"Shoulder to the Wheel" offers entertaining look at American experience

By David Gomez
Jan. 30, 2010    ·    12:10 p.m.

What is the American experience? What era in American history defines the American experience? How does the American experience look through different perspectives? 

These are the difficult questions that Lyndsay Michalik attempts to answer with her work “Shoulder to the Wheel."

As it says in the program, "Shoulder to the Wheel" is a hard one to pin down. It’s a compilation of writings about the American experience that Michalik has sewn together with her creative needle.

The "American experience" varies widely. It changes from generation to generation, and it adapts to the ever changing sexual roles in our society.

The narrative of the play changes as well. It jumps back and forth between dry and humorous monologues and scenes where the actors let the goofiness of the situation make you chuckle.

The majority of the play is a surreal caricature of American life. The stories are filtered through the eyes of every imaginable type of person you could meet in a trip around town. The insane, homicidal maniac, pizza delivery guy was my favorite.

There were themes present during the play that were revisited several times.

Weblogs were referenced throughout the play and each actor in the play had a monologue they performed into a Webcam set up on a projector screen. Michalik had her actors make fantastic use of the multimedia aspect in these Weblog scenes.

One scene in particular had the actress ranting about the uselessness of war. She told a story to her blog viewers with action figures; as she narrated two actors acted out her words as the action figures in front of the stage. It was a creative use of multimedia in the production, and it helped the audience become part of an elaborate rant on foreign policy.

Another character that came up throughout the play was the blue-collar type.

Two actresses arranged the stage as typical road construction workers several times in the play. The twist in these skits is they are women, and generally you would find men on job sites like that. But America has changed and America’s workforce is made up of women who do traditionally male jobs.

"Shoulder to the Wheel" offers an entertaining look at the American experience. Michalik touches on a diverse array of perspectives in a nonlinear manner. Different eras are detailed and described in no particular order.

The unconventional storytelling and narration are part of the charm of “Shoulder to the Wheel”. I actually found myself beginning to enjoy the shifts in time, place and history.

While "Shoulder to the Wheel" parodies our culture and the experiences that come with it, it also brings with it familiarity. I can picture meeting every character in the town I grew up in. And when it’s all said and done, all we want from a play is to make us feel something. If it’s something strangely familiar with a manic twist, it makes it that much better.

"Shoulder to the Wheel" plays today at 2 p.m. and 8 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Riverside Arts Center. For details please check the Ypsilanti Citizen Calendar.