Full disclosure: I drank a beer during the second half of
Portland Playhouse’s bobrauschenbergamerica. It was free, and a
man dressed like a peanut vendor at a baseball stadium brought it to
me at my seat. I probably should have taken the professional high
ground and Just Said No—but not only would that have been a
career first, it would have gone against the spirit of this
production.
bobrauschenbergamerica is first and foremost an experience, a
chaotic cultural dunk tank that overflows the boundaries of the stage
to splash over into the audience. Structured as a “collage,” and based
on the work of noted artist Bob Rauschenberg, there’s no point in
looking for a narrative throughline here, or even much in the way of
sense-making, really. Rauschenberg was dedicated to breaking down the
boundaries between art and life, often doing so by incorporating found
or mundane objects into his work—and with
bobrauschenbergamerica, playwright Charles Mee aims to do the
same, presenting his best stab at a theatrical adaptation of
Rauschenberg’s work through a series of snapshots of the American
experience.
Portland Playhouse brings an admirable enthusiasm to this
production, if not the subtlety required to make every scene stick. The
actors do best with the slower scenes, where their exuberance is
focused and restrained: a conversation between two lovers, or a
discussion of the merits of chicken farming. When things speed
up—when the cast zips through a fast-forwarded reenactment of a
“documentary about America,” for instance—Brian Weaver’s
directorial hand isn’t strong enough to draw clarity from the chaos,
and the show takes on the numbing, incoherent giddiness of a children’s
pageant.
The character of Bob Rauschenberg’s mother anchors the script, and
the actress playing the role—Lorraine Bahr—anchors the
production, lending a vital steadiness to a show that at times
threatens to run away with itself. “Art was not a part of our lives,”
she says of Rauschenberg’s upbringing, a sentiment that accumulates
irony with every repetition, the play’s gist being that art, or at
least beauty, is everywhere—it’s all in how you look at it.