If you go to the theater regularly enough, you eventually figure
out what kinds of show appeal to you and which don’t. My sister is an unabashed fan of jukebox
musicals. My best friend likes naturalistic
plays, especially those that make him cry. Another friend prefers shows—be they straight plays or musicals—that
center around characters who are gay or people of color.
I like to fancy myself open to all different
kinds of theatrical experiences. But I have
to admit that I do have a hard time with experimental theater. So every once in a while, I try to push myself outside my comfort zone by seeing some experimental or performance art
piece. Which is how I found myself at The Flea Theater seeing a double bill that is part of the five-play Perfect Catastrophes Festival that The Flea is dedicating this fall to the playwright Mac Wellman (click here to read more about him).
One of the original co-founders of The Flea, Wellman is
known for what a critic once described as work that “rebels against theatrical
conventions, often abandoning such traditional elements as plot and character
altogether.”
That is a big challenge for someone like me who thrives on
narrative. And that must have
been apparent because during the one-hour break between the two shows, another reviewer
violated the critics’ code of not talking about a show while you’re in the
theater and ambled over to ask me what I thought of what we’d just seen. As I
told him, I’m not sure.
The first of the two plays is Bad Penny, which was created as
a site-specific piece that was performed in Central Park when it premiered in
1989. It involves a guy who is trying to get his car tire fixed, a woman who
has a penny that she believes brings bad luck and the different kinds of New
Yorkers they encounter.
The actors playing the New Yorkers are embedded in the
audience and so part of the experience is figuring out who’s going to speak out
next—and who to listen to since several conversations go on at the same time.
At one point, a silent Golem-like character, who is listed on the one-sheet
program as “Boatman,” appears and dominates the action. I guessed he’s supposed to be death. But who
knows?
The cast, directed by Kristan Seemel is composed primarily of
members of the Flea’s resident company The Bats and their acting is up and down,
with some Bats seeming to be as befuddled by what was going on as I was.
Still, the show is done in the outdoor courtyard of The Flea’s
relatively new home on Thomas Street in Tribeca. It was a summery evening the
night I saw it, sitting on one of the lawn chairs arrayed around the space (later
comers had to settle for blankets on the floor) and the 45 minutes passed pleasantly
enough and might have done so even more if I’d gotten a drink at the cash bar
set up in the corner before the performance began.
I’m not sure why the break between the shows was an hour long
because Sincerity Forever, the second part of the bill, was performed inside in
the small underground space known as The Siggy, in honor of Flea co-founder
Sigourney Weaver, and performed by an entirely different and, under the
direction of Dina Vovsi, a somewhat more skilled group of actors.
The set-up for this 1990 play is a fictional southern town,
populated by Christian zealots, hood-wearing Ku Klux Klan members and,
strangest of all, Jesus who in this incarnation is both black and female.
The
satire here is more obvious (characters keep insisting that any behavior should be considered acceptable so long as it's sincere). And, of course, it's sadly more relevant.
After the initial unease of
seeing the hood-clad actors wore off a bit, the audience seemed more into this
show than those seeing Bad Penny had been. Me too. At least I think so.
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