Nathaniel Ryan and Elizabeth Gray hold tight to crates in PORT CITIES (photo by Kelly Stuart)
Pier 11, South St. at Wall St.
Waterfront Museum Barge, Red Hook
Wednesday, May 18, and Thursday, May 19, $20-$27
www.portcitiesproject.org
Port Cities NY is the ambitious first presentation in Talya Chalef’s five-part project investigating the sociocultural and –economic impact of the seventeenth-century Dutch trade routes, relating history and legacy to contemporary hot-button issues. The Brooklyn-based South African / Australian multidisciplinary artist wrote, directed, and choreographed the work, which ends its short run on May 18 and 19. The audience of up to sixty people for each show gathers at Pier 11 on South Street and takes a ferry across the East River to Red Hook. During the journey, they listen, individually on their own headphones, to a New Agey soundscape by Cameron Orr that can be downloaded in advance or streamed online; it also includes an introductory ghost story recited by modern-day archaeologist Katie (Leah Barker). “Things which may seem unreal to some become very real. Maybe too real,” she ominously says. The crowd then walks over to Lehigh Valley Railroad Barge No. 79, which is docked at the Conover Street pier and houses the Waterfront Museum. Katie and actors Marcus Crawford Guy, Elizabeth Gray, and Nathaniel Ryan, who play multiple roles, lead the audience inside, where Orr is performing his score live. At this point, the intriguing and promising journey turns abstract as the increasingly esoteric narrative unfolds over forty-five minutes.
Marcus Crawford Guy points the way as Elizabeth Gray stands tall in play set on waterfront barge (photo by Kelly Stuart)
Katie is guided into a game, “The Settlers of Manahatta” (based on the Dutch game “Catan: Trade Build Settle”), hosted by Hans Van Brunt (Guy) and Lottie Van Brunt (Gray), that introduces her to four historical figures from the 1600s Dutch settlement that became New York City: prostitute and entrepreneur Grietje Reyniers, butcher Asser Levy, execution-surviving slave Groot Manuel, and Director-General Petrus Stuyvesant. Among the other characters in the time-and-place-shifting play are the white Katie’s African American boyfriend, Kevin; Jane, a commodities broker who once believed that she was “the messiah of the money world”; and Prison Man X, who gives a soliloquy that brings up Barack Obama and Eric Garner. Chalef also includes references to Dutch tulips, the color mauve, colonialism, the Triangle Trade, the ship discovered under the World Trade Center, the African Burial Ground unearthed in Lower Manhattan, and lots and lots of numbers. Port Cities NY explores some fascinating events and makes some clever observations but gets lost in many a head-scratching moment; in particular, Horus Vacui’s projections are hard to make out, Gray’s occasional robotic movement comes out of nowhere, and the use of milk crates to stand in for a multitude of physical objects is downright confusing. It possibly has something to do with shipping containers and perhaps sustainable packaging, but it’s never made clear. In fact, in a postshow discussion, Chalef understandably was reluctant to give away too many answers, but judging from the questions that were asked, there was a significant amount of befuddlement, especially with the gaming aspect. And because the ferry and water taxi do not run past 8:20, you’ll have to find your own way home from Red Hook, either sharing an Uber or taking a bus. But Port Cities NY is still a unique adventure, even if it’s not wholly satisfying or successful. Chalef’s grand, operatic project will travel over the next several years to Cape Town, Jakarta, and Perth before culminating in a multimedia installation in Amsterdam.