Milwaukee's Theatre Gigante gets a little more gigante, thanks to President Obama
A little stimulus money goes a long way for the experimental arts group
7(x1) Samurai
Now in its 22nd season, avant-garde performance company Theatre Gigante has found an aesthetic niche in a mostly conventional local theater scene. Blessed with a strong critical following, Theatre Gigante (formerly known as Milwaukee Dance Theatre) sometimes frustrates audiences unable to wrap their heads around its nonlinear, Euro-style hybrid of storytelling, movement and music. Still, they must be doing something right—this year Theatre Gigante received $15,000 in economic stimulus money from the Wisconsin Arts Council. Its latest production is A Night At The Movies (playing Thursday through Saturday at Off-Broaway Theatre), which presents pieces by two of Theatre Gigante’s longtime collaborators, David Gaines and Malcolm Tulip. Though both studied at the prestigious Lecoq School Of Mime, you won’t see any striped shirts in this two-part show. In 7(x1) Samurai, Gaines’ does a solo reenactment of the iconic Akira Kurosawa film The Seven Samurai, complete with martial arts moves and sound effects. British actor-director Tulip’s piece, And…Action! takes place in a room where actors wait to do their Hollywood screen tests, playing in an ambiguous space of role-play. Theatre Gigante’s artistic director Isabelle Kralj, having just returned from choreographing a dance in Slovenia, recently talked with The A.V. Club about her company and its new show.
The A.V. Club: Malcolm Tulip created And…Action! based on conversations with your company. How did that work?
Isabelle Kralj: He came and spent a week interviewing us. Some of them were very personal questions, you know, like “Describe your face,” or “What were the scariest episodes in your life?” And much of the script was pulled out of those interviews. So it was interesting to get a script where all of a sudden you see your own “ums" and “huhs" in the text. He kept it all in, verbatim.
AVC: Is this a typical way for you to create a show?
IK: We work in lots of different ways. [Laughs.] I think the thing Mark [Anderson, co-founder] and I love the most is that there is no set way of working. But we always like to play with that fine line between the real and the not real, when is it autobiographical versus playing a character. This piece is very much in that line. What I like about it is I find it’s very much about the vulnerability of the performer—that situation where when you get up for a screen test you’re playing a character but you also are showing yourself. That’s what And…Action! is about.
AVC: Is the small scale of your shows by choice or by necessity?
IK: It’s by necessity. We have a small budget, we are trying to grow, but we don’t have money for heavy marketing. We have a following, and we have a history of spectacular reviews. So we have a core audience, and people who see us for the first time, I hear, “Oh, I’ve never seen anything like it and I loved it.”
AVC: So the name “Theatre Gigante” is ironic?
IK: Oh, yeah! We came up with that for many reasons. One, there’s a cave near where my father was born in Trieste called “Grotto Gigante,” and we were sitting around kind of complaining about funding, because someone told us, “If you don’t have a budget of $150,000, forget it, nobody’s even going to look at you.” And our friend said, “Just tell them you’re the magnificent, the gigantic, the huge, the gargantuan.” And Mark mumbled to me “Grotto Gigante” and I said, “That’s it!” [Laughs.]
AVC: The stimulus money you just received should help you grow a little bit.
IK: Yes. Thank you, Obama. [Laughs] This money was designated for artist salaries, not administrative salaries, which was a pleasant surprise. Those were the rules. It helped an organization that was going to suffer artistically, and that was the case for us. This allows Mark and I to continue our work.
AVC: But does it stimulate the economy?
IK: Well, if you believe that the arts stimulate the economy, even pragmatically speaking, which I do, it does. But I also like to think: “How does it stimulate our hearts and souls?” [Laughs.] What’s a world like with only mainstream art, you know? I wouldn’t want a whole world with just Phantom Of The Opera. I think there’s an important place for people who are doing things that might be a little different, because in 20 years it might be mainstream.
