Review: Tao of Glass

Tao of Glass is more than a music and puppet show as the promotional materials suggested. It integrates elements of drama, shadow show, mime, talk show and even lecture. This two and a half hour long work is the creation of the director Phelim McDermot and Kirsty Housley, which draw inspirations from the former’s encounter with the minimalism guru Philip Glass.

The performance begins in a very interesting way. After the house lights are dimmed, there is a middle-aged man seemingly looking for his seat at the front row, it is not until he goes up to the stage that the audiences realise he is McDermot.

He then goes on with his monologue, sharing his experiences with theatre from a teenager to a director. Occasionally he demands simple answers from the audience, just like a talk show in the night club. He even jokes about Glass that he used to drive his parents crazy by playing the repetitive music of Glass ‘on repeat’, or he once bored Glass to sleep, a man who put so many audiences to sleep in concert halls.

McDermot has deliberately selected three failure theatrical experiences to talk about in the first half: he was absent from his first theatre show due to overexcitement; the incomplete collaboration with the renowned illustrator Maurice Sendak because of his untimely death; the last minute call off of the workshop with Glass since his sudden illness. The first half ends with McDermot sitting at the centre of the stage in despair.

And this is how tao kicks in. As the philosophy of Taoism puts emphasis on nothingness, believing things evolve naturally from nothing. It was exactly out of loss and emptiness born the show Tao of Glass. McDermot symbolises this revelation by attaching sheets of music score (which suggests the presence of Glass) all over his body, then pulls them off, as if a butterfly coming out from its chrysalis.

Kintsugi, a traditional Japanese art to repair broken pottery by mending the pieces with seams of gold, is also an important concept in the show, which alludes that what’s broken can be more beautiful.

McDermot also introduces the concept of “Deep Democracy” by psychologist Arnold Mindell, in which there are three levels of mind state: Consensus Reality, Dreamland and Essence. He replicates the exercise he did with Glass to reach to the deepest Essence level, with the aim to search for tao, by pretending to be in a coma. That was how the music was composed by Glass for the show: they came out naturally during the exercise that even the composer couldn’t explain, which answers the fundamental question raised in the early state of the performance: where does the music come from? It is from nothingness, it is from tao.

Glass has composed 10 original pieces for the show which are played by a group of four musicians, led by the percussionist Chris Vatalaro. The soundtrack-like music fits the atmosphere well. The players observe what is going on the stage closely and change the music immediately. Sometimes they even need to do foley.

Apart from the music and the staging, the technical aspects of the stage such as lighting are well designed and executed. There is one scene where McDermot and three puppeteers need to set up a stage for a shadow show within a short period. The result is just perfect and poetic.

Although the Tao of Glass is a slow-paced performance full of philosophical concepts that the audiences may need time to digest, it reminds me of a one-man show called Sing Brother Sing by renowned Chinese bass-baritone Tian Haojiang performed in Hong Kong in 2013. Both are a recollection of personal theatrical life and indeed a love letter to the theatre.