Guy Yedwab

Dan Bacalzo

5/6/08

Vitality In The Downtown Scene

Since 1991, a group of actors centered around John Collins have performed in

New York City and around the world, in a small ensemble called Elevator Repair Service.

From very humble beginnings, this ensemble have been reviewed positively by the press,

starting from the Village Voice and working their way to the New York Times. As this

criticism reveals, their talent is in their exuberance, their vitality, and their energy—which

they bring to works which are often old, dry, or otherwise seemingly inaccessible.

The early shows in their career are difficult to get a handle on, because of there is

not a high volume of reviews accessible to investigate. Their first show, entitled Mr.

Antipyrene, Fire Extinguisher, was based on a dada play by Tristan Tzara. Tristan Tzara

was a dada thinker who was active just after World War One. Like many of the Dada

writers, Tzara wrote with a deranged and energetic brilliance. In “Dada Manifesto,” he

wrote

“I destroy the drawers of the brain and of social organization: spread

demoralization wherever I go and cast my hand from heaven to hell, my
eyes from hell to heaven, restore the fecund wheel of a universal circus to
objective forces and the imagination of every individual.”1

This frentic ideological base was, perhaps, preserved on the stage. Compare that passage

to the review in the Village Voice by Brian Parks, which reads:

“The brain-numbing rumble of white noise rolls under the Dada chaos of
Mr. Antipyrine, Fire Extinguisher (Nada) like the roar of a fierce head
cold. Actors lurch around the stage, fall dead, burst into silent songs

1
Tristan Tzara. "Dada Manifesto". Dada Painters and Poets. New York: George Wittenborn Inc. 1991.
 amidst a jangle of fluorescent lights, impossibly[sic] garbled phone calls,
and spewed Post-its.”2

The aggressive chaos, and the sense of energy, is reflected by Parks’ review, and

continues throughout the short review, with phrases like “psychadelic horror” and

“enjoyably unnerving.” The review is on the whole positive, calling it “often very funny,”

and only faulting it on being “too short.” Brian Parks also refers to another Elevator

Repair Service trademark, which is its “junk drawer of noise;” which John Collins (who

also directed) designed.

Two shows later, a show called Spine Check, allowed Brian Parks to return to do a

feature article on Elevator Repair Service, which is one of the earliest interviews of John

Collins and examinations into the Dada foundations of the ensemble. Parks quotes

Collins as saying, “"I want to do theater that's about those bizarre, unexplainable

moments that happen in between what you understand in a story. … All the strange things

that happen between the important parts."3 This philosophy is reflected in the sound

design, for which John Collins was becoming known. Brian Parks wrote, “E.R.S. are

masterful sound designers, …a show is an animation of its surreal, jumpy soundtrack,

which typically flips back and forth between music samples, peculiar voices, and

dislocated noises.”4 Parks also notes their unique scripting approach:

“do not work from a script. Using a found text, like a physics book or the
rumor of Dalí's screenplay or the clichès of a form, they develop a project
in rehearsal, taking the text apart, leaving only its skeleton as a play's
structure. Then the weird shit starts.”5

2
Brian Parks. Village Voice 18 Feb 1992.
3
Brian Parks. “Dada’s Home.” Village Voice 6 Jul 1993.
4
Ibid.
5
Ibid.
But the most interesting part of Parks’ feature is the ending line: “Appropriation, collage,

and a dada slide of radical juxtaposition. Postmodernism, anyone? Well, yeah. There's life

in ol' Betsy yet.”

Brian Parks, who was the earliest champions of Elevator Repair Service and

whose feature is still one of the closest looks at ERS’ process, seems invigorated by ERS

and their unique approach. Dada, a movement over 80 years old, is being brought to life;

as are texts that are not normally considered “theatrical,” like textbooks or “clichés of a

form.” Each of his reviews betrays the energy and vitality that the productions contain.

And soon enough, Brian Parks was not the only reviewer noticing it.

