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Performances: Batch: An American Bachelor/ette Party Spectacle (New Paradise Laboratories) (Future performances); Explanatorium (Headlong Dance Theater) (Future performances); Isabella (Pig Iron Theatre Company) (Future performances); Hearts of Man (The Riot Group) (no future performances); LEAP: The Actors' Improv Experiment (Bobbi Block) (no future performances)
This weekend I saw five shows, which had sounded somewhat daunting to me. Then I realized that the total running time of the five was actually less than the running time of the lone show I saw last weekend, Gatz. So it really shouldn't have been that big a deal. Plus, Gatz was fabulous, so I was optimistic. After all, Gatz had somewhat relieved my fear of experimental theatre. Unfortunately, this weekend showed me that Gatz was the exception and not the rule, and that I really did have something to be afraid of.
Batch: An American Bachelor/ette Party Spectacle
You know how maintstream media mocks performance art, how it makes performance art pieces look like a bunch of fruitcakes acting like idiots in the name of being "deep" and "thoughtful" and "artistic"? Batch single-handedly justified every mockery of experimental theatre I've ever seen. Perhaps more aggravatingly, it was a complete waste of some incredible staging and technical production. The performance area was situated in the center of the stage at Drexel's Mandell Theatre, with the audience seated on the stage around a square boxing ring-style platform. Behind each group of audience seats was a large video monitor so that no matter where you were seated, you could easily see at least two video screens. Quite simply, I've never seen such a well-integrated multimedia performance, as the live performance, live video feed and pre-recorded video flowed perfectly. But it was all for naught, as the sheer absurdity of the performance (devil-goats in boxing gear - I'm not kidding) made Batch a waste of an hour and a half of my life.
Follow the jump to read more about my disappointing weekend at PLAF.
Explanatorium
After Batch, things weren't about to get any worse, so Explanatorium was a bit of a relief in that sense. I can't say it was even bad; it just isn't my type of performance. The whole time, I couldn't tell whether I was watching dance, theatre, performance art, or satire of performance art. I also couldn't tell whether it was an exploration in people's beliefs regarding the paranormal or an exercise in groupthink. I did appreciate that it made great use of the physical space of the Rotunda at Penn. It was surreal and interesting, but I think I was still in a bit of a sour mood from Batch, because I just couldn't really get into it. Oh, and if you go, they're really not kidding when they say wear all blue.
Isabella
I'm not really a huge Measure for Measure fan, so seeing it performed in an experimental format frankly worried me. I probably wouldn't have gone to Isabella if there hadn't been such a buzz around it. Honestly, I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about. The concept of a mortician using completely nude cadavers as puppets is shocking and interesting for about five minutes, but then you have to look into the actual quality of performance/interpretation of Measure, and it was really kind of unspectacular in that regard. It didn't help that the performance space has horrendous acoustics and many of the lines were unintelligible because of the combination of a lack of enunciation by the actors and the echoing nature of the space. Shock value only goes so far, and it can't sustain a 90-minute show by itself. And really, that's about all Isabella had going for it.
Hearts of Man
The whole time I was watching Hearts of Man, all I could think was, "Am I watching the final project of some acting for non-theatre majors class?" There was really nothing noteworthy about the performance in any way. It's actually kind of amazing that the Riot Group managed to take a relevant controversial topic (Internet predators and the lengths to which law enforcement can and should go to seek them out) and make it not-at-all-challenging to the audience. The script was uninspired, and the performances fluctuated between completely wooden and completely over-acted, with no discernible happy medium. This was even more frustrating to me than Batch and Isabella in a way, because while I was actively annoyed by the end of those two shows, I didn't feel or think anything about Hearts of Man.
LEAP: The Actors' Improv Experiment
Improv is a tricky game. It range from absolutely outstanding to absolutely dreadful, and can fall anywhere in between. Saturday night's performance of LEAP fell squarely in the middle: it was underwhelmingly average. There were a couple really funny moments, a couple points where I could have fallen asleep, and the rest was just kind of there. LEAP takes a group of established non-improv actors and forces them to improvise. Really, LEAP is a great experiment/training exercise for actors, but it's really not something I think you can really justify charging an audience $15 a ticket to watch.
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