Moving at first like sexy robots, they are confronted by a woman in a shiny striped hot-pants outfit, and stalked fitfully by the cat lady. Love mixes his mechanical moves with the mincing, prancing, sashaying walks of runway models, and a fair dash of Vegas floorshow. My eyes are engaged until his craft runs out of batteries, and the androids are left alone for a long section with too much unison, tarnishing the creatures' gleam. Scene 2 is framed by a duet made and performed by Lawrence Keigwin and Leah Nelson, in skimpy Greek-ish tunics that leave them both almost bare above the waist. Swirling together and apart, they press and prod reluctantly in odd places when they meet, as if forcing each other to remember some sordid erotic encounter, and threatening to reveal it, or to renew it.
Hogan creates a spiral of real emotion in an evening dominated by a certain arch aloofness.
I don't know the dark place she is sinking down to, but I follow her there. Not that the director isn't trying hard to tell me where she's going. We seem to have landed on one of those planets the Starship Enterprise visited every Sunday afternoon of my childhood, where everyone wears a toga among the styrofoam rocks and speaks in proverbs. The effect is absurd, yet oddly touching, because the performers are so earnest. As in Love's work, it's hard to say where camp ends and sincerity begins.