`Body Leaks’ challenging production

When is the last time you stared into the eyes of a stranger? For approximately 80 theatergoers at Hauck Auditorium, it was Sunday night when Jo Ann Schmidman of Omaha Magic Theatre asked half the audience to look to the left and half to look right during the “inner audience interaction” period of the whirlingly mosaiclike show “Body Leaks,” jointly sponsored by the University of Maine department of theater/dance and the Maine Center for the Arts.

“This is your chance to look, really look at another human being,” she explained from the stage. “Find someone and look deep, deeper.” One woman grabbed the head of a young man in front of her, and they stared at each other until he giggled and she gave a broad smile. Others nervously shuffled in their seats, a little uncertain, perhaps a bit intimidated by the task handed them.

But everyone knew the overriding message of the request: take a risk and let go of propriety, or, as Schmidman calls it in program notes, censorship.

Throughout the performance, an engaging multimedia montage of artistic forms, the five-woman troupe raced around stage presenting vignettes and monologues about how our vulnerabilities leak forth from our bodies and words despite all steely efforts to keep them hidden. Alternating between the funny quirks and the debilitating dependencies of humans, the show packed a wallop about the way truth gets twisted and essense gets buried in everyday life.

Though the script had an improvisational immediacy, it was masterfully and intricately woven, by 1960s feminist voice Megan Terry, along with artistic director-actor Schmidman and set designer-actor Sora Kimberlain.

While one woman delivered a story about why whales don’t have hemorrhoids, or how “family garbage” weighs us down emotionally, another actor scooted to overhead projectors to prepare the backdrop images. At the same time, someone else ran to the wings to change costumes and character, or to a prop table to pick up one of what seemed like a zillion props. Wearing three-bun-high wigs, crash helmets, sunglasses, or a wardrobe of costumes, these actors slipped in and out of roles like a kaleidescope changes colors: fluidly, unpredictably, and colorfully. Far-out synthesized music and sounds written by Luigi Waites, and performed on stage by funky keyboardist Krystal Kremla and Terry, firmly held the action together.

Confusing and personal as much of the 90-minute show was with its collage art, breast bearing, and adage hurling, it also exemplified avant-garde theater in the postmodernist era, and was an unusual and challenging treat for local theater folks — actors and viewers alike. As performers, Schmidman, Terry, Kimberlain, and Hollie McClay did supreme justice to the craft not only in onstage actions, but in the tight organization and elegant orchestration of this mind-bogglingly demanding piece.

At least half the crowd hung back afterward to speak with company members who happily sat on the edge of the stage and discussed theater.