STOP HITTING YOURSELF
A hilariously inventive new show, presented by the Austin, TX's devised theatre group called Rude Mechanicals. I highly recommend checking out their website to read up on the cool things they've done!
Things I liked:
- Set made of gold, plus a three tier Fountain of Queso!
- Random tap dancing routine
- Breaking the 4th wall (Actors talk directly to the audience)
- Handing out a $20 bill, then $1 bills for a small challenge like ‘show belly button.’ The challenges got progressively got weirder and weirder, until the audience stop raising their hands
- Close-Open game (where the audience has to ‘close’ their eyes and after 5 seconds will be told to ‘open’ revealing the cast in a new position on stage)
- A phone placed under an audience member’s chair. When the Queen calls to talk to someone she is in fact talking to an audience member. It’s a riot!)
- Actors standing directly in front of audience revealing a truth about themselves as a person, not the character they are playing
- Linctix prices- 30 & under receive $20 dollar tickets if you sign up for their membership (which is FREE)
Things I didn’t like… (this one’s hard)
- I had a hard time grasping the structure of the piece because it was so different. The narrative was broken up between random songs,dances, and improv games. Rude Mech definitely gambles their success by putting the audience in a very unusual new situation with all the interactive improv games. I saw the show on a Sunday matinee, which is notoriously known for having a lot of blue hairs in the audience. There was a definite sense of skepticism lurking in the air. I was squeezed between a couple of young somethings and I could tell they were enjoying the new structure.
NYTimes critic, Charles Isherwood, gives the show a 2.5 stars out of 5. He complains that there is no linear story. That is the beauty of this piece. We are always distracted today between, phone, computer, Facebook, work, and so on, why wouldn’t we acknowledge our jumbled lives in the kind of theatre we create today!
What this show did so beautifully was prove to me that devise theatre can be ironic and tasteful and hilarious. I’ve found my generation of theatre makers are very ironic. We are hipsters. But I’ve seen a handful of my gen’s work and it always leaves me feeling unsatisfied and sad. I can’t quite pinpoint why... To some extent it makes fun of what we do (creating art) in a malicious way rather than celebrating it and identifying the problems with how we are positioned in society. Rude Mech has been around for 20 years, so I have a feeling they started out exactly where we are, grappling with how to make art relevant and entertaining.
On a different note:
- Run to Pig Iron's TWELFTH NIGHT at Abrons Arts Center. Only 'til Feb 23rd. During the week the tickets are $30.
- If you're in the biz. Go see STAGE KISS at Playwrights Horizon. It's by one of my favorite playwrights, Sarah Ruhl! They have a deal for 30 and under.
- A brand new Caryl Churchill play called LOVE AND INFORMATION. It's presented by New York Theatre Workshop. You can get $20 tickets on Sunday evening performances if you buy them in advance at the box office.