The next show, Language Instruction: Love Family v. Andy Kaufman drew

reviews from both the New York Post and the New York Daily News. Donna Coe, on

behalf of the Post, was aware of the company’s aim: “"Language Instruction" seeks to

give meaning to the absurd and/or put those events in historical context and/or totally

confuse us.”6 Michael Musto, on behalf of the Daily News, wrote an article which

preserved the energy of the company:

Kaufman's kinetic persona and talent — wrapped up in layers of quirky

genius and deception — couldn't possibly be summed up with a
beginning, a middle, an .... That's why …Elevator Repair Service's stab at
an "avant-garde, post-modern, dadaist, deconstructivist comedy," may be
just the ticket. 7

The words “kinetic” and “quirky” are excellent words to describe ERS’ work. Donna

Coe’s review, which was lightly negative, seemed to note the vitality in a negative way,

mentioning that the audience was “bombard[ed]… with Kaufman trivia, foreign

6
Donna Coe. New York Post. 10 Feb 1994.
7
Michael Musto. New York Daily News. 31 Jan 1994.
languages (real and fictitious) and a multimedia circus of overlapping sights and

sounds.”8 The review ends with the line: “Is this production a glimpse into the bemused

mind of Andy Kaufman or an alteration of the Chinese curse: "May you live in interesting

times and see interesting plays”?”9 The pejorative use of the word ‘interesting’ is a

negative aspect of the “bizarre, unexplainable moments” that that John Collins constructs

his productions from. It can be compared to Michael Musto’s description of “an

amorphous, constantly evolving presentation that's wacko enough to be truly inspired.”10

Donna Coe and Michael Musto, taken together, clearly show that John Collins’

aims are achieved in a production like Language Instruction. Donna Coe recoils from the

overactive chaos, and Michael Musto revels in the energetically bizarre fun; both are

responding to the same stimulus in their own ways, but taken with Brian Parks’

description of John Collins’ aims, it is easy to see that although each reviewer has their

own reaction to ERS, whether positive or negative, it seems to be a response to John

Collins achieving his expressed aims.

Thus, it is not surprising that this is the point at which ERS really began to take

off. After having performed in small houses like Nada or the Ohio Theater, they were

slowly moving into larger presenting houses, like HERE Arts Center, Ontological-

Hysterical Theater, and then eventually P.S. 122—sped on their way by a short review of

McGurk: A Cautionary Tale in the Village Voice which began, “OK, I'll just say it: I think

Elevator Repair Service is the best young performance group in town.”11

In 1996, ERS made its first appearance at P.S. 122. Mark Russell, who at the time

was Artistic and Executive Director of P.S. 122, later said that “Sometimes I put on work
8
Donna Coe. New York Post. 10 Feb 1994.
9
Ibid.
10
Michael Musto. New York Daily News. 31 Jan 1994.
11
Brian Parks. Village Voice. 20 Sept 1994.
that I did not understand… I cannot say I was completely convinced of the work of

Elevator Repair Service until their third show in our space, Cab Legs.”12 But the first

show, Shut Up I Tell You (I Said Shut Up I Tell You), already had positive reviews behind

it. Steven Drukman, for Artforum, gave ERS another excellent review.

“In an admittedly spotty theatrical season, the work of Elevator Repair

Service, in a whirligig of sideshow-style shenanigans…stands out not only
for its humor and intelligence, but also for its defiant theatricality—in fact,
the performance was one of the most intriguing theatrical events I've
experienced in quite some time.”13

He also notes, “much of the ensemble's manic energy goes into a seamless, rapid-fire

presentation of found texts.”14 He ends his review by saying, “So while the pulse of the

experimental theater has felt faint in New York this winter, ERS has demonstrated that

the scene still has an EKG. Thank you, good folks of Elevator Repair Service, for giving

me a lift.”15 As though Steven Drukman is continuing the same narrative that Brian Parks

began, he turns his attention on the energy and intelligent chaos of John Collins’ direction

and ERS’ performance. Unlike the earlier reviews, however, Drukman (thanks to the

longer review space and the more artistic audience that Artforum allows) takes a moment

to place ERS in context, placing them as “representative of a generation of performers

that was weaned on Richard Foreman and the Wooster Group.”16

This connection to the Wooster Group was followed up in a review of that third

play, Cab Legs, which Mark Russell felt vindicated by; in Performing Arts Journal, Mark

