idea of no-holds-barred intimacy is all-consuming, so to speak.
The cast of dancers sing and talk, which is a good thing, since the
stage at Intersection for the Arts, a Mission District "alternative art space"
is about as big as a kitchen. What dancing there is often has to do with two people having
a power exchange, not the final act of some sadist. What charms in All You Need
(title alluding to a partially named Beatles song) is the seamless way that Shuch has
developed such an unlikely idea. Truly original, the entertaining musical score and stark
poetry of its minimal text, and the warts-and-all intimacy with its four young performers
creates a very tight piece.
This is contemporary, TV-reality-show kind of theatre, a voyeuristic
musical, pop performance with a few ideas. The cleaver "installation", the props
and video used, were by Sean Riley. Fabulous singing (especially on the punk rock version
of the Patsy Cline song, "Crazy") were offered by Dwayne Calizo and his band, as
well as the whole cast, Jennifer Chien, Melanie Elms, Jesse Howell, victoria mcnichol
kelly, and Rowena Richie.
San Francisco, April 4, 2004 - Michael Wade Simpson
