Dance: 'Incest' At Eden's Expressway
By JENNIFER DUNNING
New York Times - April 20, 1987
Put together by incest survivors, as they call themselves,
''Incest'' incorporates music, dance, an acted script and some dimly projected
film of family scenes and world atrocities to capture the physical and emotional
horror of incest. Three women share the roles of several generations of family
members and a chorus, with Ms. Hoffman playing the child throughout.
Strangely, given the emotionally loaded theme, this
shifting of roles offered few insights into anything but the simplest of
family behavior. And with the exception of an aunt torn by her loyalties
to the adults and the children in the family - a part played poignantly and
with subtle nuance by Shelly Beach - the world of ''Incest'' is peopled by
a victimized child and cardboard figures of evil. The piece makes a persuasive
point about the way we perceive children as possessions. And there are
undeveloped hints of deeper insights into the victimizing characters.
But for the most part, ''Incest'' is an oddly unevocative,
one-dimensional work of theater. Its aim is to teach, which it does for the
most part with blessed simplicity and stylization, though Ms. Hoffman's
appropriation of such atrocities as the Holocaust and the bombing of Hiroshima
as equivalent experiences does not strengthen her case.
The piece also seeks to offer incest victims or survivors,
and the rest of us, a chance to confront a subject that has long been considered
taboo. And a convincing point is made that silence and a refusal or inability
to face the problem makes it even more crippling. ''Incest'' comes into its
own in the discussion period that follows the performance, in which the audience
is encouraged to talk about the piece and about individual experiences in
one of those workshop situations that seem in part to fill the need for extended
families in today's rootless urban society. Ms. Hoffman and her fellow performers
are skillful, pragmatic discussions leaders, and the evening becomes newly
informative - and moving.
The cast was completed by Melinda Levokove and Quimetta
Perle. Written and choreographed by Ms. Hoffman, ''Incest'' had music by
Ms. Levokove and film by Roberta Cantow
