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Poetry in Motion: Behind the
Broken Words
Even in this rapidly evolving world of
new media, where information is disseminated in sound bites and megabytes, some
things, like the beauty of the spoken word, must be absorbed slowly in order to
be appreciated.
 In the spring of 1983,
shortly after Anthony Zerbe and Roscoe
Lee Browne and debuted
Behind The Broken Words, their critically acclaimed celebration of
20th-century poetry and drama, on the New York stage, I was sitting in a
classroom in Moraga, California, a freshman at Saint Mary's College making his
first acquaintance with T.S. Eliot's epic poem of
life, love, and existential yearning, "The
Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock."
It was a significant time in
my life. I was 19 years old, still fresh from a series of epiphanous experiences
that previous fall from which I discovered a sense of self, both as a person and as a writer. It was then that I knew a writer was what I wanted to be.
And I knew it was significant, too.
I remember being incredibly attuned to words
and the enormity of their powers, the way every pore in your body screams with
energy when you're in the first throes of a new love.
It was incredibly
invigorating. The image of Eliot's sad little man leapt from the page as we read
each stanza aloud,
and I remember understanding Prufrock's plight ("Do I
dare eat a peach?") with a clarity I've rarely experienced with any other
poem I've ever read.
Fast-forward to a crisp Friday night
at Stanford University, nearly 15 years later. Zerbe, Browne, and Behind
The Broken Words are in the Bay Area for one night only. This English major
has the opportunity to see the show Zerbe told me about the year before, when I interviewed him
about his days on
Harry O.
It's an unique evening that, to borrow an
adage, promises both something old and something new. From the trappings of a
traditional night at the theater emerges a wonderfully evocative experience,
tantamount to discovering the beauty of the spoken word for the very first time.
 It's also a show that's hard to
describe. It's not exactly a poetry reading, though Zerbe and Browne do read
from William Butler Yeats, W.H. Auden, Robinson Jeffers, Dylan Thomas,
Seamus Heaney, Derek Wolcott, and other modern-day poets and dramatists. It's
neither a play, nor a dramatic reading of a play, yet as we watch these actors
weave their way through a series of characters (the burned-out businessmen in
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "Junkman's
Obbligato," the lusty gods in Jean Girandoux's "Amphitryon '38," the foolish shepherds inventing a deadly
game in Edna St. Vincent Millay's "Aria da Capo"), we see it's an evening that's thematic
and theatrical.
Love, war, men, women, life, death, and all that comes in
between are brought to life, from the absurdity of Zerbe's artist who paints in
the dark so as not to confuse art with reality (from e.e. cummings' "The
Very
Latest School in Art") to the horrific indignity of a man
tarred, feathered and about to be hung (Browne performing a passage from Richard
Wright's "Between the World and Me").
At the very least, it's a great excuse to enjoy two of the most dynamic
theatrical presences of our time together on the same stage.
Part of the charm of this uncommon
evening comes from the fact that the audience does not receive the list of selections
until the end of the show. No reading along, no preconceived notions. You have
to listen, and therefore leave yourself to open to experience the words as
perhaps you never have before.
Zerbe and Browne wind down the evening
with a stirring rendering of "J. Alfred Prufrock." By this time my
companion and I are literally on the edge of our seats, completely mesmerized--and for a few wondrous moments,
I'm that 19-year-old kid again, falling in love
with words for the very first time.
Behind the Broken Words
is
one of several productions presented throughout the year by Poetry in Motion,
the theatrical company featuring Zerbe, Browne, and a number of other performers
who do extraordinary things with the spoken word. For a complete list of
performances and schedules, visit their web page at
www.poetinmo.com.
This article was originally
written for
New Media Review.
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Ed
Robertson's articles appear in
MediaLifeMagazine.com,
The Wave Magazine,
Bell TV Magazine,
TV Party.com,
Television Chronicles,
Reel Talk,
San
Franciso Giants Magazine,
and the British magazine
Calafia,
as well as media venues like
Columbia
House,
the world’s largest direct marketer
of music, DVDs and videos.
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