By Brian Gray
The Heart by Kaltin Kirby, a 2016 Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival award winner, is one of the only, if not the only, piece of verbatim theatre at the GSL Fringe Festival this year. For the uninitiated, verbatim theatre is a type of theatre that is created through various interviews with individuals on a certain topic. The artist then performs the interviews, doing their best to recreate everything said throughout the interviews from the perspective of the interviewee. This re-creation includes verbal pauses and gestures. In a way, the actor attempts to dissolve into the interviewee, taking on as many aspects of their personality as possible. This form of theatre is comparable to hyperrealism in painting. Hyperrealism is where a painter attempts to recreate a photograph with paint so exact that it is difficult to distinguish between the photograph and the painting, beckoning the viewer to ponder where artistic interpretation begins, how the artist chooses what to include and what not to include, and so forth.
The theme of Kirby’s production seems to revolve around being alive, and what it means to be alive. Kirby reenacts each interview, attempting to take on the personality of each interviewee as they struggle to honestly answer the questions, such as “What does it mean to be alive?” “When was the last time you cried in public?” and so forth. What struck me is how each individual wrestles with the question at first, rolling ideas around in their mind for several moments. After a while, each interview centers around a story. For one individual, it was describing a moment on her LDS mission when she broke down crying. For another, it was an experience with a recent ex-partner. For another it was describing the experience of a friend dying after a night of heavy drinking, concluding that you can have shadows, but you can’t let demons haunt you.
Kirby does a fantastic job of dissolving into each interviewee. This is no easy task, as he must bend his acting several times throughout the production to become more effeminate or more masculine depending on what each piece called for. At one moment, he re-creates an interview of someone who struggles with conflicts that arise through bi-raciality. This beckons the audience to question how much can be re-created? While the artist tries to remain faithful to each interviewee, word-for-word, how much can the artist recreate this experience? How much is an artist limited by the depths or shallowness of their own experience? This question is persistent across all mediums: how much can an artist remain true to their experience in creating art? How much are they limited by their perspective? I found it very interesting that these questions arose within myself based on a play that asks participants what it means to be alive. How much can one authentically be alive or feel alive?
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Aside from the meta-interpretations that can be extrapolated from this piece, the entire one-man performance of The Heart has a fantastic range of emotion. As Kirby transitions between each character, the audience is presented with a range of stories, all of which are genuinely a part of the human experience. If you are looking for a production that is touching and emotional, then I urge you to catch this production at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival.
Kaltin Kirby presents The Heart at the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival
The Gateway, 110 S Rio Grande St, Salt Lake City, UT 84101
8/10 10:30 PM; 8/11 4:30 PM; 8/12 6:00 PM
Festival admission $5, show tickets $10
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