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Ligia Lewis: Water Will (in Melody). 2.12.18, HAU 2, Berlin.

I cannot tell you all of the references, but I can see them, like trees in a forest whose names I do not know, and I can hear what they say: hear the tongue slide into the South as a story of Gothic America to be repeated as a tale of the Brothers Grimm. In new operatic fashion, the four characters feel and look as glossy and unrelatable as the pool of black floor on which they move, swift and unpredictable as checkers on a board, but not without purpose: they flicker in and out as the hi-tech scenography shows us different types of darkness. A close, syrupy, understanding voice, so understanding that we know it cannot be true, speaks of the naturalness of the fear of darkness, and yet those stacked bodies look so familial against the contrast of their garments black and white. We are asked to look into darkness, to be with it, to see it when we cannot, when we think it is hard, or is nothing, or is a time to take a nap. It’s not.