PERFORMANCE ART REVIEW : Local Premiere of ‘Berlin Zoo’

Written and performed by Peter Rose, “Berlin Zoo” opens with preparations for a stage work that is inexplicably canceled by the West Berlin police and ends with disconcerting abruptness when Rose declares he is just “an actor in the theater.”

Given its local premiere Thursday at Highways in Santa Monica, “Berlin Zoo” follows the protagonist as he is cast out of the palace of art and must make his way through a divided city looking for a place to eat and sleep.

Focusing on the Berlin Wall and, by implication, the divisions within an individual, the 45-minute work is unified through pervasive reference to oppositions, polarities and dualities, and especially to encountering the boundaries and barriers between such pairings. Besides the wall, these included, but were not restricted to, the outside and inside of a circus tent, the two sides off a chain-link fence, dancing up and down a street and the “pigeons-doves” that kill themselves beating against the glass dome of the central railroad station.

Similarly, the stage setting consisted of a broken half-circle of white stones at the front, two cloth sculptures suspended from the ceiling (raised as the work progressed until at full extension they resembled enormous black fountain pens) and floor-to-ceiling bands of yellow and red fabric on the back wall, suggesting the siding of a circus big top.

Inevitably, there were contrasts between languages, usually German and English, but also, in a funny flurry of oppositions, a list of various languages--except the one they insist upon--with which Rose tries to communicate with his jailers: English? German! French? German! Italian? German! New York City American? German!

A male-female polarity was established early on with the inclusion of the famous washerwomen at the ford dialogue (a k a “Anna Livia Plurabelle”) from James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake,” which the author recorded in his own voice. Rose did not slavishly follow Joyce’s inflections, but certainly captured in voice and physicality the erotic underpinnings of that unique novel.

Indeed, Rose, a compact, muscular man, dressed in blue jeans and black tank top, proved riveting, whether as wide-eyed innocent, proletarian every working man or mock-chanteuse.

For all that, the overall impact was more intellectual admiration than emotional identification or sharing in some inner growth or resolution.

Patricia Pretzinger directed the production; visuals were by Daniel J. Martinez.

Performances of “Berlin Wall” continue on Thursday, Friday and July 22 and 29.