Dill & Digger--10/7

One of the challenges of performing in a festival context is the quick turnover required. Sets must be portable and be able to set up/tear down twenty minutes, preferably ten. Often this challenge goes unanswered, as the set of a festival show fails to transform the space and rather looks like a capitulation to time and budget constraints. The show ends up looking like a “guest” in the space, and not a terribly welcome one. This is not to say that using the black stage and curtains of the Brick and just a few spare props is a faux pas, but even this can seem wonky if the space isn’t utilized by the performer(s) well, or if the few props that are placed on stage seem to be thrown on, rather than elements of the clown’s world.

The sparse set of Dill & Digger had me worried: a chair on the side of the stage, an overturned washtub center stage. The unceremonious entrance of a suspendered fisherman-looking gentleman did not grab me either, as he nodded sheepishly to the audience. And then I see that he is actually the one-man orchestra! He sets up shop on the side of the stage, turning the washtub into a bass, accompanying the “trumpet” he plays using only his lips, and keeping time with a bit of plastic taped to one of his fishing boots. A bit of “bait and switch” on the show’s part, and a nice one at that. The music begins a transformation of the space nicely, preparing us for Dill & Digger’s entrance. And boy did they raise the transformative bar! But more on that in a moment.

First of all I should say that from the very earliest moment we see Dill & Digger, they charm the audience. This is not because they are “cute” (in fact there is little that could be said to be “cute” about the goose-steeping, bee-hived, purple-booted, harsh-voiced Dill—she is cute like Clytemnestra in the Orestia—although her internal state of naivete is very charming), but rather because every action, every interaction is driven by their very well-defined relationship and is handled with breath and ease. They complement each other in a follower/leader relationship that is of the kind of closeness one can only have with a sibling, a lover, or a fellow clown. This is not to say that the relationship is always stable—we do see moments where the follower/leader role is inverted, which are delightful, as I was left wondering sometimes who was actually in charge, who was more powerful? This is not to say either that their relationship was primarily antagonistic. It wasn’t, although it did get very entertainingly antagonistic in parts.

I will not recount all of the events of the show (that would be just rubbing it in at this point, if you didn’t see it yet, since this excellent show has already returned to Norway), but I do just want to mention a few details of the opening. Dill & Digger enter to music as a team. They scout the space out. Finding it appropriate, they leave for a sec’, and return with a roll of Astroturf and a makeshift tree. All of a sudden the stage has been transformed into a picnic spot in the country. Satisfied with the setup, they leave once more, only to return a moment later, playing as if they’d just found this wonderful spot in the country by chance and celebrating at their own fortuitousness. The beautiful thing about this moment is the tension it creates between play and belief. Are they playing? Or are they actually on a picnic? This is simple make-believe that they get so caught up in, they catch me up in it. I know the grass is Astroturf. I just saw them roll it out. Logic and senses tell me this is a game, and yet the emotional commitment to their make-believe invited me to make-believe, too, in a delightful game where things both are and are-not at one and the same time.

There are some great physical bits, including one where the duo riffs on the difficulty of getting a picnic cloth spread correctly on the ground as a team. It is handled with precision and a nice sense of structure, from a comic writing perspective. Most importantly the actions of the bit are fueled by the characters and their relationship, and not the other way around, which is as it should be: the physical bit should be a means to bring out the personality of the clown, rather than having the clown bend him/herself to the bit. (We are talking about treatment here, of course. In the writing process, one might put a gag in because it feels right, or it might be cool, or whatever, but then it’s up to the performer to make the gag organic to the character and the situation.)

There is also some great work with objects by these two. Like their give & take as partners, the handling of the objects is simple, precise, easy, with appropriate moments of breath that allow actions and attitudes to visually and temporally crystallize. There is some really great stuff done with a teddy bear, which one moment is animated to dance by Digger and shortly later is cut to pieces by the two for lunch. So genius in its simplicity! Remember above how I said this show plays so well with make-believe? Here we see the two unable to open their can of food. They begin to starve. Dill figures out that the bear tastes good. She is caught by Digger eating her (Digger’s) bear. But in taking the bear back, Digger discovers that the bear tastes good, too. So she cuts off a big piece of the bear (the head, actually) and serves it to Dill. She puts the rest of the bear on her plate. We watch them carve into the bear and lift empty forks to their mouths, savoring every bite. And when they are full, Digger carefully collects the pieces of the bear and they go back into her dress, safely guarded. They are both eating the bear and not eating the bear. The bear is at once a stuffed bear and a living bear and a dead bear, and all these states seem to flicker in and out as I watch. There is something enchanting and sublime about this level of childlike naïveté.

Their sense of ease, play, and time allows for some very poignant resonating moments. There is a great bit done as the two sit down to start the picnic and they begin to clean the plates before eating. Dill takes a swig of water, spits it onto the plate and then polishes the plate with a rag. Seeing this, Digger follows suit, but in the spitting process manages to get a good part of her water on Dill without noticing. Dill thinks this has been done on purpose. She now takes another swig and spits it on Digger. Digger has no idea why she’s been spit on and so she swigs her own, larger mouthful and spits on Dill. The bit escalates. But, because of their sense of ease and simplicity in its escalation, the whole thing had a chance to resonate nicely in my head: “Holy sh*t! My parents do that! Holy sh*t, I do that! Holy sh*t, I did that yesterday! Holy sh*t, I’m like my parents!” (Not the most profound revelation, I’ll agree, but maybe I’ll have to wade through my own self-discovery clichés before I get to the real stuff. In any case, it was a moment I’ll remember for a long time.)

This show had a nice arc, compositionally speaking, going from the very first sleepy entrance of the musician to the fight between Dill & Digger that causes them to split apart, and their joyous reconciliation afterwards. It very effectively used the simple story of a picnic as a way to explore these characters in cooperation, conflict, misunderstanding, celebration, jealousy, and joy. And as we come to know these characters more and more through the course of the show, we come to recognize ourselves more and more in those characters. Bravo.