Review: Small Metal Objects
Back to Back Theatre performs a secret delight in bustling Pioneer Square
Posted by: Alexis Rehrmann on Sep 11, 2009 at 03:00PM
5 Comments
A confession: I’m show folk.
I got my degree by jumping out of a trunk in patchwork pants. Well, not LITERALLY. But there’s an awful lot of shuffle-off-to-buffalo in my constitutional makeup, and though I’m not proud of it (or, really very good), I will MOW YOU DOWN for a grab at the karaoke mic.
So, I know that my reptilian fear of audience participation makes no sense. But there you have it. I’m terrified of actors who will drag me to the stage and make me do stuff.
And I was worried. WORRIED about the paralytic specter of audience participation in Back to Back theater’s small metal objects performed at 12:30(ish) this afternoon in Pioneer Square.
Pioneer Square! Filled, on this gorgeous day, with a live band, a huge volunteer event—involving white tents and lots of earnest and unsuspecting do-gooders—and (little did they know), a TBA audience and a site specific performance given by a company of Australian actors who are “considered to have intellectual or developmental disabilities,” as described in the TBA book.
Dear heavens, what will become of us all?
The art audience sat on the semi-circle of steps in the Square, placed there carefully by a phalanx of TBA volunteers, and put on head phones.
It was hot. My neighbors fashioned hats, I worried about coming back to the office with an avant-art-burn.
This guy came out to check that our headphones worked (pictured above). They did.
I needn’t have worried. Small metal objects unfolds a secret fiction—the story of a small-potatoes drug deal—and weaves it amid the hub-and-the-bub of high noon in Pioneer Square. And all of us—audience and unsuspecting civilians—were well taken care of with deliberate technical considerations and honest performances.
The audience headphones whispered the actor’s live dialogue and a musical underscore into to our ears. It’s an elegant solution to the problem of outdoor performance, where emotional nuance gets lost in the wind, and I get easily distracted by, “ooh, lookit! birds!” or whatever.
The headphones gave the audience immediate focus. We first heard dialogue, unattached to any visible actors.
Two men, friends, are talking. One is going to have surgery, and the other is worried. They talk about mundane things, and also emotional things, love is about holding on to the thing that is loved for as long as you can, explains one.
We can’t see them. As we’re waiting for the actors to appear, suddenly everyone that wanders through Pioneer Square looks to me like a person who might potentially be “considered to have intellectual or developmental disabilities.”
Point taken, Back to Back Theater.
And then, suddenly, they are revealed. Two short men, facing each other and standing close, speaking in private conversation. One man is bleach blond and rotund, the other boney and awkward, both in tracksuit type clothing. Both look a little…odd.
Though at this point it hardly matters, because we have already heard them whisper their feelings and friendship into our ears.
And the scene is set, and I am hooked. As the story unfolds, there is a deal—seems to be drug related—that is set to go down in Pioneer Square.
Two cops walk through the playing area and I tense for a moment, wondering if the dialogue might be misconstrued (it was not).
I would love to see it without the booths set up. Did anyone see small metal objects when the Square was less clogged with vending booths? What was it like?
Tags: Theater
I saw the 12:30 performance on Thursday, though I missed the very beginning of it. From your description, the square was less crowded. The tents were up and a crew was unloading tables and chairs for another event while the show progressed. Watching people walk through the performance was fascinating. A few looked puzzled, but most were oblivious. I spotted one fellow who seemed to hover close to the action — wondered if he is with the company serving as a “spotter” or poised to intervene if necessary. While nothing much really happens in terms of plot or story, the show was quite exceptional and worth seeing.
“Small Metal Objects” was this year’s sleeper as far as I was concerned. I saw it on Wednesday evening and aside from the usual passers-by and a bunch of guys playing hackie-sack throughout, there were zero tents. Having worked for Very Special Arts (now VSA) for six years way back I was very excited to see the incorporation of works by people of varying abilities – and as witnessed, the performances were subtle, superb. Possibly one of the more intimate portraits painted by a theater troupe in TBA’s history. I was moved by the character trying to identify his sense of love, longing, sexuality. The friendship seemed so earnest and non-chalant. There was also a cop who was writing a ticket the evening I saw this show – and KGW had a reporter who was practically ‘on the set’ doing a promo piece for the news. The backdrop was, well, so alive. I also enjoyed the kinship of this performance to another amazing event I saw some handful of years ago called ‘La Placard’ (http://www.mutek.org/macromutek/events/166-le-placard) curated by Eric Mattson in Montreal.
TJ- thanks for this language, “the performances were subtle, superb.”
I couldn’t agree more—and the struggle for the character to articulate a longing for love…is something we all come to the table with. The piece did such a beautiful job of capturing that connection, and letting it be shared between actor & audience.
What’s VSA? Post the link.
2 more shows today- 12:30 & 6:30—go if you can!
http://www.vsarts.org
I also saw Back to Back Theatre’s performance “Small Metal Objects” last
week in Pioneer Square. Audience members were given headphones, and
soon after putting them on, were able to clearly (the audio was finely
tuned and accompanied by moments of string music) eavesdrop on loosely
plot driven dialogue amongst four characters, two with special needs
and two without. Watching these characters emerge from the public
scenes before me was a bit like searching for Waldo in one of those
books. For the entire duration of the performance, passerby merged in
and out of the framework, not knowing they too were part of the scene,
inevitably merging artist and spectator. (Though there were no defined
political undertones, Boal and Brecht would have been proud.) The four
characters wiggled in and out of: a freestyle footbagging meet-up, a
man walking his cat, gutter punk kids searching for change, old men in
glasses reading on the benches, a drunk couple and their orange dog,
Japanese tourists with cameras, thirty white people wearing
headphones, and one large woman in a pink t-shirt.
The handicap of the two performers was only evident in the beginning
of the piece as they first began to speak about their friendship,
about girls, about loneliness and longing. Save for a slightly slurred
speech and some minor facial deformities, they seemed just like any
other performer and soon, I forgot about their handicap all-together.
They were two men having a conversation in public.
I thought about why the theatre group may have chosen to work with
special needs people in this type of setting. Why public? Why in this
context? I thought about what it’s like hanging out with my niece who
is a special needs child. When you are with her in public, people
stare. They stare as though they are entitled to watch the human
spectacle in front of them. So perhaps the point of Back to Back
Theatre is to demystify these people somehow, make them appear normal,
whatever that may be.
It also made me nostalgic for NYC and all the times I’d pop on my
headphones on and turn the world before me into a fleeting precious
scene.