This play truly surprised me, like the acronym of the place it was shown at. When I first entered the BAM Harvey Theater, I could see the disgusted looks on the people’s face as we climbed a steep sketchy staircase to our seats. I was thinking to myself, I hope no one trips and falls on these stairs, because if anyone does the slightest topple, we’d all fall down like dominoes – that would not be good. The walls were peeling; the pipes were rusted. As we arrived to our seats, we were able to see the seats were just as steep. Sitting there waiting for the play to start made me tense that I might fall over and land on the stage. It didn’t seem like the play would be good, I thought.
But then, BAM! The lights dimmed, and the production amazed me. Combining technology and ordinary theatrical props, it created an interesting appeal to the play. There were various projectors shining not just light but screens of the stock market running across the top of the stage. A house stands at the middle of the stage and light played a really nice role – it manipulated whether or not the audience could see the people clearly or just their silhouette. At the end of the play, the house surprisingly transforms into a table, with the character, Mr. Alan Greenspan. the chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time, sitting at one end answering to questions of an interview.

The context of the House/Divided was just as interesting. It combined the struggles of those in the times of the Dust Bowl, and the struggles of the mortgage crisis. Throughout the play, there were occasional clips explaining in layman’s terms what was going on. This production made the two economic crises more interesting to learn about and understand.

Many actors played multiple roles. They alternated between the scenes at the stock exchange and the house falling apart. Their enthusiasm was clearly shown on their faces as they ran back and forth onstage and backstage – which was a clear sight for those like us who were sitting up really high. Several screens zoomed into the actors face live. It made the audience really feel a part of the play.

What happened after the play ended at the ‘Talk backs” should not be left out. Surprisingly, someone had the wits to stand up and say “You blew it.” She continued to destroy the performance and create havoc and confusion. In response, the director angrily replied, “you go write your own play.” It concluded the play in a more interesting way, and I had thought I was the only one with the doubts on the play.

The constant switch between the aftermath of The Great Depression and the stock market crash in 2008 drove a perfectly formulated play into a great mess. Marianne Weems directed House/Divided, a play performed at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. By juxtaposing the two eras, she wanted to portray the similarities between the struggles of the time. Theoretically, the techniques she used to compare the two satisfied her purpose. However, the play was as confusing as simultaneously reading two different books. In the end, this was a puzzle rather than a play.

House/Divided was inspired by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, which is a story that focuses on the economic hardships people faced after the Great Depression in 1929. Weems wanted to incorporate scenes from this fictional story to parallel them with interviews of owners who lost their homes to banks. These two stories were projected onto a house on center stage and a white background. Throughout the play, actors shifted parts of the structure to serve other purposes. To me, it was a symbol of the fragile economy. If the shifting of pieces can transform a house and serve another purpose, then what is going to stop investment banks from manipulating stock prices to earn money?

The sound effects and lighting played a crucial role throughout the performance. Without them, I would not have understood when Weems was shifting from one scene to another. Each transition came as a surprise, which made it difficult to grasp when each vignette ended. The use of technology to transform the scene from one setting to another only served as a reminder of the stark differences between the two eras, rather than the similarities. Although the man reeling the projected tape gave off an antiquated vibe, the components of the house that made it so versatile also appeared as too advanced for its time.

Aside from the non-traditional way of telling these two stories, the puzzles were easier to put together when there was dialogue. The actors were full of realistic emotions; there were humorous jokes when stock prices were all increasing, and looked distressed when the market crashed. Simultaneously, the Joad family spoke with an Ohio accent, where the family is from. Understanding the parallelism between the interviews and Joads’ moving was the easiest part of this big puzzle because both stock market crashes had left similar impacts on many families. As the Joad family travelled across barren land, other families many years later are facing foreclosure issues.

The structure suddenly collapsed to serve as a table at the end of the play. An actor playing Alan Greenspan was being interviewed at this table/house. This was the final piece of this difficult puzzle. Greenspan was questioned about deregulation and his approaches at dealing with the current economy. The collapse of the house signifies how one man can lead to the destruction of families and homes. In the end, Weems was able to retell these two stories from different eras, but these vignettes were difficult to string together to form the final puzzle. This confusion portrays the inner emotions of people who struggled to survive after these two stock market crashes. From being confused to seemingly understanding the situation and back to confusion, these thoughts represent how people during these eras strived to survive the aftermath of the difficult conditions.

House/divided- credits to: cdn-media.backstage.com

Inspired by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, House/Divided is an experimental, multi-media theater piece that features video projections, documentary clips, live acting and a moving set. When a play defies the conventional by diving into the digital realm, it is easy to get lost in the limitless opportunities for innovation. House/Divided attempts to multitask with the chaos of technology. It puts form before function, a sacrifice that is somewhat foolish, especially since the subject matter, foreclosures and repossessions in Ohio, is already complicated in nature.

