I think the reason so many people like poetry is because poetry is impossible to explain. It’s the promise but sometimes elusive sense that there’s some meaning contained within, and therefore a sense of discovery is inherent with understanding. But yet, poetry on its own is often void of one central theme and requires each reader to bring his or her own life experiences to bring the words to life.

Mr. Crow is what I would call theatrical poetry. The show itself presents a series of vignettes centered around one boy’s suicide. Some of it is immersive and most of it features a traditional proscenium. Some of it is multimedia and some of it is just plain weird.

As far as I could tell, the show has no plot. Instead, the audience is witness to thoughts, musings, conversations, and images focused on a boy’s decision to take his own life. Overall, though, the sum of its parts are greater than the whole, as the show comes across as indescribable as the intention of suicide itself.

The show begins with your being guided into the Son of Semele Theater by a robotic man and a masked woman. Neither of these characters is explicitly described — and by the end of it, I was still trying to piece together their exact purpose in the show. You enter into a room full of voice recorders, all playing back pieces of a central conversation (presumably the last conversation before the boy’s suicide) between him and a friend about different meanings of life, what life means to others, and whether or not you’re the sole owner of your own life. Of all the “pieces” of the show, I have to say this was my favorite.

If I can describe it, imagine walking into a room full of voice recorders hanging from the ceiling. The audience is never asked to touch these recorders, instead, we’re asked to place our head next to each as we wander around the room. With each message, you pick up a small piece of the larger conversation. As you explore further, you begin to piece together the beginning, middle, and end — discovering the pieces of the conversation that will be brought up throughout the show. And it worked.

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It was akin to a simplified version of Scout Expedition Co.’s The Nest. It was the most immersive side of the show and it showed real thought and intuition. And it was great to see non-immersive goers explore this concept. After a few minutes, we’re asked to take our seats and with an abrupt halt, the immersive portion of the show came to a stop.

The remaining hour or so of the show was a multimedia cluster with on/off stage cameras and projectors all working to supplement the movement happening on stage. All of these pieces worked to tell audio/visual poetry that seemed mostly random, save for those clued into the show’s structure. If the show was intending to leave me with a profound intellectual journey, it left me wanting. However, the show did well in expressing emotion. The uneasiness, the constant questioning, the paranoia. All of these small vignettes worked to express emotions, ideas, feelings really, that imparted the internal struggle that one has to go through in such an intense time in their life. In this way, the show was successful albeit strange and experimental. As a workshop piece, the strangeness is understandable. It’s a series of concepts, most of which work on some level but are not yet ready for the primetime.

Overall, this is not an immersive piece, but rather a piece of experimental theater that stumbled onto some really great ideas. I have to empathize with the work and respect the positives in the creators showcased. Workshops like this are the breeding ground for larger, more profound works. But, as with poetry, I feel that I need to experience the work multiple times in order to best realize the intent behind each individual stanza.

Mr. Crow has concluded. Learn more about Son of Semele.

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