Seph Mozes: turkey and bones and eating and we liked it and other plays Review
Cast members of turkey and bones and eating and we liked it
Director Seph Mozes Presents TURKEY AND BONES AND EATING AND WE LIKED IT AND OTHER PLAYS Review - A Love of Words (If You Enjoy It)
TLDR: An independent project directed by Seph Mozes picks a sampling of plays from Gertrude Stein’s Geography and Landscapes. It’s an eclectic collection of scenes with actors creating unique line deliveries to stay true to Stein’s style while also incorporating movements to build the scenes.
lexy weixel
Lights, Coat Racks, Action at Facility Theatre
In the upstairs space at the Facility Theatre, we feel like we’re entering into someone’s apartment. It’s the familiar two story walk-up with a large living room with pushed out bay windows, a dining room, and a long hallway leading towards bedrooms and a kitchen in the back. The living room is set like we’re ready to have a nice afternoon chat with a plush, blue couch on one side of a coffee table and two chairs facing towards it on the other side. A piano sits off in the corner. A fireplace. A desk. Audience members can sit anywhere in these two rooms, up close and personal with the action. It very much could be Gertrude Stein’s salon.
The lights turn off and actors rush on stage. They light sensory friendly table lamps. A projector displays in large letters, polybe in port: a curtain raiser. The actors read from the projection. An actor rushes on stage with a coat rack. Another moves a small lamp further up in the room towards the doorway and trails a gold rope behind it. The stage manager rings a bell when it’s time to change scenes. An actor pulls out a violin in between the plays and begins to play a melody. A fellow actor sings it back.
It feels like an eclectic assortment of scenes held together by various themes, or as director Seph Mozes, calls them signposts. You’re here in this new and unfamiliar territory where the actors are speaking almost a different form of English so you might need a signpost to help guide your way. Is this play about communication? Perhaps food? Maybe love?
Unlocking Gertrude Stein
Mozes begins the show with a brief intro to Stein (with a longer version available in the online program) and how she loved words, but not in the conventional way. It wasn't about the best combination of words to make the perfect sentence or finding the exact word to articulate what you mean, it was about the feeling of the word when you say it. So here, with this sampling of four plays from Geography and Landscapes, they follow Stein’s style of putting the love of words first, but now there’s the added element of what it will feel like to say them out loud.
Under the direction of Mozes, the actors find ways of communicating besides just saying the words in a normal delivery. They may roll around on the floor to emphasize when they’re speaking about a dog. Someone might yell come in and the other actors run on stage. They’ll pour some wine and lean forward expectantly. One might roll themself up in the floor rug. They pick words to emphasize. Others to say quietly. They speak in a different rhythm from time to time.
In this way turkey and bones and eating and we liked it becomes more an exploration in words and building something in a completely different way. The actors are creating and building a scene not simply acting in one.
The After Party Thoughts
turkey and bones and eating and we liked it is very much a performance art piece more so than a traditional play structure. From one audience member's experience, there were plays and moments I “understood” more than others (and I'm putting understood in quotations because perhaps understanding in this case is more I enjoyed it or could put my own meaning behind their actions).
But there’s a lot to unpack moment to moment, from keeping track of the words, to understanding the character the actor is trying to portray, to the symbolism behind their movements to build the landscape, so to speak. Plays three and four felt more like building a landscape where we could see the whole picture. The other two felt more fragmented, but we could still find a signpost attached. And again, that could be just because those works had something in them that spoke more to me than the others.
So, turkey and bones and eating and we liked it and other plays is not for a sit back, relax, and the show will explain itself to you. It prides itself on being different and you'll need to pay attention and put some thought into it. If you’re up for the challenge, this would be a good show for you.
RECOMMENDED
mikayla de guzman
When
Now through March 29, 2025
Where
The Facility Theatre
1138 N California Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622
Runtime: 1hr 15min, no intermission
Tickets
$10+
Tickets can be purchased online through Humantix
Photos
Courtesy of the production
Find Allie and The After Party featured on Theatre In Chicago
emmacate sauer
CAST
mikayla de guzman
dina perez
emmacate sauer
andrew seller
lexy weixel
CREATIVE
seph mozes (director)
anna aguiar kosicki (stage manager)
rosemary (dramaturg)