Rather than a narrative play that has a linear storyline with the rising action, climax, and falling action, House/Divided is more of a collage. The scene transitions, although not fluidly, between the present and the past, between metropolis and farmland. The starkness of the transitions gives off the notion that the playwright intended for the audience to observe different facets of the issue without following a focused, solid storyline. Although the breadth of technology used is quite remarkable, each feature seems to compete for the viewers’ attention as the Times Square advertisements do. The ‘live’ tickers, the webcam projections, the banker (Jess Barbagallo) on the side making phone calls, and the repeating background music adds to the high-tech experience, but it is rather overwhelming.  At one point, a projection of Alan Greenspan appeared, while an overlapping projection of a ticker quickly infiltrated the set with a rising sea of negative, red numbers signifying the major decreases in the stock market. It was a clever representation, but the underlying messages are politically charged, almost resembling propaganda. The problem with using technology is that glitches are more likely to happen. About halfway into the play, a part of a documentary clip was repeated. The superfluous use of technology in the banking scenes really only served the singular purpose of communicating that the debt crisis is, in itself, confusing, forceful and ubiquitous.

Amidst the serious subject matter, the script does include some humor through caricatures of bankers that make myriads of mortgage-related phone calls in a short amount of time and mockeries of automated recordings. The script incorporates some scenes of comedic relief that bring up economic annoyances that most people in the audience can relate to.

The “high-tech” quality of the play is much more emotionally powerful during the rural Ohio scenes than in the bank setting. While the acting and the set of the bank scenes appear fast-paced, machine-like, cold and opportunistic, we see the humanistic presence of rural Ohio. An image of a home with white shingles and many windows is projected onto the main, boxy structure of the set, giving the illusion that it is three-dimensional. Here, the use of technology seems more effective because the panels of the structure are translucent, allowing the viewer to see a cutaway with actors inside.  The first rural scenes look tranquil and beautiful, as nostalgic images of tall grass sweeping before the sunset are projected onto the panels—effective images that conjures the pathos. Further into the play, the tone becomes desolate and hopeless when the house is foreclosed. The panels are moved around by the repossession men, making the empty structure seem more like a house than a home, at this point.

Although we get a cutaway view into the house, it is almost futile since the panels are not transparent enough to see the facial expressions of the actors. Furthermore, the character voices telling their anecdotes is just as unsuccessful; the highly artificial Midwestern accents were more of a distraction than a set of believable monologues. Despite the unrehearsed accents, the narrator’s grave, whispery voice was at least an appropriate fit for the poetic narrations that supplemented the scene of the house on the verge of foreclosure. One chilling banjo (or ovation guitar) cover of Neil Young’s “Out on the Weekend” arose from the shadows, and marked the beginning of the foreclosure. The deep, resonating strumming of the ballad created a poignant moment that is difficult to forget.

The play’s message would have been more successful if it did not go to the extremes to illustrate the debt crisis, but instead exhibited arguments from both sides. A clear focus and a simple design are the two things that a theater company must consider, especially when taking on the challenge of an experimental-digital medium.

House Divided played at the Brooklyn Academy of Music from October 24, 2012 through October 27, 2012. For current and future productions at BAM, please visit http://www.bam.org.

Paying tribute to John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath is a noble task to take on. Marianne Weems had a vision of using modern day theater to bring Steinbeck’s story back to life by drawing a parallel between the Great Depression of the 1930s and the more recent recession of 2008. The director filled her production with several memorable moments, but unfortunately, the summation of the play did not meet any expectations. Even with the latest technology, talented actors, and a meaningful theme, House Divided was an awkward theater production to witness.

House Divided opened with a scene that was both unusual and immediately glum. As the sound of a ferocious wind filled the auditorium, a woman appeared on the left. Sitting on the dark stage, she slowly rotated the handle of an old projector. The machine shone the images of dark skies and wheat fields onto the surface of a house that stood center stage. A few solemn words of a narrator could be heard behind the wind, but before any sense of the scene could be made, the sounds were muted and the house’s canvas grew dark. Momentary darkness ensued, but bright lights and the bustle of a trading floor soon replaced it. Standing below a NYSE newsfeed ribbon, two workers burst into a talk, crudely greeting each other and typing away on their computers. Behind them, the Bear Sterns CEO walked into view and started a conference.

After a few short minutes, the format of the play had been established. Focus shifting from the hardships of the Great Depression to the financial chaos of the modern era, the production concluded without a clear and witty connection between the two. Sure, both times witnessed horrid economic conditions. People lost their homes and livelihoods. But what was the greater reason for joining these two events in one play?

