Schick Returning to Z Space for Music Theater

Poster for the revival of Schick Machine with a photograph taken from the 2016 performance (courtesy of Paul Dresher)

In a little over one month’s time, percussion virtuoso Steven Schick will return to Z Space for a second round of four performances of Schick Machine, which was last performed on September 23, 2016. The music for this production was composed by Paul Dresher; and the script was written by Rinde Eckert, who will again serve as Director. As can seen in the above poster for this revival, Schick is required to play an astonishingly large number of musical instruments invented by Dresher and/or Daniel Schmidt, as well as mechanical sound sculptures created by Matt Heckert.

The narrative for this production was inspired by Labyrinths, the New Directions anthology of both stories and poems by Jorge Luis Borges. Those familiar with these stories know that they are brief; but, no matter how short they are, they abound with twists and turns. As Eckert put it in his program notes for the 2016 performance, Borges inspired the character of Lazlo Klangfarben, “or rather Steve Schick as a man unable to remember Steve Schick who has named himself Lazlo Klangfarben, but still has all of Steve Schick’s memories. Klangfarben, as opposed to Steve Schick, is an inventor. His latest brainchild is something he calls the Schick Machine, after a percussionist whose name he dimly recalls.” Borges himself could not have delivered a better description!

Some readers may worry that Eckert has dug a very deep rabbit hole, and anyone that tries to make sense of those last few quoted sentences may end up getting pushed down that hole. However, when I attended that first performance in 2016, I quickly realized how easy it was to just “go with the flow” (as they used to say in my student days). I think one of the reasons that Schick Machine is not as intimidating as it may seem is that the music guides the listener through the eccentricities of the words, and there are so many imaginatively invented sonorities that there is no difficulty allowing the music to get the upper hand over the words.

The four performances of this revival production will be at 8 p.m. on Friday, December 15, and Saturday, December 16, and at 3 p.m. on Saturday, December 16, and Sunday, December 17. They will take place on the Main Stage at Z Space, whose open design will be conducive to constructing the elaborate environment in which Klangfarben’s quest takes place. Adult tickets for the evening performances will be $25 and $20 for the matinee performances. The senior rate will be $20 for the evening performances and $15 for the matinees. The student rate is $12.50 in the evening and $10 at the matinees. Tickets for all performances may be purchased through hyperlinks on the calendar on a Z Space Web page. Assistance in ordering tickets may be obtained by calling the Box Office at 415-626-0453, and the Box Office also has an email address.