Some critics thought the opening performance of Festival Noorderzon in Groningen was so bad it made you cry. Others were less negative. Those certainly have a point. But then you have to look beyond what you are used to.
When Bear, the hero of Noorderzon 2019's opening show, is imprisoned in a tower, he laments his fate by singing a melodious yet sad song. In the universe of Josh 'Socalled' Dolgin, the Canadian creator of Space - The 3rd Season, melody equals oppression: the tendency of rulers to force all their subjects' noses in the same direction, by force if necessary. Individual freedom, the freedom to live and let live, he depicts with harmony: singing together that sounds equally euphonious, but also lets everyone's own voice prevail.
You just have to dare
Using core theoretical concepts from musicology to tell a politically charged story: you just have to dare. The bulk of the hundreds of spectators in the Romeo tent probably won't even be able to explain the difference between melody and harmony, no matter how much they love music. It is also totally original; at least I can't remember ever seeing another show that uses music theory as a thematic vehicle.
Nevertheless, during the drinks after the Noorderzon opening, Space turned out to be a love it or hate it show. In particular, many dyed-in-the-wool pundits - journalists, programmers and other theatre professionals - thought it was a mediocre performance. They hum qualifications like "flat", "clichéd" and "Sesame Street for adults".
'False start'
The Volkskrant even calls it 'the worst performance in years' and punishes this 'false start' of Noorderzon with one star. The musical makes a "shabby and amateurish impression", the sets are clumsy, the puppeteers are visible far too often (as if that is not a fixed ingredient of modern puppet theatre), the lead singer's "voice is regularly off", the orchestra sounds "like a big mush" - in short, it is really no good at all.
This pundit begs to differ.
Dolgin chooses a deceptive form by framing his message as a simple children's fairy tale. Scenes of cloth depict another planet where a stern queen rules - the only role played by a human, Kiran Ahluwalia, a Canadian singer of Indian origin. She walks around in a purple glitter bodysuit, with a mop stick as a staff and a plastic crown on her head. The other roles are for fluffy, brightly coloured puppets, operated by the players with long sticks. Zog, the queen's executioner, is bright yellow and gigantic, with the physique of an upside-down prick doll. The queen's subjects are dwarfed by him: they are tiny hand puppets. The whole thing is accompanied live by a sizeable orchestra, in which Dolgin himself sits behind the piano.
Harmony or Melody?
Bear has returned to the planet to reunite his daughter Tammy with his mother, Bear's ex. He arrives there during preparations for an annual festival in honour of the queen. The other puppets rehearse their hymns. The queen demands melody, and regularly comes to check whether the recitation meets it. The red puppets bravely join in. The blue Moonie also tries, but is removed from the ensemble for singing out of tune.
Bear falls in for him, but gets Moonie back in too. He discovers Moonie can rap well, and converts the anxious pop nationals to harmony: a new musical unit, forged from everyone's own contribution, in which Moonie can also find a place again. During the first demonstration of this new harmony, Bear violently displeases the queen by improvising lustily and virtuosically. As punishment, Zog locks him in the tower.
No accident
The storytelling, the sets like a school performance, the childishly positive songs sung by the puppets: all this cockiness is not an accident, it serves a purpose. Space - The 3rd Season (part three of a series, hence the addition) is a kind of Muppet Show noir. The red of the good dolls refers in North America to the political right of the Republican party, the blue of Moonie, the loser who dares to take on Bear's adventure after all, to the Democrats. This will be no coincidence. Dolgin's home country of Canada depends heavily on its big neighbour. Canadians are almost as weighed down by the Trump terror as Americans themselves.
The artists who respond critically to that drama usually choose one of two forms. Either they ridicule the president and his clique, as US TV comedians Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon regularly do, or they thematise the serious sides of the Trump regime - the hatred, racism, misogyny and migrant hostility. Both approaches are equally legitimate and necessary, but both also make Americans' divisions deeper than they already are anyway. Trump's opponents see it further confirming their dislike of him, his fans in their belief that their hero is the target of one big conspiracy by 'the elite'.
Third way
Dolgin escapes that dilemma via an ingenious third way. The happy-go-lucky nature of Space could equally delight both camps. Just as The Muppet Show was meant for adults but also entertained children. Togetherness in which your own voice remains intact: how could all those usually anti-state, ultra-individualist-oriented Trump voters be against that? The childlike atmosphere also gives Space something Brechtian-distant: the political message remains indirect and submerged, far away from the battlefield into which Trump discourse has degenerated.
But masterful above all is the music in this performance, and how Dolgin plays with it. When Moonie sings out of tune, the orchestra plays ear-catching dissonances. Ahluwalia, the queen, fully participates. With her ambiguous tone changes, she is not 'wrong' - they only prove why she is a multi-award-winning singer.
Jewish descent
Like every fairy tale, Space ends with an 'all's well that ends well'. Bear is freed from the tower and reunited with ex and child, the queen is converted to harmony. But even that festive finale has bitter undertones. Indeed, there is a death first: Moonie, as punishment for his first public rap, is swallowed by an even bigger yellow Zog-like.
Space may be ambiguous, but the creator of this show makes no secret of his Jewish heritage. With his moustache, prominent glasses and bald skull flanked by two bunches of black hair, Josh Dolgin looks like Groucho Marx, scion of a legendary quartet of Jewish-American comedians from the first half of the 20th century. But behind that droll retro appearance is an artistic all-rounder. Dolgin is a pianist, accordionist, composer, singer-songwriter, photographer, filmmaker and also a very deft magician, which he demonstrates spectacularly when he delivers Noorderzon's opening speech.
Tinker
He deploys all those tools mainly to drag the centuries-old Yiddish language and culture of his Eastern European ancestors, with them virtually exterminated by the Nazis during the Holocaust, into the 21st century, away from their exclusive Jewish isolation. In his art, Dolgin mixes ancient with ultramodern styles and elements: klezmer with hip-hop, rap, jazz and Olivier Messiaen's 'bleep-grunt'.
He makes records, live (music) theatre, films, stories - you name it. He works with big names like Fred Wesley, a trombonist who still played with soul legend James Brown, rapper C-Rayz Walz, classical violinist Itzhak Perlman and clarinetist David Krakauer. Methinks, quite a recommendation for a 'poor and amateurish' tinkerer. As are Space's other playings: the premiere was at Hamburg's Kampnagel on 8 August; after Noorderzon, the performance can be seen at Zurich's Theatrespektakel festival. Both are closely related to Noorderzon, in terms of programming and as regular co-producers.
Flat is at most Space's packaging. Beneath it lies a gem.
Good to know
English (UK) 
Nederlands 
Français 