That isn’t to say, however, that the individual stories were without a clear message or that the tech team did a poor job. If you drew your attention to the right side of the stage, you would witness one family’s gruesome journey during the Depression Era. Forced out of their farmland in Ohio, the family set out on a westward expedition to find wok. To show progress along the journey, the production crew would alter the house at the center of the stage. It would be repositioned, changed in shape, or selectively illuminated in one place to seem less like a house and more like destroyed property. The characters’ stories, consistent with the theme, would seem as tormented as the house that stood at the center of it all. As the family was nearing California, they met a man filled with lost hope. He too went to the golden state to find work, but his long and futile attempt saw nothing more than the death of his starved wife and children.

On the left, the story of a recent recession simultaneously unfolded. This time, the house at the center of the stage would look different, but tell a similar story. With white vinyl siding and large glass windows (again projected onto it), the house was symbolic of the optimistic era that expanded the housing bubble beyond all expectation. As the elegant bank worker in a beige pencil skirt and high heals calmly spoke to a frustrated homeowner, the contents of the house were taken apart and the man’s belongings were thrown out. Bear Sterns was doing great, but the average person was losing his home and livelihood.

There was an instance in which the stories began to develop a tie. The narrator spoke of the changes that the old Ohio home began to undergo once its owners left. The surrounding land became infested with weeds, the harsh winds blew open the door, and wild cats were free to roam inside the house. The eerie tone of the old narrative transforms into a comedic act as the audience is taken to 2008. A lady, whose house neighbors an abandoned property, sees wild cats walk inside the house and calls animal control. While talking on the phone, she wanders into the foreclosed home and begins to say how cute the mother cat looks beside her cubs. In a fit of laughter, the audience anticipates the tragic, yet undeniably funny, outturn of events.

Both stories were compelling and worthy of praise, with one brilliant parallel between them. To say that they are two pieces within one puzzle, however, is an overstatement.

For someone like myself, who is not familiar with American history at all, the show House Divided at BAM was merely too confusing. It required too much background information. Even with a little research beforehand, I could not keep on track until a friend of mine kindly whispered reasons into my ears—then I only figured out the most basic part—it was a story showing two time periods, the Great Depression and the Housing Market Crash.

For some reason, before I went to the show, my mind was set on this lie that the whole story took place during the Housing Market Crash only. Thus, during the whole show, I was wondering why people were dressed up as if they were in the Great Depression, so take my advice for this: either do as much research as one can, or don’t do it at all; half way in between can only cause one pain.

Even without my mistake on my own account, however, the House Divided was complicated. Switching between two time periods was a risk that could either ruin the performance or shine a spotlight on it—for me, the experience was somewhat negative. The attempt was understandable. The stage was literarily divided into two in the beginning, one presenting the Stock Exchange and the other setting in John Steinbeck’s novel Grapes of Wrath. Nevertheless, as the story went on, the division became obscure. Sometimes the whole stage was entirely one scene, but within a blink of an eye, it changed to another with the previous scene unfinished. Although the overall storyline was clear, if the audience hadn’t read the novel, it would be hard for them to track the details in both stories—which could only result in confusion in the end.

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It was still worthy. Even with the complication of merging stories, the production itself deserved a pet on the shoulder. The performance still had some highlights to it, and this is from someone who struggled through the entire play. Although puzzling, the visual contrast between the two brought a completely new experience to the audience. The busy transitions, including the lighting, projection and music, allowed people to dissolve into either mood quickly to my surprise (maybe that was the weird part for me, since my mood was transferred but my brain was still processing the previous information). Moreover, the idea of adding projection was fascinating. Within such a tiny stage, the projection enabled a faster and more effective transition of setting, at the same time added a modern taste to the whole production. Only if they could think about the angle of the projection, bacause from where I was sitting, the stage looked broken from the middle sometimes.

Speaking of modern taste, the addition of angled cameras was innovative. House Divided was the first theater play ever I saw that used cameras on stage, and I can be certain that it is not the last time. Since the stage was so tight, it was almost impossible for the actors to face the crowd all at once, but the camera helped them to do so. Also, since there were several scenes involved telephoning, without the cameras, it would have been two people talking to each other across the stage. However, with this technology installed, a much more realistic act became available.

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I have to say, House Divided was a difficult play. Although the necessary details were basic for most people, without which the play could be somehow troubling to understand. However, even solely for the digital effects, the play is worthy to see, not to say the educational value of the production surpassed its challenging plots. By the end of the show, even if one were struggling like me, it won’t be hard for one to realize the impact of this performance within—just like what it felt like for people during the Great Depression and the Housing Market Crash—a feeling of concern, uncertainty and anger.

The Builders Association outdid themselves at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, Harvey Theater, with their new theatrical play using multimedia. Recounting the history of the financial crisis of the housing bubble, “House/Divided,” directed by Marianne Weems, magnificently weaved together the past and present through intricate technology and a creative set. The play was inspired by John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and motivated by discussion of Henrik Ibsen’s The Master Builder. The story was told through two intertwining perspectives: first, from families suffering environmental or financial difficulties that forced them to leave their homes, and two, from brokers and banks that were the forces that made the families leave.

