Bouncing through 'Ivan's' courtroom

Local resident Marta Jasicki's play, "Ivan the Terrible," which opened last weekend at the Bloomington Playwright's Project, is one of destruction and creation. Her broken scenes centering around a courtroom plot left me wondering what I just saw. It surely is one for the intellect. \nJasicki continually breaks the scenes' flow with musical interludes in which her character, named after herself, comes out strumming her guitar. These breaks destroy the play's confines, leaving the audience transfixed, wondering and astounded.\nShe also broke up the play by having a ball bouncing and rolling through the courtroom scenes. The bouncing ball becomes the most wonderful shattering of the play's unities because of its illogical presence. Such actions would never take place in a normal courtroom -- or most traditional plays, for that matter.\nWithin "Ivan the Terrible," Jasicki questions the word "play."\n"She likes it when we play," mumbles a confused Ivan, played by Luke Scherschel. \nThough scenes are metaphysically destroyed, one got a reassuring feeling that "it's all good," the philosophy that is under question in "Ivan the Terrible" and its prequel titled, "It's All Good." Even though all the scenes are broken, and it doesn't flow like most plays, the script is still controlled, and it is still possible to understand what is happening. \nIt is a play about perceiving and understanding, philosophy in court and more. Through jealousy, fear, false accusations and claiming to be God, Jasicki wants her audience to reformat or at least question their beliefs on everything and consider her philosophy, as viewed under the scope of law, "it's all good." It is a philosophy that Jasicki's character explains in her songs and on a dry erase board at the beginning of the play.\nMatthew Pernic, who plays Cash, should be noted for his hilarious and enjoyable acting. He is a true gift to Jasicki's play. Scherschel and Sarah Hoback, who played Madeline, did a satisfactory job in acting and held their parts well.\nThis play is a true treat for the intellectual mind -- a real exercise of Samuel Johnson's argument on Aristotelian unities where time, place and action need not be fluid but in a way are quite useless. \nJasicki's script travels from present to the future and back all within BPP's Lori Shiner Studio with little heed to the useless confines of the unities of time or place. Johnson would most likely applaud Jasicki from his grave for her fearless bouncing back and forth, as shown through the ball bouncing in the courtroom and through the different layers of her play. \nJasicki's play is simply astounding. With a touch of the bizarre, it puts a joy in one's heart without even letting one know how or when she placed it there, or even why it is there. If one wants to be confused, lost, found and fulfilled, one should attend Jasicki's "Ivan the Terrible" to be taken on a wild, startling ride.