Shay Mace
What makes a boy? Acclaimed mime artist Bill Bowers takes to the stage to explore manhood and masculinity across his storied life in Beyond Words, which is delivered with such vigour and purpose you can’t help but leave the theatre with a beaming smile on your face. It’s not just boyhood that Bowers wishes to draw focus on here, but what it means to be a small town boy, taking inspiration from his own life, and the stories of those he has encountered in his career from similar backgrounds. Well, Bronski Beat eat your heart out, because this epic, physical, visceral ride etches deep on the soul.
In vignettes Bowers fields through the expectations of boyhood, miming to found footage audio that is expertly lip cyned with Bowers’ exuberant movement. He has such an expressive face that wheels us from cowboy saloon, through to the state fair, and many more locations that latterly become the rooting material for Bowers to explore the weighty expectations on boys, how they can be nurtured into men, and how they can be drawn away from queerness and femininity by the normative nature of smalltown society.
These vignettes are intertwined with direct address, within which Bowers weaves the stories of his Uncle’s childhood alongside his own, and later on the story of a young Native American boy whom Bowers encounters while performing a clowning workshop in his home state of Montana. It is the tracing of a series of lives defined by boyhood, and the weight of manhood that lies ahead, into which Bowers pulls focus, placing them amongst a tapestry of people who are confined, liberated, and ultimately defined by their transition from boy to man.
There is such vivacity in the way Bowers takes such interest in the transformation of those around him – from hearing how his uncle became a bitter and embattled man after being bullied for his love of a doll found on a logging track, through to the young Jeremiah whom he takes on as a protégé after spotting his talent. It is particularly in the closing moments where all the strings are drawn together, as Bowers dually elucidates his trip back to rural Montana as an artist-in-residence, alongside that of a misunderstood schoolteacher, that his message becomes clear – our culture may define us, and boy, and man externally, but it is within ourselves we find true meaning in those terms, regardless of the labels put on them by others.
Despite heavy themes, Bowers leads with a light touch, and there’s plenty of humour without. Many great moments arise from his skilful clowning, where it becomes evident that his provenance as one of America’s most prominent modern day mimes has been used to create something truly special here, with as much depth as it has levity.
Tender, and dutifully performed with such energy – there’s likely been such an expressive and expansive depiction of boyhood on stage.
Recommended Drink: Head on down to the Buccaneer bar of Choteau, Montana for your first beer of the day!
Catch Bill Bowers: Beyond Words as part of Wilde Stages Festival in Dublin on Saturday 9th May at 1pm and again at 6pm (75mins). Tickets are available through the Wilde Stages Online Box Office.
Moss Meunier
