A cold reception

What I enjoy most about Defunkt Theatre—a small theater company based in South East Portland—is that it takes risks. The problem with risks is that they have a tendency to go awry. Thus is the fate of Defunkt’s latest production, the world premiere of Cooler by Gary Winter.

What can be deciphered from the production is that it involves four people who have made a walk-in cooler their refuge—though this is inferred only through the stage design and is never explicitly said—and that they are in an emotional intermediate between dreams, reality and who knows what.

Things are discussed vaguely: a desert war, Chekhov, rhinoceros shit and Russia all make brief appearances. Everything is interrupted by darkness and a grating noise that seems to give the characters headaches. Milk crates get moved around. Nothing is explained. It is difficult to impart depth to characters when the largest self-disclosure is that sometimes one of them likes to dress up as Cher.

Usually, I am all for experimental, abstract theatrics. Usually Defunkt is stellar at making productions that one would describe as such. It is the theater’s bread and butter. However, Cooler missed the boat. It wasn’t even in the same ocean, as far as concept and depiction go, as, say, Defunkt’s last season with The Communist Dracula Pageant. 

Cooler is the last performance for two of the actors. Frances Binder, who plays the Cher wannabe and constantly misses her cues, making her character feel even more forced than the script calls for, and James Moore, who gives the best performance in the piece as a war veteran, are leaving the company.

This is quite a blow, as they have been around since Defunkt’s inception. So it is rather sad that Cooler serves as their farewell to what should be seen as a strong showing throughout the years. But while Moore’s performance was the highlight of the piece, it still didn’t make up for the complete lack of plot or compelling characters that can make up for the enigmatic pieces of theater that are brand-spanking new.

The fact that Cooler premieres in Portland is the only appealing aspect of the piece. But the fact says nothing of the merit of the piece itself. In a way, Portland has become testing ground for avant-garde theater.

Cooler, according to the performance program, will be performed in New York in 2010. Hopefully it will be received with better results. It is a conundrum I am facing. I can see potential for some really interesting, existential commentary on the state of the world and the people within it, yet everything, from the cheap stage design to the mediocre acting (with the exception of Moore) doesn’t meet expectations. If the audience is supposed to leave with some profound insight, it didn’t get across.

Cooler is the theater equivalent to Marcel Duchamp’s urinal in the Tate Modern, a piece often credited as an artistic anomaly that became a turning point in how art should be viewed. In reality, it’s just something to piss on.