Mahinerator – 15 January 2024
Mahinerator at The Tank NYC was, in a word, baffling, to me. Though certain concepts were very clever, it required a very high level of intensely focused attention not to lose track of the ideas and images being described—especially with the added layer of metaphors.
This 90 minute monologue spoke strongly to the level at which people in different economic situations fail to understand one another. It might as well be entirely made up words, because the words said by a defendant at a trial are often largely irrelevant—a verdict has often been preconceived, and the trial is to confirm the bias. It is widely known and easily researched that certain judges have records of consistently ruling in particular directions, and when a defendant is up against bureaucracy or themselves a part of it, the trial is more of a formality than due process.
Mahinerator had a lot of good talking points about placement of blame and the ease of theft of ideas, and some of the moments were evocative of Lennie in Of Mice and Men, whose clumsy blundering and misunderstanding make him simultaneously in need of protection and able to protect himself out of simple miscalculations—like in Mahinerator, when the protagonist cut off the hand that was trapped in the rat trap. In his head, it wasn’t a crime or a permanent decision, just a way to stop the yelling.
Mahinerator went back and forth between the idea of being the common man and being the bureaucrat—not everyone who lacks power also lacks agency, and not everyone whose rise to power is impossible lacks the ambition and desire for control. I felt that the messages this show delivered were complex and profound.
However—the style of storytelling, which included bilingual elements and made up words, significantly hindered my ability to follow every detail, and I felt like when I missed something it took me a long time catch up and figure out which unfamiliar words meant what and where we were in the timeline. Having the actor stuck behind the table with his pages was not visually dynamic, despite use of lights and sound to aid certain moments.
The delivery felt very uneven, and there were moments when the voice inflection really helped, and moments where a momentary lapse of understanding cascaded into lengthy periods of trying to catch myself up and replay the words in my head while missing the current words. Ultimately, I walked out with a vague idea of what I had seen, and a couple of interesting thoughts about how no matter what we say and no matter how we say it, a great number of people do not understand how to communicate effectively, especially in situations with power imbalances.
A story and style like this would be incredibly effective in smaller bursts. I understand that part of the point was the length—you can babble for hours and have a very precise detailed account of what happened and still not be heard and understood. However, this format is better suited to making political statements in the genre of short videos—this is the kind of concept my peers would watch on Youtube and Instagram in short installments, laugh at, and absolutely agree with. They would binge watch short clips and playlists of this politically charged absurd exaggeration of how little people at the top understand of people at the bottom’s need for truth and how little people at the bottom understand of the people at the top’s indifference to truth. Alternatively, this exact text would work well as a screenplay if the monologue was accompanied by cutaway images that clarified the tangible meaning of some of these made up words and concepts—for example, seeing Blake and the workplace while listening to this story would effectively straddle the line between miscommunication as a literary device and clear communication of the ideas about muscommunicaiton.
Mahinerator was a great reminder of how different we are and how influenced we are by the limitations and freedoms dictated by our position in life. That being said, in practice, it was not a great theatrical experience. It was confusing, difficult to follow, at times incredibly monotonous, and far too long for the ideas it wanted to convey. The audience was falling in and out of engagement with the production; as previously stated, I think there are other mediums for this type of experimental artistic expression. A 90 minute solo show just wasn’t the right one.
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