Wrestling Dostoevsky I attended Wrestling Dostoevsky last night at the RedCat Theater. You can click the title above to see the web site. I went with my best friend, Jamie, after visiting BBQ King -- we had a pork loin bbq platter, bbq beans and a corn muffin. Jamie had collard greens and I had french fries. I must admit that about one-third of my reason for wanting to go see the show as an excuse to visit a great place to eat. The theater has a bar, so I was glad to have a beer before the show. I had a chance to see a fellow faculty member and several students I knew who'd made the trek on a Friday night to downtown Los Angeles. Encouraged and fortified I entered the theater with interest and curiosity. The show was "in the round", meaning the audience is on all four sides with the acting area in the middle. This creates an intimate atmosphere yet forces the performer to play to all four sides. As we entered the space, we notices several standing lamps like you'd use in your home in many places the seats would've been in the audience area -- many covered with thin material. In my opinion, they succeeded at a certain level of "audience involvement" where so many plays have failed. The tactic of the director is to try to get the audience engaged in the work and receptive. The alternate being passive and wishing for entertainment alone. Director's don't want to put on a Diversion as some theater has been called, but want to have the audience invested in the work. How did they succeed? The script was written to address the audience. "Welcome to the show." The first character on the stage asks members of the audience to "Turn on the lights, thank you.", over and over again as the people in the house responded. As the other performers first entered the stage, they served cookies to the audience. Motivated by the script, half-way through the show they 'pass the hat', suggesting tips or donations (mocking themselves wonderfully). The performers often looked directly into the viewers eyes -- in context it might be a challenge or even an seduction. At one point, a female actor pulls a male audience member up to dance slowly on the corner of the stage. These choices kept the audience receptive and closely paying attention to the show. Always with a "mild-level of anxiety", if you will, we had to pay attention knowing that we might personally be engaged at some point. Focused and alert, we watched the play take place -- it was very clever. I've seen horrible attempts at audience involvement -- think of that awful clown at the circus messing with you. Mis-guided directors unskilled at their craft confronting an audience is a very uncomfortable experience. The show I saw last night was wonderfully gentle in it's tactics to keep us, as viewers, engaged and involved. The group was from Slovena and you could sense that Eastern European style of work. The cold feeling of isolation seems to be the main thread. It was inspired by Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment, while I've never read the story I can tell you that the work I saw stood on it's own. It fit the bill as a post-modern work, in that it was obviously built out of an improv situation -- there was movement as content and layers of humor and angst.