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Unfortunately, once he flags examples of this quality and then applies it as the premise of critique for Dolores Wilber’s Two Men Are Dead Continued, it is clear that it’s not grounds for determination. Do bare-breasted women, a man donning a wedding dress and performers covered with ladybugs constitute the shocking (extraordinary) acts that Brennan believes they do? No, not as isolated acts in the culture that we live in nor when looked at in the context of the work. Here they produce gut-level reactions and add to a performance that questions ideas of judgment and responsibility.
Let’s hope that Terry Brennan’s prescription for pieces of art with a chance of success is not followed by future artists. The results may be theatrical but the work, while striving to be extraordinary, may ignore a whole range of emotions, complex and worthy of exploration.
