Rinde Eckert Divines for New Ideas Performer Extraordinaire Delivers One-Man Show, "An Idiot Divine," Using Sorrowful Twists and Hysterical Turns--Putting His Audience on an Emotional Roller Coaster

Author: Crystalyn Radcliffe

Once in a while theater takes you to both extremes of the emotional continuum and back again. Bouncing between sorrow and delight, you are left anywhere but in between.
When a joke can just as quickly become a dismal commentary on human nature, and a funny quirk turn to angry, psychotic behavior, you no longer exist in a world of logical action, but rather experience that which is called theatrical expression.
Rinde Eckert's performance last Friday offered new perspective to the possibilities of theater. Combining his seemingly limitless talents, Eckert astounded the audience at Wright Memorial Theatre, making hours feel like minutes.
Written, composed and performed by Eckert, his two-act performance, entitled,"An Idiot Divine," was part of the Performing Arts Series for the Tenth Anniversary Celebration of the Center for the Arts.
Eckert's first act, "Dry Land Divine," opened with a brief narrative about a man in Ford, Wyo., incarcerated for killing his brother but released on parole several years later, never to be heard from again. While in jail, he wrote an account of a practice known as divining, in which one searches for water using a wire hanger.
Eckert's voice penetrated the dark theater with haunting resonance, setting the scene for an eerie performance where the lines between humor and lunacy blurred. The set design consisted simply of a minister's cloth hung on a wire hanger, dangling center stage.
The audience was quickly alerted that this was a deeply biblical piece, linking the practice of divining (strengthened also by the word's double meaning) to a search for God. Lighting was effectively used to highlight the symbolic hanging cross (the hanger and cloth) behind the performer as well as by creating a trinity using Eckert and his shadows on opposite walls during one especially intense scene.
Interludes of accordion music accompanied by Eckert's haunting tenor voice were enough to give anyone chills.
Appealing to both the intellectual and emotional, Eckert produced an overall experience that had depth and meaning far beyond its provincial narrative.
Ultimately, it was a disturbing piece about the complex relationship between religion and science, and the limitations of both epistemologies.
The second act, "The Idiot Variations," was a simultaneously hysterical and grave piece dealing symbolically with questions about the qualifications and value of knowledge and wisdom.
Performed in an Irish accent, "An Idiot Divine" had audience members bursting out in laughter at Eckert's ridiculous observations about the unique personalities of each of his fingers and the basic nature of the male species. While humorous, his narrative also hit solemn notes in which his character, a self-proclaimed idiot, realized something disturbing about human nature and his own destitution.
Combining these comedic and tragic elements into one narrative, Eckert highlighted the dependence of one on another; without comedy there is no tragedy and vice versa.
Appearing on stage harnessed with different instruments, including a tuba, an accordion, a guitar, a small flute and some bells, Eckert carefully distributed them about the stage, creating spatial limits for his scene.
He alternated between all of the instruments, conveying different emotions with his playing. Working within these limits, the performance implied the restrictions of theater as well as its potential to combine different forms of meaning and expression to create a fuller experience.
Eckert's performance was a brilliant exploration of sight, sound and narrative, taking his audience from high to low in a momentary switch of tone. In reaching his goal of creating a "fiercely interdisciplinary" theatrical production, the performance necessitated thought about what we consider to be knowledge.
If an idiot can communicate to our souls through music, is he still an idiot? If religion can lead us to scientific discoveries, are our notions of them as exclusive ideologies accurate? Perhaps we should start noticing connections where we see only differences, wisdom where we see naiveté and intelligence where we see only uninformed sentiment.