Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting is a little much to take in at first viewing, which is part of the point. The narrative skitters fractally back and forth along a time line in the life of Chantal (a/k/a CB, for Chantal Akerman and Luis Buñuel) from ages 11 to 19, living on a small farm in the Great Plains with a loving, imperfect mother and father. Chantal (laser-focused Jean Christian Barry) checks several of the boxes in the catalog of neurodiversity, among them autism spectrum, ADHD, and synesthesia; CB is also nonbinary, or perhaps “abinary,” preferring to eschew pronouns altogether.
Chantal is learning to become a film-maker like CB’s namesakes. Most of the second half of the play consists of capturing/retelling/reassembling life-changing events when Chantal was much younger. There’s more than a suggestion that Chantal believes that coming out to CB’s parents as nonbinary caused the tornado that destroyed the family home.
Harmon dot aut wisely leans into CB’s synesthesia, as well as CB’s obsession with movies. Both of these aspects of neurodiversity are easy for us to make a connection with Chantal. There’s nothing threatening about synesthesia, unlike the culture dustups about pronouns1 and public washrooms. Likewise, who doesn’t go a little too deep into movies?
Jasminn Johnson holds her own as Mom, a kindergarten teacher with a flair for little verses that end with an Edward Gorey twist. And Roderick Hill as Dad shows some chops remembering a horrible killing when he was deployed to Kabul, as well as a tasty comic run of movie star impersonations (as directed by Chantal).
A scattering of films referred to in the text:
- The Best Years of Our Lives, William Wyler, 1946: All those war stories.
- The Wizard of Oz, Victor Fleming-King Vidor, 1939: How did that twister effect work?
- News from Home, Akerman, 1976: I need to take a look at this one.
- El ángel exterminador [The Exterminating Angel], Buñuel, 1962: It’s a puzzle to work out why this film is so important to Chantal. Certainly it has made an impression on subsequent generations.
Not alluded to, but always under the surface when we talk about Buñuel: Un chien Andalou, 1929. Somehow those ants scurrying about reflect how/what Chantal is processing.
An ground-breaking piece, masterfully done. Bravo to CATF for bringing it to the festival. And cheers to the running crew scooting in to reset the wreckage of CB’s house.
- Contemporary American Theater Festival at Shepherd University, Shepherdstown, W. Va.
- Tornado Tastes Like Aluminum Sting, by Harmon dot aut, directed by Oliver Butler
1Between you and me, I look forward to a time, decades or centuries away, when English’s current gender marking seems as quaint as adjectives that decline and the ablative case.