Page 3 of 3
At times the piece founders on its own profusion of ideas, which pile on top of one another too thickly and without sufficient dramatic focus. In depicting the FBI as gun-toting losers and the Koresh figure as an insane child molester, Bake Sale promulgates both anti- and pro-government knee-jerk explanations. But this sort of indiscriminate ambiguity can't replace political insight. Ed Gaible's absurdist patchwork script compounds this problem. People speak in non sequiturs, layering personal babble and biblical quotes over the rare lucid statement. Though Gaible's intention might have been more pointed and less elliptical, more sober and less prurient, his tone is well-suited to Watt's lush, visual style. Just as our newscasters regularly condense a kitten trapped in a tree, a murder, advice on buying a car, and a Third World famine into 15 seconds of pure inanity, Gaible's text pierces our cultural skin and probes the irrationality of our national chatter. The result is a throbbing, convoluted orgy of dogma, go-go dancing, small talk, bureauspeak, amputated gesture, and personal testimonial.
With the anti-narrative texture of MTV and the intellectual voraciousness of high theory, Bake Sale moves forward without sense, but slowly draws you along in its wake. What could have been a tendentious exercise in postmodern hubris Watt and Fifth Floor turn into a tantalizing, provocative ride into the heart of media-engorged America.
-- Carol Lloyd
