Taylor Mac’s THE
WALK ACROSS AMERICA FOR MOTHER EARTH (@ Oberon through July 27th ) is really a
rewrite of HAIR with additions so gross you wonder who would think this stuff
is funny: There’s a bottle of urine someone drinks, toenails another eats,
menstrual blood another wrings out of her “rag” and, oh, someone dines on
peeling skin. A vile HAIR is not a better HAIR. And I haven’t even mentioned a
rape which is dismissed out of hand and hollow songs about racial equality for
Native Americans when the entire cast is white.
I could go on
and on (it’s a long evening) about all the inconsistencies, the banalities, the
incredulities, the absurdities, the beastialities. Let’s suffice it to say this
flower child didn’t think much of Circuit Theatre’s tedious WALK ACROSS Harvard Square. In
fact, when Rainbow Carl complained about everything being so hard, I silently
sang “Easy to be Hard” to myself. And it is “easy to say no” to this.
Circuit has
assembled a cast of beautiful young people who perform with passion and sing
gorgeously (with many playing multiple instruments). Their pre-show concert
(The Beatles, Woody Guthrie) and their “No Talent, Talent Show” during intermission
were lovely. What’s in between and after intermission was not.
