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Singing, Reading, Flashing Multimedia
Zipperhead review
Vocalist Stephen Pacia
Zipperhead is a multimedia show about 9/11, the financial meltdown, adultery and brain cancer with live music, narration and moving images on three wall-size screens. Sounds like a recipe for too many ills, but somehow, it works. The music is the best part of the show, with local band Sineparade providing Pink Floyd-esque sounds (circa Dark Side) to an already dark story. Local filmmaker/painter/overall artist Alex Itin narrates the story of Andrew Sarchus, a Wall Street trader who is caught cheating on September 11, 2001 (being in a hotel room with his secretary instead of in his office that morning was a life-saving mistake). He stays together with his wife, Marla, but it’s a downward spiral of overspending, insider trading, religious fanaticism, and, eventually, cancer.
Steven Pacia, MD and singer/keyboardist, wrote the story. His background as both a neurologist and gallerist prodded the question of ways in which art teases the mind. As the vocalist with the condemning voice in Sineparade, he sings the five songs in the show, but he also tells the audience how different parts of the brain react to situations similar to those Sarchus is going through–hence the title.
“Patients who have had multiple brain surgeries will sometimes refer to themselves as Zipperheads or make the statement ‘the surgeon should have installed a zipper’ for subsequent operations,” says Pacia. “It also refers to the ability to unzip the head and look inside to see the functions or dysfunctions of the mind and brain.”
Likewise, 9/11 forced New Yorkers to reconsider their security, because, while the country as a whole was terrified, it was here where the planes physically hit those towers. Smoke engulfed New York City, not anywhere else. “9/11 represented a new beginning for New York City, that is, in the way we perceived ourselves with regard to our vulnerability, etc.,” says Pacia. “It was a fitting time for the lead character Andrew Sarchus to begin his social and physical decline.”
The venue, 17 Frost in Williamsburg, lends itself to this type of intimate, multimedia show. Fitting roughly about 40 people all huddled together around the band and surrounded by the walls with the flashing images, the ferocity of the story hits home easily. And while the narrative isn’t exactly storytelling at its finest, it’s topical, local and powerfully narrated.
Zipperhead runs Mondays in April and Tuesdays in May at 8pm until May 15 at 17 Frost.