Youth and age are nicely served in “Transformations 2000,” writer/director Byrne Piven’s series of scenes/stories that contrast the old with the new, the timeless with timeliness, the written word with the computer.
The cast consists of 10 actors, ranging from 7th grader to grandmother, all of whom have been trained in the Story Theater form that is a backbone of the work taught by Piven and his wife Joyce in their Piven Theatre Workshop of Evanston.
It’s an attractive, appealing ensemble, always engaging and energetic, even when their material is less so.
They begin each of the program’s two halves with some warm-up improvisation, then settle into the play’s rhythm of alternating scenes of old and new.
The traditional, enduring values are represented mostly by classic Story Theater presentations of tales from the Old Testament. The stories of Adam and Eve, Abraham and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, along with an African folk tale, are narrated and enacted with tenderness, technical skill and, when appropriate, a touch of humor. When Eve (Gita Turner) reaches for one of the apples on the Tree of Knowledge, the actors, whose arms serve as the tree’s branches, give her a warning “Uh-uh-uh.”
These biblical segments are stories that speak of spirituality and enduring family values. In frenetic, and sometimes funny counterpoint, there are scenes depicting the weird ways of life and love in the computer age, often opposed to the golden days of philosophy and science. A man and woman (Julian Bailey and Amanda Philipson) get so involved in the thrill of their virtual sex games that they spurn the real sex that’s offered them by real people.
Other Y2K bits involve bustling crowds of consumers preocccupied with their cell phones and home computers. In these original skits, developed through improvisation, songs sometimes come into play. With music by Stuart Katz and lyrics by Piven, Chavez Ravine hymns the title song, and Bailey gets down and dirty in his own composition, a song about his hot affair with his computer.
The ease with which the cast flips from the verities of the past to the vanities of the present is a tribute to their absorption of the Pivens’ method. Veterans such as Bernard Beck and Maya Friedler mix happily with such relative newcomers as Bailey, a tall young man with a distinctive zest in performance.
Danila Korogodsky’s set design plasters the black floor with graffiti culled from the wisdom of the ages, and the actors chalk up new ones on side panels as the show progresses.
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“Transformations 2000”
When: Through Feb. 20
Where: Piven Theatre Workshop, 927 Noyes St., Evanston
Phone: 847-866-8049
