Media Archive

There may be something particularly American in the peculiar feat of becoming so ubiquitously known that you disappear. Take Elvis Presley. It seems natural that fact and fiction should intertwine in the tall tales we tell about, say, George Washington. But to disappear into myth in the age of mass media — to, in fact, use the magnifying power of newspapers, radio, television, and film to carve out an edifice that entirely obscures the person behind it — is something else entirely.

The Team, a Brooklyn, NY based company, known for their devised works, draws on American history and culture to develop their quirky, imaginative material which they tour widely. RoosevElvis, currently playing at the A.R.T.’s Oberon Theatre in Cambridge, brings together two American icons, the early twentieth-century President Theodore Roosevelt and the mid- twentieth-century rock and roll artist Elvis Presley.

We’re never quite sure whether Ann (Libby King) — the main character in the TEAM’s strange, but charming and highly likable “RoosevElvis,��� at Oberon through May 29 — has multiple personalities, or whether she’s been possessed by the spirit of Elvis Presley.

Why, look, it’s Theodore Roosevelt and Elvis Presley! How come a dead president of the United States and a dead king of rock ’n’ roll, who weren’t even alive at the same time, are chumming it up in the 21st century?

It doesn’t get much more “american” than Teddy and Elvis such macho caricatures in real life, that the actresses who embody them onstage barely have to exaggerate.

This is the first time (I believe) the TEAM have come to this area. If “RoosevElvis” is indicative of their work, let’s hope they come back again soon.

But this work by Brooklyn-based ensemble The TEAM is much more than just an absurd examination of what a hypothetical conversation between two of the 20th century’s larger-than-life figures might sound like, it’s a surprisingly emotional work, thanks to the reality-based secondary plot.

RoosevElvis is the latest production of the TEAM, a Brooklyn-based ensemble dedicated to making new work about the experience of living in America today.

In the immensely popular adaptation of the book the playwright created with director Robert Icke, the goal was to represent onstage, in three dimensions, the intensely subjective nature of Orwell’s writing. 

This harrowing descent into George Orwell’s nightmare stuns with fresh ideas

Rather than just tell the story, this show, written and directed by Robert Icke and Duncan Macmillan, creates a dynamic response that strips away complacency and plays on those creeping anxieties about trust, manipulation and freedom.