Zimmerman wrote a long academic essay which placed Cab Legs in juxtaposition with

Wooster Group’s House/Lights as well as the Tectonic Theater Company’s Gross

12
Mark Russell. “A Coda: An Epilogue Of Sorts”. The Drama Review. 2007.
13
Steven Drukman. “Shut Up I Tell You (I Said Shut Up I Tell You).” Artforum. March 1996.
14
Ibid.
15
Ibid.
16
Ibid.
Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde and Mark Ravenhill’s Shopping and Fucking.

Although Zimmerman’s essay does a poor job relating the four works to each other, he

does relate them all to his thesis, which is that “theatre should distill the arrangement of

languages and bring us a momentum of artistic reverie or exaltation. By its very nature

theatre should communicate and transcend; the banal becomes glorious, the heroic tragic

and suspect.” 17

From some angles, this review continues to highlight the same ERS hallmarks

that have been seen before: the essay is littered with references to the chaotic energy of

ERS, such as “a disturbing whirlpool of obsession and desire” or “a framework of brutish

motion that recalls body art.”18 But this essay focuses on an aspect which had previously

been discussed as a weak point in ERS’ previous career: the emotional lives of the

characters. Donna Coe had taken to task “the character of Elayne Boosler” as being

“irrelevant and not much like the outspoken stand-up”19. Even in Brian Parks’ glowing

review of McGurk, he also wrote “Their mix of Foreman, Wooster, Keaton, and third

grade may sometimes come up a little thin on content”20 although he defends it by saying

“their theater of reassociation is not so much about what the dots look like as how they

get connected.”21

Zimmerman’s essay highlights this new attention to the emotional aspect. He says

that “Groff's performance presents Linda as strongly emotional” and “Shepherd, Sokol,

and Feinberg dominate the stage with sheer, if anguished, confidence.”22 He adds that

“Like Sokol, Feinberg draws attention to the unspoken through use of an understated
17
Mark Zimmerman. “Some Sort Of Awakening.” Performing Arts Journal. May 1998
18
Ibid.
19
Donna Coe. New York Post. 10 Feb 1994.
20
Brian Parks. Village Voice. 20 Sept 1994.
21
Ibid.
22
Mark Zimmerman. “Some Sort Of Awakening.” Performing Arts Journal. May 1998
presence; the blink of an eye could hold the drop of tragedy we seem to await.” 23 This

more subtle, emotional work does not come at the expense of the aforementioned chaotic

energy, but it seems to provide a needed counterbalance.

This may have contributed to Mark Russell’s much more favorable view toward

Cab Legs than the earlier performances; at any rate, Cab Legs is considered by ERS to be

its most successful24 and its popularity shot off soon afterward. Its next performance

(Total Fictional Lie) caught the attention, albeit not in review form, of the New York

Times; the next (Highway to Tomorrow) was chosen Best of Week by New York

Magazine, which said “Experimental without being pretentious, witty without being

precious, ERS's Off-Off Broadway production deploys sight gags, slapstick, campy

choreography, and a small thermos to surprising effect.”25

With reviews in the Performing Arts Journal, New York Magazine, the New

Yorker, Artforum, and even a few foreign journals, ERS was becoming well known;

David Cote’s review for Time Out New York of Room Tone said “For a decade, ERS has

produced intelligent, intimate shows that feature a blend of obscure texts, goofy

stagecraft, John Collins's sophisticated sound design and an ensemble of limber

performers.”26 The tone of the reviews shifted from reviewers watching an up-and-

coming young experimental theater group, to watching a group that had attracted a

following and a respect from the art world.

