L.O.W. in Gaia: Chronicle of and Meditation on a 3-Week Vacation in the Mojave Desert, January 1986

L.O.W. in Gala Chronicle of and Meditation on a 3-Week Vacation in the Mojave Desert, January 1986 Written and Performed by Rachel Rosenthal Rachel Rosenthal's L.O.W. in Gaia was presented last fall at the Kitchen. Though its run was only three days, the work of this solo performer, seen all too infrequently in New York, was highlyregarded by audiences, seemingly affected by the work's integrity and expansiveness, and no less the engagement of the performer. In L.O.W., Rosenthal unites the aging of her body as a woman of sixty and the aging of the earth's body. In other words, the history of the landscape is joined to the history of the human being. To go a step further, L.O.W. is played against the background of the desert, with its unmistakable allusions to the beginning of Western religious myth and the ending of contemporary high-tech mythologies. It is the voice of the sagebrush that reminds those who hear: nuclear crisis is a crisis of religion, of myth. Rosenthal, who has always been one of the most intelligent and politically committed of performers, builds her piece around complex issues, using nuclear imagery metaphorically-photography, as a kind of radiation; melting wax; the disintegration of the flesh-to interpolate the idea of the earth mother and that of the apocalypse. The significance of her work is in its understanding that performance has to merge myth and history to make cosmic themes breathe today. Perhaps this is Peter Brook's secret, it is certainly Heiner MUller's greatness. More significantly, in an "avant-garde" solo performance that draws upon contemporary technique and style in its approach to the form, Rosenthal nevertheless returns to theatre's ancient religious function of enacting publicly the myths of the community. Bymaking her history simultaneously of nature and of people, Rachel Rosenthal radiates an energy that brings life not death, calm if not solace. Bonnie Marranca 76 Blackout Music: "Chronos" by Michael Stearns Slides Life 10,000 years into the future may be radically different from what we know today. How do we communicate with humans who may have little concept of the world of 1986 and its symbols? If the recommendations of the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) become reality, 300 generations of our descendants will hear our message spoken in the silent language of monoliths. Some high level military waste, created primarily by processing plutonium for nuclear bombs, may be solidified in place where they are now stored or have leaked into the soil, at the federally owned Hanford Nuclear Reservation in Washington State. There, radioactive materials would be covered with a mere 20 feet of soil and stones. The contaminated earth would be literally melted and turned into dark, obsidian-like glass. High voltage electrodes placed in the ground would vitrify up to 800 metric tons of earth at a time by elevating the soil's temperature to as high as 20000C. The plan is to ring the whole thirty-two-square-mile area containing these sites with an early-warning system of monoliths. Slides: Monolith-like paintings by Cheryl Bowers Red Light Sound of swamp at night Rosenthal enters as the 40th Century Monster. She is wearing a black top, fatigue pants, her head is shaved bald. She is bent in half, walks stiffly, her hands retracted like a thalidomide baby's, no longer prehensile. Her jaw is fused open and cannot shut. She has no lips-a sign of degeneracy (Rosenthal folds her upper lip in over her teeth). She makes little sounds by sucking air in. This is our descendant, the irradiated monster. The creature looks around, unaware of the meaning of the monoliths and looks for and catches flies. Exit. Blackout Slides: Landsat views of the desert, followed by slides of Rosenthal's Dodge Van in the desert. Sound of a car on the road Voiceover (Rosenthal): This is it! My first true vacation in years! 0 Great Mother Gaia, hear me! 77 I cling to your skirts, praying for signs. I want to merge, to melt, to fuse. I want to be ignited, amazed, enchanted. I want...