"Melting Bridge' by Thaddeus Phillips

Through a geography lesson, darkly

STEVE COHEN

The Melting Bridge is the conclusion of playwright/producer Thaddeus Phillips’s "American trilogy." His creative group, known as Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental, is attempting to explore the cultures of the American continents.

One of the things I like best about Phillips is his background of performing in many countries and his broad worldview. That’s on display in The Melting Bridge. But this play lacks the feel for life in the U.S. that was such a strong presence in last year’s Flamingo/Winnebago, where his characters traveled from New Jersey to Las Vegas. Also, Melting Bridge lacks the laughs that brightened parts of Flamingo/Winnebago. That’s intentional. Phillips and his team say that The Melting Bridge is the company’s darkest work, as it suggests a calamitous change in the world’s geography in the near future.

More so than the group's earlier works, this “quest play” focuses on a single character: an American toilet-paper sales rep, played by Phillips. He’s on a sales trip to Mexico and simultaneously trying to connect with his elusive father.

Dad is an archeology professor who was fired by Harvard for espousing a non-standard opinion about the formation of the American continents. He has left a set of diagrams for his son, showing that South America at one time was connected to Africa and also to Australia. Dad also holds an untraditional view about the link between Russia and Alaska. This isn’t a Sarah Palin commentary, but I’m not sure exactly what it is. To the best of my knowledge, there’s no debate that there once was a link across the Bering Straits that explains a commonality among Siberians, Eskimos, Aztecs and Incas.

While the sales rep tries to trace his father’s steps, the professor apparently pursues a mysterious quest of his own. At times he reminds me of The Wanderer in the Ring of the Nibelungen. At others, he reminds me of Nicole Canuso’s Wandering Alice at this year’s Fringe Festival.

Phillips’s signature style consists of seemingly casual language and rambling action, combined with high-tech visual projections, all accompanied by live music. The Melting Bridge, more so than his earlier plays, includes extremely well coordinated visuals. Subway trains move across the stage on one level while passengers walk down to another level where they patronize a newsstand. Winds howl and snow drifts across the stage. Boats move upstream through a jungle while people climb into swaying hammocks.

My wife, who has visited many of the locales portrayed in The Melting Bridge, says Phillips has captured them authentically. But for most theatergoers won’t make such a personal connection. Then, too, some of the dialogue is in Spanish and Portuguese. I wish I understood those languages; ideally, all of us should. But many of us don’t, and the projected English translations are not easily visible. So the people and the action in The Melting Bridge don’t endear themselves to us as much as the road trippers in Flamingo/Winnebago.

In comparison with Wandering Alice, one difference stands out: Wandering Alice involved the audience, but The Melting Bridge keeps us at a distance, geographically as well as emotionally.

Tatiana Mallarino co-designed and co-wrote this play, and she appeared as a cryptic newsstand lady. Juan Gabriel Turbay composed and performs the Latin-flavored score, and also played supporting roles. Drew Billiau deserves high credit for his lighting.