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"Woyzeck", German playwright and essayist Georg Büchner's unfinished 1836 groundbreaking delineation of lust, betrayal, murder and madness refracted through the prism of the 1820s Leipzig murder trial and execution of Johann Christian Woyzeck, has long sat preeminently upon the pantheon of modern Western drama. First published in 1879 -- some 42 years after Büchner's premature death at 24 -- "Woyzeck" first came into prominence with the rise of German Expressionism following the first World War. Playwrights and theater artists such as Alban Berg, Elmer Rice and particularly Bertolt Brecht found a deep affinity with Büchner's portrayal of the hapless Woyzeck as a kind of all-purpose whipping boy/guinea pig for the brutal and nameless minions of the Oppressive State. Due in part to the malleable nature of its unfinished structure, "Woyzeck" retained relevance as the 20th Century progressed, showing its influence upon plays from Samuel Beckett's "Waiting for Godot" in the 1950s thru Sarah Kane's "Cleansed" in the late 1990s. Active Eye's current New York production, having a much-too-brief run at The Culture Project in the East Village, has fashioned a new "Woyzeck" for a new millennium, and theirs is a remarkable accomplishment indeed. Where once it was deemed cutting-edge to have a doomed, pissed-upon wretch as a protagonist, director Jyana S. Gregory rightly assumes that at this point, we're all doomed wretches pissed upon at will by an oppressive state, and it is time to move poor Woyzeck into new territory. Working with composer Rika Iino and scientist-musician Ben Brown, Gregory and her cast have fashioned a "Woyzeck" that may be best described as a stifling world of madness viewed from the inside out. Incorporating "bio-electric waves" (i.e., sampled human heartbeats and brain waves) into Iino's inspired piano improvisations and sprinkled with more hot-keyed sound effects than a Merrie Melodie cartoon, this "Woyzeck" resonates within an enveloping soundscape that ricochets about the smoky, cavernous stage like shrieks of madness howling inside a tormented cranium. Gregory's quasi-choreographed, marionette-inspired direction of her able cast further complements this skewed world. Standouts include Andrew Grusetskie's Doctor, who moves like the Tin Man on steroids, and Kristine Kuroiwa's Captain, a ludicrously obese example of itchy, oblivious self-importance. In the lead role, Dustin Tucker admirably maintains a desperate grasp on the shreds of Woyzeck's tattered humanity while being pushed by Gregory to near-constant frenetic extremes. Emily Raboteau descends with a nice turn (and possibly Büchner's most succinctly sustained writing) as a gumball-popping fraulein late in the show. Written
more than a century and a half ago in the fevered state of a brilliant
young man facing imminent exposure and incarceration for espousing
political beliefs at seditious odds with those of the ruling regime,
Büchner created theater art that has adapted and morphed -- as all
great art does -- to continue to address the concerns of artists railing
against an ever-changing yet ever-oppressive world. From Brecht to
Beckett to Sartre to Foucault to Kane, Büchner's legacy has stretched
unbroken nearly a century now. With this presentation of "Woyzeck",
Active Eye has added a worthy link to this estimable chain. "Woyzeck",
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