Habit at MASS MoCA
Posted by: Bess Hochstein
Posted on: Tuesday, February 15, 2011
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Full Article
Thursday, February 24 through Sunday, February 27
If reality TV is not quite real enough for you, try Habit, which is being called an installation/durational event/realist play, but not reality theater, because it is scripted—though that may be hard to tell. Created by Berlin-based theater artist David Levine, Habit centers on a fully-functioning ranch house, complete with working plumbing and appliances, designed by part-time South Egremont resident Marsha Ginsberg, who found much of the furnishings at Habitat for Humanity’s local ReStore in Pittsfield. The actors inhabit the set and perform continuous loops of the script, but the action changes depending on their real-life needs: they cook when they’re hungry; they rest when they’re tired; and they may even take a shower if they want to. The audience can drop in at any time and stay for as long as they are engaged, which, at the piece’s first staging at Robert Wilson’s “performance laboratory,” Watermill Center, often turned out to be several hours. Choose your vantage point: peer in through the windows; circumnavigate the structure’s footprint; or make it into a reality-TV-like experience by watching the live, eight-camera video feed. This work-in-progress showing precedes Habit’s debut this summer at Toronto’s Luminato Festival.
MASS MoCA Hunter Center
North Adams, MA
