Break it, John!

The Guardian has a hip and oftentimes very interesting arts blog that Google Reader gloriously brings to me every day. Here's part of an article about a recent production (at the Menier Chocolate Factory) of La Cage aux Folles and their use of audience participation:

"It can be refreshing when a production breaks down the barriers between audience and performers in this way, puncturing the fourth wall and encouraging interaction...But it needs to be managed imaginatively for it to really work, and there is a tepid quality to the way it is done in La Cage. These interludes felt a little too rehearsed - ironic in a production that otherwise has a distinctly rough-around-the-edges appeal. There was no danger, it all felt a bit forced and half-hearted. They'd tweaked the rules, but only superficially. You got the feeling that any genuine interaction with the performances would be unwelcome. It is understandable why they'd want to minimise the uncertainty that comes with audience involvement... I just wish they'd been a bit more daring and pushed this aspect of the show a little further."

Breaking the fourth wall has come up a few times for me over the past week.

I saw a show last night at La MaMa- "Fountain of Youth," a music/dance/poetry/fusion thing by Akim Funk Buddha, a (this is from his bio) "Director/Composer/Performer/old-school B-boy MC." Um, right. Fellow Box Office Gal Emma and I went, and as we ascended the stairs, we whispered to each other...."I hope there's no audience participation in this." Of course that meant there were, and for silly reasons we wound up in the front row. Withing five minutes the audience had been semi-gently reprimanded (some would say "encouraged") for not vocally responding loud enough. During a freestyle something-or-other, Akim approached Emma with the mic for a sound and she shook her head no. (I would have done the same.) In short, it was an hour of the worst, absolutely worst kind of audience participation-- the kind that is so forced that it detracts from the show and makes people, or at least me, really uncomfortable.

I was telling a recent reader of WTTAN (people write me just begging to read it, don't you know. Oh, wait. This is real life?) about how Rigg's fourth-wall-breaking came about and started thinking about the huge can of worms Craig and I repeatedly opened for ourselves during that show -- the enduring question of WHO IS THE AUDIENCE TO YOU? once you've addressed them directly. Obviously in Akim's show, we were us. In La Cage, I'd probably be someone at La Cage. So that works. While talking about it, I struggled to properly voice the eventual answer Craig and I worked out for Riggs and WTTAN-- the specters of the house, the people Riggs thinks he sees, figments of his alcoholic imagination...I don't even remember what the final answer was. And certainly no one ever agreed with our interpretation exactly-- which is of course fine. It's something I think about when I wonder what I'll do with the script and whether I'll revise it (I'd like to), whether it'll get done again (I sure hope so), and within that, how much it'll change (I don't know).

I know direct address is definitely different that audience participation, and some people might say that there is ALWAYS audience participation, even in shows where the fourth wall isn't broken. I guess that's the hope, if I'm going to be hippy-dippy about it.

Hmm.


Unrelated, here are two things I overheard the other day:


"I don't care where they're coming from, but I think they're going to hell."


"Take a walk, enjoy the weather, enjoy the girls and their sexy asses."

In-DEED.

Yes!

So recently I've become addicted to using Google Reader and have been reading a lot of blogs lately. Today's hit is from the good old Guardian. It is of particular interest to me and to this blog...if this blog had thoughts and feelings. Here's part of it:

"In this country we are terrified of appearing pretentious. Somehow it has become theatre's cardinal sin. Be boorish, loutish, crude, superficial, snobbish, elitist or just plain boring, but please, whatever you do, don't be pretentious.

Fuelled by this paranoia, the meaning of the term has been allowed to mutate and expand, its tentacles stretching outwards, moving beyond claims of "exaggerated importance" to encompass anything that might be intellectually or philosophically dense and challenging, or even just not immediately accessible. A quick scan of the responses to Katie Mitchell's Attempts On Her Life finds the production described variously as "pretentious in the extreme", "pretentious rubbish" or, more imaginatively, "pretentious arthouse crap" - a phrase that moves beyond a single production to castigate an entire genre of work. This gets to the heart of the matter, suggesting a lingering distrust (or, indeed, contempt) for the idea that theatre should assume it can be anything other than undiluted entertainment."

That's sort of encouraging, isn't it? At least to pretentious arthouse types like me.

I'm working reception at a law firm in midtown today. I think I drank curdled milk this morning. Then I washed it down with grapefruit juice. This could mean disaster. We'll see.

I saw a show at the Sonnet Rep last night-- a comedy called "Proximity," written by Jerzy Gw------- (I can't attempt to spell his last name), who I met through the MUDasMAN folks and who I saw as Davey in Lt. of Inishmore on B-way. Jerzy wrote one of the four MUDasMAN pieces that I just worked on. He's a nice guy. Isaac Klein and I met up for the show, so it was good to see him. We were supposed to go out for a drink after, but I bailed, and I fear Isaac will never forgive me. I liked the play. It had a ton of great ideas in it, and it was goofy and fun and the acting was good. I like going to small shows, and I like being able to support people my own age who are doing what I hope very soon to be doing.

And tonight-- a big party! I'm seeing "Things We Want" at the Acorn (Peter Dinklage!!), and then heading to somewhere in Queens for a party celebrating my birthday, Pat's birthday, Hannukah, and the fact that Emily and Meghan are coming in from Boston! I have the sick feeling I'll be up very late tonight, but I think it'll be worth it.

All for now.