Brooklyn Academy of Music – Harvey Theater. Photo credits to BAM.

Integrating technology and lighting masterfully, the play switched between the Dust Bowl (past) and the housing stock brokers (present). Although consecutively alternating the time frame did initially create confusion, it was not difficult to understand the effect of the technique. The scene of the Dust Bowl was projected onto a house-like platform in the center of stage while the stock brokers were on left stage. Using lights, our attention was focused onto the screening in which we learned how a man-made ecological disaster drove a family out of their homes. Such was juxtaposed with the banks and stock brokers who, in the same way as the Dust Bowl, forced a man to be evicted from his house. The bank was said to be “the monster[; it] has to have profits all the time. It can’t wait. It’ll die.”

A scene in House/Divided where effective image projection and acting on the left side combined to create this new form of multimedia theater. Photo credits to Jay LaPrete.

The most provoking aspect of this would be that Builders Association really emphasized the emotional pain the evicted tenants were when they were forced out of their homes–a place filled with history and memories–rather than provide extraordinary numbers to illustrate a point. The music contributed heavily to such effect, creating high tension with fast techno beats and sorrow with slow paced sounds. We could only watch as workers “trash out” the man’s belongings in his former house. The old saw no future and could only hope that their children could create one.

The actors effectively brought out the complexity of the financial crisis and what led to the great economic downfall. In many parts of the play, there would be non-linear conversations. Multiple people would concurrently speak, making it very difficult to concentrate on their conversations. However, the audience could make out that the workers paid no attention to their superiors, like the stock brokers from Bear Stern ignoring their boss’s executive speech. The actors all spoke clearly and quickly, as if they were in sync with their role as businessmen. The use of overlapping conversations did not create incredible confusion; rather it was used to illustrate the chaos and ignorance that ultimately led to the stock market crash in 2008.

The set was especially impressive and efficient when combined with projection technology. With the help of projection technology, the sides and back stage was able to alternate through the different time periods with ease. At the heart of the stage and play sat a house-like structure. When appropriate images were projected onto it, it was initially used as a screen. Then when the families living in homes were introduced, it became a house. What was even more amazing was that inside the house were the musicians playing instruments. It was difficult to see through the screens that acted as the outer layer of the house but they were there, along with the casts outside, performing on stage. Toward the end, the crew took apart the house, which took very little time, brought out a podium and shown bright lights on its center. And so, the house transformed into an auction center. Once the auction platform had performed its role, it was quickly taken apart and removed from stage to make room for a table in which Alan Greenspan was questioned.

The main set seen in House/Divided. As shown, the house appearance is created by projecting an image onto the movable structure. Also, musicians are inside the home playing instruments for this theatrical piece. Photo credits to BAM.

Simplifying the complexity of the housing bubble was no easy task but Builders Association pulled it off marvelously. It was stunning that the first comment during the Talk Back session by an elderly woman was, “YOU BLEW IT!” She criticized the play had failed its purpose to engage the audience and leave them with feelings of anger or emotion. It was not wise for director Weems to shut her down and ignored her criticism. She could have responded in a friendly manner, even if it was to move on to the next questioner. That said, what the elderly woman said was not accurate. The play was provoking, but in a subtle manner. It left the audiences with a good grasp of our financial crisis and exhibited the emotional pain and sufferings the evicted tenants had to face. We might not leave wanting to eradicate banks all over the nation, but we should leave thinking how we would “[remake] a house that is undone physically and economically.”

I very much liked “House Divided” at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. I think the show was very successful in portraying the crisis through a particular lens. As evidenced by the Q&A session, there was much frustration and almost disdain for the producers and directors of the program. I think the program depicted Wall Street’s role in the crisis very vividly, especially when the mortgage processor was told it wasn’t her place to question the firm’s decisions. The moving stock tickers above the stage were an excellent touch. The young man who played one of the stock traders was excellent. He showed his role versatility and far outshined all the other actors/actresses in the show.

From Google Images

The audio was very clear; especially considering how high and far back we were sitting. I believe the use of props and scenery was very well done. The house that was able to allow the audience to see inside was magnificent, nothing I’ve ever seen before. The juxtaposition of the Dust Bowl and the displacement of a family with the foreclosure of a home were very vivid.

During the Q&A session, one member of the audience voices her very negative opinion of the program very clearly. She almost needed to be pushed away from the mic, and the Q&A couldn’t shake the negative tone brought on by the first question/statement. It was truly a disappointment.

While the play was very good, I was very disappointed that the Q&A was not more of a view into the minds of the actors, producers, and directors.