As they grew in size from a tiny group on the fringe to a better-accepted group,

one other shift is more noticeable. The ensemble has always based its work around found

texts. Its first play was entitled Mr. Antipyrene, Fire Extinguisher, an old and largely
23
Ibid.
24
“Elevator Repair Service: Cab Legs.” Elevator Repair Service. 6 May 2008
25
“Best Of Week.” New York Magazine. 20 Nov 2000.
26
Jason Zinoman. “Highway To Tomorrow.” Time Out New York. 9 Nov 2000.
unheard-of dada work. Their most recent play was an adaptation of The Sound And The

Fury. Another of their more well regarded works has been Gatz, which is based around

the text of The Great Gatsby, and Cab Legs was based around the character of Cab

Calloway. It is difficult to say why this shift is happening, but there is a shift toward more

well-known source material that is going on. Is this change happening to attract reviewers

and subscribers who are interested in the source material? In the review of Language

Instruction, Donna Coe mentions, “The recent infusion of Generation X art intrigues me,

a bouncing baby boomer. I love to see their redefining of what I lived through” 27.

Reviewers rarely say why they are attracted to review certain productions, so it is difficult

to see how this has effected other reviewers.

It is impossible to dismiss the work of the company entirely and say that it is

merely by choosing more well-known works that their success has taken off. It is

misguided to assume that simply because the works are more well-known that they are

any less ambitious; Gatz strove to make a six and a half hour reading of every word of

The Great Gatsby accessible, and The Sound And The Fury is one of the most

inaccessible classics of American literature (and the best suited to ERS’ work). Certainly,

each of these productions has been successful, and indeed some of the most frustrated

spectators have been those who have come to see the productions solely off of the

reputation of the referenced work; a blogger at The Sound And The Fury’s opening at

New York Theater Workshop and overheard a frustrated subscriber leaving during an

intermission, saying, “It’s awful! They’re destroying it! They’re … they’re just …

reading it!”28

27
Donna Coe. New York Post. 10 Feb 1994.
28
Tweed. “finally…tweed isn’t the only manchild in the room”. Obscene Jester. 6 May 2008
 Some reactions have been frustrated; some reviews have been negative. Overall,

however, Elevator Repair Service tends to attract a certain downtown theater audience,

and tends to inspire varying levels of praise from the theater-reviewers who come to its

productions. The positive reviews focus on the zany energetic slapstick and (later)

emotional subtlety with which the ensemble breathes life into found texts or concepts.

The negative reviews focus on the dramatic chaos and the overly theatrical presentation.

Both are likely sides of the same coin, reflecting the very philosophy with which John

Collins has been tackling work since the beginning of Elevator Repair Service in 1991.
 Bibliography

“Best Of Week.” New York Magazine. 20 Nov 2000.

Coe, Donna. New York Post. 10 Feb 1994.

Drukman, Steven. “Shut Up I Tell You (I Said Shut Up I Tell You).” Artforum. March

1996.

“Elevator Repair Service: Cab Legs.” Elevator Repair Service. 6 May 2008

<http://www.elevator.org/shows/show.php?show=cab_legs>

Parks, Brian. “Dada’s Home.” Village Voice 6 Jul 1993.

Parks, Brian. Village Voice 18 Feb 1992.

Parks, Brian. Village Voice. 20 Sept 1994.

Russell, Mark. “A Coda: An Epilogue Of Sorts”. The Drama Review. 2007.

Tweed. “finally…tweed isn’t the only manchild in the room”. Obscene Jester. 6 May

2008 <http://obscenejester.typepad.com/home/2008/04/finally-tweed-i.html>

Tzara, Tristan. "Dada Manifesto". Dada Painters and Poets. New York: George

Wittenborn Inc. 1991.

Zimmerman, Mark. “Some Sort Of Awakening.” Performing Arts Journal. May 1998

Zinoman, Jason. “Highway To Tomorrow.” Time Out New York. 9 Nov 2000.