Societas Rafaello Sanzio’s “Hey?Girl!” at the Museum of Contemporary Art
When it comes to trashing the theater, no one does it quite as startlingly and beautifully as director Romeo Castellucci. Societas Rafaello Sanzio’s brilliant “Hey Girl!” begins with a glistening, dripping cocoon pulsing atop a harshly florescent-lit examination table, from which a dazed, naked young woman erupts, and her journey of self-discovery unfurls amidst an onslaught of exquisitely chaotic debris. A cluster of fifty-plus men barrel onstage to assault our heroine with pillows; large, round glass disks almost invisibly suspended from the ceiling shatter spontaneously; a mysterious spear-wielding woman slathers her fully nude body with dripping silver paint, then dances on the scattered shards. All the while, that cocoon continues oozing into a pile on the floor, daring us to look again. And again.
Best of Chicago 2008
