NY Review: 'The Peripherals'

When you go to the website for the Talking Band, one of the oldest avant-garde theater companies in New York City, the homepage reads “Illuminating the extraordinary dimensions of ordinary life.” Their latest production, “The Peripherals,” seeks to evoke that motto by celebrating and examining the mundane events and obsessions of an odd group of musicians, the band of the title, as they perform in a basement. The company does succeed in providing a few intriguing and startling moments, but “The Peripherals” fails to engender much of a reaction beyond a mild smile of recognition.

The play-concert-theater-piece-whatever-you-want-to-call-it opens with the various members of the band setting up their equipment, running sound checks, and settling in. This goes on for several minutes and after a shy girl named Phyllis (Kamala Sankaram) enters and explains that she is substituting for one of the regulars who couldn’t make it, the Peripherals begin their set. There is no plot or story, just the nine-member cast warbling songs of mundane occurrences and seemingly minor incidents. The only tension or drama occurs towards the end of the 80-minute show when Sluice (Talking Band artistic director Tim Zimet) walks off in huff because he believes the only reason the audience is enthusiastically receiving his new song about police harassment is that his friends have coached us to do so (which they have). A video projected on the back wall shows Sluice storming out of Dixon Place, walking along Chrystie Street and finally settling on a park bench. His fellow band member Susie Q (Ellen Maddow) goes after him and joins him—in the video—on the bench and they share a sandwich. That’s it for conflict.

Before that, we are treated to tunes about a lonely aunt having an affair with a married man, how people are not quite what they seem, pet lovers who prefer birds and dogs to human beings, and the strange relationships some of the Peripherals have with objects like chopsticks, jackets, and keys. The latter provides one of the more amusing sequences as three of the female singers dressed up as keys (the clever costumes are by OliveraGajic) gleefully vocalize about the joys of escaping a confining pocket for the freedom of the dusty ground. In another arresting vignette, director Ken RusSchmoll stages a fascinating and intricate crowd scene with the company recreating the chaos of a typical densely populated Manhattan boulevard. But these flashes are few and far between in a show that is only middlingly entertaining. 

Maddow is credited with writing both the loose script and the songs, which are occasionally catchy and fun but fail to stick after the show ends. As for the acting, the company all have pleasing voices and play their instruments with panache, but only Sankaram creates an intriguing character. Her Phyllis is a meek wallflower who bursts out of her shell with a vengeance when she performs a wild rock number.

At the performance attended the show was preceded by a short set sung by Loudon Wainwright III in the lobby of Dixon Place. In a brief 30 minutes, this veteran singer-songwriter created a fascinating world of lost love, death, pain, and regret -- and “The Peripherals” seemed peripheral by comparison.

Presented by and at Dixon Place, 161A Chrystie St., NYC. May 11–19. Thu.–Sat., 7:30 p.m.; Sat., 9:30 p.m. (866) 811-4111 or www.ovationtix.com.