Camelot is Crumbling: An Arthurian Nightmare
Listen, I don’t know what phillip andrew bennet low does. Is it storytelling? Is it spoken word? Sometimes it sounds like slam poetry, sometimes like epic verse, sometimes like nothing else on the planet. Sometimes it sounds like the inside of low’s head which he’s spitting forth, desperately seeking some sense in the jumble of words.
I don’t know what low does, but I’m obsessed with it. Because it seems like he’s seeking desperately for the truth, and I can get behind that. This year’s show is messier than last year’s. Like, literally the stage is messier and full of props and set pieces that I didn’t think needed to be there, and there is this weird voiceover thing going on, but the whole performance feels like part of a longer journey. Feels like part of a larger picture. Feels like part of a question – one of those questions that’s so big that the hardest part of answering the question is formulating exactly what the question is.
This show is not for everyone – in fact, I don’t know who it’s for, really, and I don’t know if low knows who he’s writing for, except himself. But he’s not writing for himself in a selfish way, he’s writing for himself, and then sharing it with us in hopes that we can help him along the path. Because we’re on the path, too, whatever the path is. The path for truth? For philosophical enlightenment? For mutual understanding? Any of those. All of those.
