‘Terminal’ Cast Brings Life to a Deathly Theme

The original “Terminal,” revived Saturday at Chapman University’s Waltmar Theatre in a rare college production, was the epitome of fringe theater of the 1960s. It represented total flight from commercial, middlebrow art.

This 1969 work, written by Susan Yankowitz for Joseph Chaikin’s groundbreaking Open Theatre ensemble in New York, grew out of Chaikin’s avant-garde treatment of theatrical reality as a combination of acting exercises, relaxation techniques, political beliefs and philosophical speculations about death and the meaning of life.

On the evidence of the performance at the Waltmar, which will be reprised later this week in Cedar City, Utah, at the western regional finals of the Kennedy Center/American Theater College Festival, “Terminal” retains a certain primal strength in both its symbolic and literal aspects.

The imagistic, fugal orchestration of the piece, which all of Chaikin’s work tends to possess, was carried through admirably by the large collegiate cast under Daniel Bryan Cartmell’s direction. The show not only has tragic conviction and immediacy but also an underlying sense of humor.

The macabre ironies easily could have been overplayed, given the central theme about the embalming of corpses to make them look lifelike. Fortunately, the presentation neither flinches nor winks.

The humor in “Terminal” is uncomfortable but real. The staging makes that apparent. But it’s not subtle. “Our cosmeticians are trained to create a natural appearance,” we are told, deadpan. They are trained, moreover, “to erase the lines of a lifetime in less than an hour.” In any case, there can be no subtlety when we hear, spoken through a megaphone as required: “The judgment of your life is your life.”

The industrial look of the production, on a bare stage against a backdrop of screens that give the appearance of corrugated metal, goes with primitive lighting that either casts stark shadows or washes the scene with a pale, almost ghostly, whiteness.

The actors, dressed in torn white pajamas, offer themselves completely and are in almost constant, fluid motion. All of their gestures--including vocal exhortations, rhythmic breathing and incidental music--are highly choreographed, often with the intensity of ritual, as though calling to mind a religious experience.

It would be necessary to ask the actors whether “Terminal” actually matches its ambition as an ontological exercise meant to transform their lives. For that is certainly what Chaikin intended, even more than affecting the lives of those in the audience.

But the reality of theater comes through here so much more successfully than many conventional productions, college and otherwise, that it certainly justifies its selection as a regional finalist in the festival. If “Terminal” goes on to the national finals, we’ll let you know.

* “Terminal,” Chapman University’s Waltmar Theatre, 310 E. Palm Ave., Orange. Running time: 1 hour, 15 minutes.

A Chapman University drama department production of a play by Susan Yankowitz. Director: Daniel Bryan Cartmell. With Michael Blackman, Benjamin John Branson, Stephenie Farnell-Wilson, Rebecca Frost, Robert E. Harrison, Carmella B. Jenkins, S.E. Jorgensen, Amy Lawson, Coley O’Brien McAvoy, Monika Palinay, Anthony Powell, Armand Rainville and Catherine Wise. Set and lighting design: Ron Coffman. Costume design: Camille Coyne. Makeup design: SEJ. Light board: Heather Grindstaff. Assistant director and stage manager: Sean Cox. Assistant stage manager: Brande Belander.