Theatre in Review: Arguendo (Elevator Repair Service/Public Theater)

	Ben Williams (front) and Mike Iveson. Photo: Joan Marcus

An exotic dancer, surrounded by reporters, keeps repeating the same inane talking point about the beauty of her career. ("I'm sending a message of, of sensuality, there's nothing wrong with the nude female body, I am proud of my body, I'm not embarrassed to be a dancer.") As a lawyer attempts to argue his case, judges, sitting hunched over in office chairs with wheels, roll around the stage and bark out rudely pointed questions. ('How does one draw that line between, uh, [the opera] Salome and, and, and the Kitty Cat Lounge?") They also pose bizarre theoretical possibilities. ("What if the dancer wanted to do kind of an Annie Oakley dance in the course of which she fired off a revolver at various targets around the room?") Eventually, one lawyer strips down to gold lame bikini pants, before going, as they say, the full monty. Welcome to the world of Arguendo.

The people at Elevator Repair Service, who turn non-theatrical texts into bizarre, if sometimes effective, performance pieces, have seemingly left behind their Great Books period (which included stagings of The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and a portion of The Sound and the Fury), moving on to new challenges. For Arguendo, they have taken on the transcript of Barnes v. Glen Theatre, a 1991 Supreme Court case, in which a group of exotic dancers challenged, on First Amendment grounds, a ban on public nudity that prevented them from performing sans pasties and G-strings.

Do not attend Arguendo expecting an exploration of freedom, censorship, or judicial oversight. The American legal system is not under consideration, except as a justification for silly bits of theatrical business. The arguments offered by the two lawyers are numbingly dull and repetitive, and since it is part of the ERS aesthetic to reproduce every cough, pause, and ahem, you will quickly find yourself unable to concentrate on the issues at hand. (For example, the endless, circular discussion of what is, and is not, protected by the First Amendment -- rock music? tap dancing? video? -- is enough to make you scream.) Instead, the creators appear to be fascinated by the surface of things -- the etiquette, or lack of it; the language the lawyers use to present their cases; the justices' intrusive manners; and the sheer weight of hundreds of legal opinions, accrued over time, that set the precedent that allegedly forms the basis of new rulings. If anything, Arguendo is an attempt to find a theatrical language for a process that appears to bore even those who take part in it for a living.

Or so I surmise. The point of Arguendo is often elusive; it's a production with the manner of satire yet lacking any substantive point. The opening, in which Rebecca Jackson the exotic dancer (played by Maggie Hoffman), is surrounded by reporters peppering her with questions, comes across as a comic sketch without the gags. (Nichols and May could have done wonders with it.) The staging of the arguments is similarly loaded with comic business: For the bulk of the running time, the nine justices are played by three actors, spinning around in their chairs -- they make great use of the ramps on either side of David Zinn's set -- and blurting out a series of interruptions and non sequiturs. (At one point, when all three of them line up in a row downstage, they look like they are ready to burst into a very glum performance of "Triplets" from The Band Wagon.) Very little attempt is made to differentiate among the justices' personalities; Antonin Scalia barks his questions, but so does Chief Justice William Rehnquist.

The arguments are accompanied by Ben Rubin's projections, seen on an expansive screen on the upstage wall, which zoom and scroll dizzyingly through reams of legal opinions, seeking out details of each argument. (There is a really striking effect at the end, when there is a kind of Star Wars credit crawl of legalese that is fascinating to look at.) This is clearly a key aspect of Arguendo, but it relies on an unhappily intrusive use of video technology that erases the actors and left me feeling bilious from the sense of constant movement. This is the first production in my experience to feature a "projection dramaturge;" if we are to have such a person, she might have noticed that this is yet another example of technology running amok in the theatre.

And, of course, there is -- pardon the expression -- the climax, in which Mike Iveson, as the lawyer for the exotic dancers, strips down to his shoes and socks. This is followed by a coda, in which Susie Sokol appears as Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who was not on the Court at the time of the Glen Theatre case. (This is the only attempt at an impersonation, and Sokol totally nails the justice's looks and manner.) She describes her decision to add a touch of lace to her black gown, followed by Chief Justice Rehnquist's childish attempt to out-peacock her by adding four gold stripes to each arm of his gown.

This is, in effect, the final argument: The justices of the Supreme Court -- except for Ginsburg, who, as a liberal icon, is not only spared but given a bit of a halo -- are nothing but blowhards and bullies, and the appeals process is ridiculous and dull. All of this may be true -- I am no expert on the Court's history -- but is this all that these artists have to say about a process that is so basic to our way of life? You will look in vain for any sense of the power the Supreme Court can wield, in cases ranging from the election of George W. Bush to the vindication of same-sex marriage. There is enormously rich material here, sadly used as the basis for a startlingly empty evening.

Under the direction of John Collins, everyone in the cast attacks his or her assignment with gusto. The rest of the design credits, including Mark Barton's lighting, Jacob A. Climer's costumes, and Matt Tierney's sound -- are all thoroughly fine. Clearly, a lot of effort has gone into Arguendo, but then why does it all seem so easy? It appears that the Elevator Repair Service crew has taken inspiration from another, much better, show about exotic dancers. In the words of Dressy Tessie Tura, "You gotta get a gimmick / If you want to get applause." --David Barbour