Bob Eisen and Sheldon B. Smith
Eisen has a physical presence onstage, a sheer emotional intensity that pushes you into the back of your seat. But it doesn’t lead to an emotional connection with the audience. Onstage Eisen simply does what he does, like a force of nature or the physical manifestation of his own extraordinary will. His dances and his presence remind us again and again that he’s alone.
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Niat-pac starts with Eisen by himself standing and looking at a corner of the room. He twists one shoulder in toward his chest, then leans that entire side forward slightly. He returns to standing, then begins to move his arms and torso straight up, forward, or to the side. Each move is deliberate, separated from the others by small pauses. He continues to move through a series of poses until he’s lying on his back on the floor. Alone. Lying like a corpse. Then the dance part begins. Three female dancers enter and stand looking at the same corner he was looking at. They start to move, using the same movement that he introduced though they don’t repeat his style of moving.
The music Smith creates is generic rock and roll, but somehow it sounds different; his wordless wail is somewhere between a Led Zeppelin falsetto scream and a sliding bolero singer’s voice. Eventually the singer mumbles some lyrics: “Hey, Radon man, why are you so nervous? What are those shades, covering what kind of insecurity? Show me some of those killer chords you know” and “Where’s this leading? The girls want to know.” Then he does some straightforward guitar playing with satisfying chord changes. It’s uncertain whether the inside jokes in this parody filled with self-deprecating humor are accessible to a general audience. But I enjoyed it.
