With their newest show, “Life & Times”, Nature Theater of Oklahoma has big plans, very BIG plans in fact. But this is only appropriate; their ambitions are nothing less than super-sized. An experimental company from NYC  (forget dustbowls: the name comes from Kafka via Slovakia and Dartmouth), NTO has not only devised a huge show, to be developed over 10 years and as many episodes and promising a full 24 hours of performance, but the ideas which inform it are far more conceptual than can be ascertained at first glance.

The first “episode”, running 3.5 hours and currently at the Théâtre des Abbesses, seems an evident, albeit wacky version of verbatim theater: a recorded, autobiographical monologue by a company member, spanning birth through age eight, and reproduced word-for-word in song by the cast, who all the while execute a limited series of physical gestures.

But while verbatim theater seeks to grasp the reality of a situation as lived by its participants, Nature Theater of Oklahoma clearly wants to get as far away from reality as possible. Leaving autobiography to oral historians, joint directors Kelly Copper and Pavol Liska are rather more pursuing a “Lacanian idea of truth being revealed in the breakdowns of language”, abstraction and Russian Suprematist art of the early 20th century (think Kazimir Malevich's “Red Square”, which serves as the show's symbol), and nothing less than utopias and “the total revolution in the arts”.

Fully conscious of these preoccupations, even if the audience is not, the company never allows these theoretical underpinnings to translate into an unwieldy or inaccessible piece. On the contrary, “Life & Times: Episode 1” is tight, smart, fast, funny, and, as always with NTO (if last year's “No Dice” is a measure), full of surprises. The opening will raise some eyebrows, as it becomes evident that what is being done on stage (without revealing too much here) is not a prelude to the show but the show itself. NTO rewards the audience's perseverance by building on its energy, physical vocabulary and humor to uncover surprising shapes and nuances in this disarmingly event-less narrative of suburban monotony and comfort, and bring them full steam to a furious finish.  Remarkable too is the company's mastery of the many levels of narrative, from singing and live music to movement, by nine cast members presenting various physical presences and training.

In its first episode, “Life & Times” proves not only fun but also stimulating on both psychomotor and intellectual levels, working with the shapes and colors of early childhood but more importantly with the ideas of hyper-creative, authentically original artists, in the sense the American modernist poets of the early 20th century defined originality: as an engaging with art to find what can be done better and so to see life clearer. A necessary approach for these times. Read more in the interview on these and related ideas as the company tours on to Belgium and Austria but is sure to return with further installments.(see interview at http://www.paris-theater.blogspot.com).

“Life & Times”, Nature Theater of Oklahoma. In English, with French subtitles, Jan. 11-15, Tues, Wed, Fri, Sat, 7:30 pm, Théâtre des Abbesses, 31 rue des Abbesses, 18e, Mº Abbesses, 13-24 euros, tel: 01.42.74.22.77.

More theater at: http://www.paris-theater.blogspot.com