"The Brig" is, again, filmed theatre. Several (though it is true, not many) theatrical ellipses serve to skip a few hours in the diegisis, so the two hour film represents I believe a day and a half. However, it is a very interesting attempt to approach form and content. The Living Theatre production of this play documenting scenes in an abusive prison/work camp was staged inside a cage. Jonas Mekas, upon seeing the play in New York in 1961, decided during the first act that he wanted to film it. He left the theatre before seeing the end, so he would discover it while filming, and would have to react in real time with his hand-held camera among the actors. The play closed before Mekas could organize his production, but the Living Theatre was interested in making the film. So one night, before the set was taken down, they snuck into the theatre late at night, and filmed the play straight through. Mekas filmed it single-handedly, with an assistant or two for the lights and sound, and a few friends in attendance (one filmed him filming). Mekas did not do second takes, and his brother Adolfas assembled the film on the editing table. He and his brother, Lithuanians, were both in Nazi forced labor camps in Germany between 1942 and 1944, and were then in displaced persons camps for five years until their first arrival in New York where they have lived ever since. The film places Mekas (behind his camera - so the viewer too) in both the position of a prisoner and an outsider; that the takes are so long and unsteady fits right in with the nature of the action that we, too, are "forced" to watch. The dark, expressionist lighting, the ever-present cage bars, the clandestine and fugitive nature of the film shoot, the poor quality of the sound recording, and especially the real/reel time factor, all help bridge the gap between form and content. The film has the feel of a documentary, and yet it is unmistakenly theatre, with dramatic codes, ellipses, transitions, etc. At the same time, it is clandestine, underground theatre, filmed in secret and against regulations by underground filmmakers, so there is a part of truth in what we see. A perverse exercise in documenting a fiction, the scenes in "The Brig" that last ten minutes without a cut are justified and interesting, and would be much less so if filmed otherwise. -Pip Chodorov ---- To signoff SCREEN-L, e-mail [log in to unmask] and put SIGNOFF SCREEN-L in the message. Problems? Contact [log in to unmask]