Review of the show: By Cathi Spornick
My questions is no longer "Why did you get it"? ...now it is "Why did you get it"?
As a parent of two adult children, ages 23 and 25, I have already had the experience of asking the question: “Why did you get a tattoo where everyone can see it”? “Won’t you regret that?"
As I prepared to go see the play TATS:theexperience, I honestly believed I was going to see a play simply explaining a Millennial sub-culture fad to a Baby Boomer with only 2 ear piercings (one for each ear). I was wrong.
TATS:theexperience is a story of many people wrapped up into the lives of 16 characters. With seven actors, two puppeteers (yes, puppeteers) music that moves you and beautiful choreographed dancing, the stories are a compilation of events we all face in life at various stages and ages. These aren’t just feelings but feelings and events that alter us in some fashion. It's a big line-up: love, lust, loyalty, abandonment, heartbreak, death of a loved one, crushing disappointment, desire to belong, desire for approval, sense of failure, and immeasurable joy.
The play explores how these experiences impact our lives to the point that we don’t want to forget the source of the experience. These experiences can be shared or memorialized through many more traditional venues such as writing, visual arts or performance arts in the form of books or poetry; sculpture or painting; dance or music. Add a new category to your list: Tattoos.
The stories have been seamlessly woven into the life of Mattie (Antjuan Tobias). We are transported through Mattie’s life, and his memories (good as well as troubling) and his loves. The scenes are powerful as Mattie gives his heart away to Dinah (Rachel Bodenstein) and then suffers the painful heartache of his love saying goodbye to him.
The death of his friend Ansley (Koquina Forte’) brings to the stage the reality of war and inevitable death of a loved one to a family somewhere in the United States. The taboo attraction and love of Trick (Enisha Brewster) and her choice to live a life that ultimately leads to her death is a moment of lust and love for Mattie sprinkled with failure and fear.
We are faced with the noble goodness of people yet run head-on into the evil. Len (Allen Cox), Mattie’s friend from school days, is accosted and beaten on a city street because he is gay. You might think that Mattie’s heroic act of defending Len is highly admirable but what you really see is that Len has given Mattie the opportunity to become a better person not by defending him but by loving him for who he is. That is a transforming moment in all our lives.
We gain an intimate look into the real stories of people who have expressed their desire, not just to memorialize an event, but to create something that will express it until they meet their own death.
There is great humor mixed into the story lines with Uncle Nash (Eric Porter) recounting his swaggering memories at sea, his lovely lady Lucy (Brittany Loffert) and the tattoo that has kept those memories alive. It is clear evidence that the perception of the tattoo story can regale the viewer with illusion while keeping the poignancy of the story hidden in the heart and mind of the person with the tattoo art.
The choreography and music is moving as it interprets the power of the emotions experienced by the characters and gives us another view of the human creative spirit pushing through a veil in order to communicate to the world.
I left the play thinking “I get it; I really think I get it.” I wouldn’t think of asking a writer why they write. Or a sculptor why they sculpt. Now, when I see someone with a tattoo, I may not know the source of the inspiration for the tattoo but I will know why they have it. I now know there is story. The body is the canvas and the tattoo is the memory in ink.
One warning: don’t drink too much before heading into the theatre. The production was a little over an hour and a half and there was no intermission. One foolhardy soul in the audience had the unenviable choice of interrupting the actors as he walked out of the theatre or having an embarrassing accident! Since he was sitting close to me, I was glad he chose the latter. Apologies to the actors.
TATS:theexperience opened in Atlanta, GA at the 14th Street Playhouse on October 15, 2009. The production will be traveling throughout the United States through the end of 2009 and into 2010. To find a production near you, or vote to have it brought to your city, visit the website
www.tatstheexperience.com.
Review of the show: (Daniel Guyton at www.danguyton.com)
"Kat Reynolds and Colleen Hammond Whitmore have composed a fantastic paean to one of the oldest counter-culture-slash-sub-culture art forms in Western society - the Tattoo. A fully-fleshed out (pun intended) multi-media performance extravaganza, "Tats: The Experience" incorporates dance, theatre, puppetry, and body art in a fluid, yet surprisingly character-driven script. The play (though, truthfully, it is much more of an event than a play) primarily follows Mattie, along with Len, Dinah, Nash, Ansley, Sue and more, as they explore the motivations, causes, feelings, and reactions to the body art which they, or their friends have obtained. While the individual tattoos and body art are the primary characters here (make no mistake, this is NOT Death of a Salesman), the script still manages to follow (believably, heartwarming, and hilariously=2 0at times), the stories of 16 characters (all played by 7 actors), who have (or have witnessed) said tattoos. As performance art, the script excels. It allows ample room for choreography, music, dance, shadow-puppets, actual puppets, beautiful set designs and multi-media imagery galore. But as a play, it accomplishes even more. It actually gives us people to care about. Real human characters who can interact with the dancing, the music, the shadow puppets, etc, and not be... well, "overshadowed" by the imagery. As I read through the script, I laughed, I grew thoughtful, I felt genuine sympathy, and I found myself understanding and accepting tattoos in a way I had never thought before. This play truly is an "experience" - both for those beTATted and non-beTATted alike."
