500
MARTIN DUBERMAN
mimed re-creation of President Kennedy's assassination makes remarkable
use of the visual images of television and film, going fOIWard and back–
ward in time, as all of us do in our mind's eye when trying to relive
that event. The scene in which five actors together portray the Serpent
-limbs twisting, heads bobbing in a free yet synchronized movement–
astonishingly captures that lustful, frightening, humorous creature of
human mythology. And finally, preeminently, there is the stunning
re–
enactment of Cain's murder of his brother, Abel, in which the two men
move as
if
controlled by a single string, terrifyingly establishing the
truism about the complicity of crime. (In a touch of genius, Chaikin
introduces two or three bleating "sheep" into the scene; innocent and
stupid, wholly disinterested yet nonetheless affected by the fracas about
them, the sheep come to epitomize nature's bland, bizarre neutrality.)
In short, The Open Theater's production of
The
Serpent
is an
authentic milestone, the first fully realized achievement of the new
theater. Henceforth it will be an inspiration to, and a measure of, that
theater's development.
Martin Duberman
