If you're in search of artistic chameleons, look no further than Sinister Minister Underground Theatre (aka SMUT). This versatile group led by Robbert J. Bricker (The Undeniable) includes four Gather members who contribute outstanding film, music, photography, and poetry to the site.
SMUT's work, produced in the bleak urban landscape of Pittsburgh, explores themes of personal alienation amidst urban and global decay. Much of their art is about being caged, whether one is stuck in a crumbling inner city neighbo
rhood or born into a body with the "wrong" sexual orientation.
I met The Undeniable, an internationally-known musician, director and editor, when he was a finalist in Gather's music video competition (here's his entry,Rock-N-Roll Star). This video, the first professional multimedia I found on Gather, sent my inner art criticinto ecstacy.
Equally talented is D. Gauss, SMUT's esteemed 
cinematographer and photographer (his photos are at the bottom of this article).
What impresses me most about SMUT's films and videos is their ability to take images from an ordinary urban landscape-- a dog walk, a couple of geese by a river, a friend who lingers, depressed, on a fire escape-- and transform them into universal art. Click here to watch Gauss' film Walking Jake, a visit with a very gifted canine. The Undeniable's dancetrack makes it hard to sit still!
The mood of SMUT's film Dead Dolls River Club(produced for Nine Inch Nails) is completely different. Consisting of little more than a pair of geese hanging out by a river, this film easily matches Blair Witch Project in its eerie simplicity. Images of the paired geese are layered over brief glimpses of mutilated dolls as sirens sound in the background-- a tribute to murder victims whose bodies were dumped in the Allegheny river.
My favorite SMUT film is No Man No One Sees, which received one of their three Pill Award nominations (NYC). This tale of personal metamorphosis starts out looking like a Michael Jackson tribute, then slowly peels back the layers of its characters . The accursed somehow come to rest in a rainy Garden of Eden, while the accusers land in their own apocalyptic Hell.
Being raised a Catholic, I'm no stranger to sexual repression, and this movie strikes an emotional chord in me. Especially powerful is the film's switch to full color at its climax:
Excerpt from the SMUT short film, "Moxie".
But SMUT's newest short film Burn That Closet Down goes beyond their earlier work. In addition to escaping their cage, SMUT members are bent on destroying it.
Burn That Closet Down is a chilling allegorical tale of Bricker's coming out (he's a former evangelical preacher). This ode to the pain of releasing a hidden inner self is largely symbolic, but the kicky soundtrack by the Undeniable and Judas Dean supplies the rant (review and film trailer here).
Perhaps the most surprising art emerging from SMUT is the poetry of actor/musician John Kimball and director Tom Bradley. In contrast to The Undeniable's straightforward emotional lyrics, the poetry of Kimball and Bradley is complex and multi-layered, and their narrators seem continuously astonished at their world (more on Kimball's poetry here).
SMUT's work is an eye-opening treat with a universal message: destroy the cages and boxes in which you find yourself, whether self-imposed or society-imposed. Then reach for the stars.
SMUT members are endless-motion machines-- they never rest and they never stop creating. The androgynous divinity in Bradley's poem Lunar 98 seems to speak for SMUT as they restlessly seek new creative territory:
Oh but I feel it growing in us. The husky voice of the goddess in my ear, "Honey, move on. There's nothing more to see here."
(Kudos also to SMUT members Szelc and Barb Magee. Both are production asssistants and actresses who appear in Man No One Sees. To follow the work of SMUT, join The Surreal Circus.).
