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Press Resources for REQUIEM FOR TESLA

The Daily Texan
February 22, 2001

'Requiem' is a dream

'Tesla' proves another success for Rude Mechanicals troupe

By Sam Cahill
Daily Texan Staff

You know a theater is avant-garde when its flyers say, "Thursday & Sunday pay-what-you-wish." Located in the middle of an east Austin industrial-Mad-Max-Beyond-Thunderdome wasteland, The Off Center hardly looks like it shelters the Austin Chronicle's year 2000 pick for "Best Theater Company" in Austin. Yet this is precisely where the Rude Mechanical theater company has set up shop for its "semi-autobiographical, sci-fi homage," Requiem for Tesla. Both Requiem's director, Shawn Sides, and writer, Kirk Lynn, received Austin Critics' Table awards for their work on the Austin production of Lipstick Traces, and both bring their collaborative talents to their new project.

The play explores the life and neuroses of the brilliant discoverer of alternating current, Nikola Tesla. Tesla, a complex figure of the Victorian era and friend of Mark Twain, waged the famous "War of the Currents" with Thomas Edison who gave the world ready access to electricity. He envisioned wireless communication long before it became a reality and developed numerous other inventions, only to die alone and in poverty. He was the mad scientist prototype for the film characterization of Dr. Frankenstein.

The set greatly contributes to the production. It looks like the video for Nine Inch Nails' "Closer," complete with wires, gadgets, musty looking television sets and a woman in sable Victorian costuming standing on a swing. It is a Gothic yet surreal depiction of a mad scientist's laboratory.

Michael Miller, as Tesla, narrates the events of Tesla's life as various cast members flit in and out of his description. The play is divided among Miller's monologues, portrayals of Tesla's interactions with Edison, George Westinghouse, J.P Morgan, and Mark Twain, and wacky goth-pop dances that compose the scene shifts.

These dances alone would be a sufficient incentive to see the production. Their quirky surrealism is something along the lines of disco-meets-Twin Peaks-in-the-Victorian era. The action of the play is its strong point, as the dialogue is often drowned out by the music or by several characters talking at once. However, a good perusal of the program will fill in any details or connections that may be missed in the performance itself.

The performances are fairly good. Miller slightly overdoes Tesla's pretentiousness, but he is poignant and compelling during Tesla's more vulnerable scenes. Robert S. Fisher's portrayal of the highly caffeinated Edison is rough around the edges, but his performance in his alternate role as Mark Twain is solid and authentic. The supporting cast members perform in a flurry of intentionally makeshift roles that keep the audience's critical faculties on alert. Tesla was a complex man, and the constant shifting of characterizations around him (cast members play multiple roles) both points out his centrality and suggests that Tesla himself was a multifaceted individual deserving more than a single interpretation.

Freud and Tesla were born the same year (1856) and psychoanalysis functions as a springboard to explore Tesla's manic, neurotic drive to bring electricity to the masses. Is Tesla channeling his repressed libido into scientific accomplishment? Is he trying to assuage his guilt over his brother's death, or trying to gain his parents approval? The production addresses these and other questions surrounding Tesla's life. Many factors can be used to try to explain Tesla's superhuman drive and the production does a good job of exploring them. Ultimately, Tesla was an ambiguous, tragic example of struggling humanity and all his complexity comes through with flying neon colors in Rude Mechanical's Requiem.