cibad_TiME

Lars Jan, working with Early Morning Opera, wrote, directed, and designed The Institute of Memory (TiME), performed for Ontheboards.tv in 2017. The set, a ceiling of bright white neon tubes appears aesthetic, but in a moment of transition, becomes the back wall. Later it becomes the flow indicating the ground plan of Jan’s father’s apartment. Beyond its novelty, the set’s contribution to the piece accents Jan’s multiple uses of memory asking the question: how does memory affect narrative?

Lacking a linear plot and fully realized characters, the benefits of TiME are as a piece that defies traditional conventions. Each moment is unexpected—Jan weaves the ghost from Hamlet, transcripts from the Polish Secret Police, memories from his father and mother’s challenging relationship, medical transcripts, and a variety of imagined moments to explore the limitation of memory. The soundscape includes a variety of vocal distortions and symphony that Jan’s father gifted him, only added to the mystery and reflection that reverberates throughout the piece.

One of the most thrilling conceits of the play is the ability for the two actors to jump in and out of characters. Although it is very clear that they play a variety of characters from the onset, one lengthy series of extremely short scenes in the middle requires each actor to proclaim their character each time: “Playing the role of the man who will be the father” “Playing the son” “Playing the soon-to-be wife of the son.” Although Jan seems to draw from the healthy legacy of nonrealistic performances, the narrative reshapes and resurfaces to adjust to the various needs of the moment. To call these Brechtian would not only an understanding, it would be a disservice.

Instead, each moment vacillates between humor and pathos, making it all the more difficult to respond to the memories that Jan has collected in any coherent way. But this lack of coherency, which defies simple analysis, is one of the strengths of the piece. Early on, lengthy description of Jan’s memories of the apartment appear random, but through the length of the piece, the place where Jan’s father lived and died, create all the more value. By the end the paranoia that Jan admits he shares with his father resound as part of the contemporary post-COVID world.