“Clay” Wows Students of the Macaulay Honors College

Already excited I was seeing a performance with a description I actually loved, I couldn’t wait to get to The Duke.  Recently we’ve seen plays, musicals, lectures and even operas, all things that don’t exactly keep my eyes open, but a one man hip-hop performance? Now that sounded like something I would want to see!  Waiting outside of the studio, I saw signs that said “Please be aware: a fog machine will be used in this performance.”  I thought to myself, “Wow! This must be a heck of a performance!”  It turns out I was right.  When my fellow classmates and I were seated, music was playing and I was shocked to realize that I recognized it.  As I sat there moving my head to the beat, I couldn’t wait for the show to start.  This only added to my already high expectations of “Clay,” and when I walked out of that theater after the performance I wasn’t disappointed in the least.

The curtains opened and Matt Sax stole the show.  Although he was the only actor/singer/performer of the performance, I feel he would’ve done the same even with a fifty-man cast.  His talent for rapping and telling stories was evident from the very beginning.  The man didn’t even need a set to tell the story.  All he needed was a single chair, a microphone, and some beats.  Not many people can do that.

Besides his obvious talent for rapping, he also portrayed the many characters of the story he told.  Before the performance began I was interested to see if he would use the same tactics Chazz Palmentieri used in “A Bronx Tale,” which is also a one-man show.  Sax, much like Palmentieri, used a couple different techniques to make it easy for the audience to see each character in their own likeness.  Sax would change his voice to the appropriate character along with moving from side to side as if they were standing next to each other.  The transitions were so smooth that it almost seemed as if there was more than one person on the stage.  For example, to display his stepmother, Sax changed his voice and stood like that of a middle aged woman.  He even batted imaginary hair out of his eyes.  When he transformed into his mentor and teacher Sir John, he would throw the hood of his sweater up and scrunch his face to represent the deformity Sir John experienced in a car accident.  He transformed into five different characters, both male and female, without changing wardrobe. This is a truly difficult feat.

Most people don’t understand the difficulty of performing in front of a large audience.  Matt Sax not only accomplished this task but he told a very emotional and controversial story about a troubled family.  After the performance I was lucky enough to see him outside.  After I told him how much I enjoyed the show, I asked him how long it took him to master countless songs and dialogue.  Expecting an answer in years he responded, “Three months.”  My jaw almost hit the floor.  How could he have done it?
Another technique of “Clay” that kept the audience on the edge of their seats from start to finish was the way the story was told.  The performance’s chronology was backwards.  The story began with the end instead of the beginning.  Also, Clay, the protagonist of the show, appeared with blood on his face in the very first scene.  I could hear people around me asking, “Is that blood?”  Only later did the audience find out where the blood came from which shocked everyone in the theater.  “Clay” began and ended with the same scene, with the middle of the performance being how everything falls into place.  It was almost as if Matt Sax trusted us, the audience, to put some of the pieces together ourselves.  This technique worked to perfection.

“Clay” was not only a wonderful performance, but I believe there was a hidden meaning or moral behind it.  Clifford (Matt Sax) knew that he could not escape his troubled past and realized that he had to overcome it.  He overcame all adversity and became a hip-hop star.  This just goes to show that even when things seem impossible, impossible is nothing.