The Events

I saw a play last night at the Push Festival.  It was called "The Events" and was about a mass shooting (based on the one in Norway several years ago).  The Push Festival is a performance festival that tries to "push the envelope".  This play hearkened back to ancient Greek theatre, in that it had a chorus (the role fulfilled by various local community choirs) and two actors, although one actor (Douglas Ennenberg) played a huge variety of characters, including the shooter, the main character's lesbian partner, the psychologist, the shooter's father, and others (what a dream come true for an actor!)  It is always great to go to a theatre on a rainy night -- there you are (as Bill Murray's character in "Tootsie" would say, "the only really alive people on the planet", or something like that).

The play attempts to ask the question of what causes these terrible events, but it doesn't come up with any simple answers, which I think is appropriate.  Are there simple answers for what makes these events happen?  But it is worthwhile to ask the questions anyway, I think.  It makes you think of all sorts of things -- the differences between men and women, the idea of inexorable fate (which is very Greek), the source of violence and disenfranchisement, the idea of community, of the place of art.  Oh, it was full of all sorts of ideas and questions and challenges.

My friend's choir is a local group and they got to play the traditional Greek chorus and sang and spoke as the Greek chorus would do.  The amazing thing was that, although they had practiced the music, they didn't know what was going to happen in the play nor did they get any chance to practice with the actors.  Even so, they fit in really well and were an exciting component of the show.  It's a very smart idea to use them -- both as a way to increase your audience and as an artistic statement.

Both actors were great, as I said, but of course, the man got to show off his virtuosity by being able to play so many different people.  He was terrific.  He channelled animals and intellectuals and the banality of evil and mysticism and all sorts of concepts and embodied them as characters.  He was endlessly energetic and fascinating to watch.

I was tired and thinking about report cards and had spent most of the day in the rain watching soccer and I did consider not going, but it is always better to go to the theatre than sit at home and watch CNN and yell at the tv.