Theater for the future
by Yasmin KhanIt’s a long name, but after one night in the Neo-Futurarium Theater, you’ll have it memorized. "Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind" is a late-night production ready and willing to make you laugh, cry, think, and sigh all in the matter of an hour.
"Too Much Light" opened at Stage Left Theater in Chicago on December 2, 1988. Conceived and directed by Greg Allen, the show was written and produced for an eight-person cast and proposed as "an ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes."
"I wanted to come up with something different, away from the boring stand-up comedy and over-dramatized theatrical plays," Allen said. So his show promised to be an emotional and intellectual roller coaster with an innovation for audience participation and interaction. That’s what the Neo-Futurists are about: finding ways to create interactive, highly personal, emotionally and intellectually challenging art for the general public.
When you walk into the Neo-Futurarium Theater, located in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood, someone holding green, yellow, and blue cards will greet you and give you one. That is how you will be called to enter. When you are called you will then enter the Hall of Presidents, which has comical paintings of all the U.S. presidents.
"We’re a laid back bunch, so we just thought those pictures would be a nice touch," Allen explained.
"They’re hilarious! I think they’re a great touch to a great-looking theater," said Debbie Stoddard, a first-timer to the show.
Then you will enter the kitchen where you have your choice of beverages and snacks to buy. On your way to the waiting room you will roll a six-sided die to determine the amount for admission. The number you roll, times $1, plus an additional $5 is what you are asked to pay.
"You can’t find a great show like this anymore for under twenty bucks," said Steve DeVaughn, a regular to the show.
Someone will greet you to give you a nametag and a menu of the night’s play titles. You will see a clothesline strung across the stage with pieces of paper hanging on it, numbered one through 30.
Once the 159-seat theater is packed to capacity, someone will yell, "When we sell out, we order out!" An extra large pizza is then ordered for the audience to eat after the show. "That was a tradition that was started the first time we sold out. We wanted to show our appreciation, so we ordered a pizza," Allen said.
In order to start the show, a darkroom timer is set for 60 minutes and the performers ask for a play title to start. You can shout whatever numbers you please.
"We didn’t want the show to be organized. We figured it would be more challenging for us as performers to remember the plays just by their title and not by their order," Allen explained.
When a number is chosen at random, someone yells "Go," the timer is set and the show begins. At the end of each play you will hear, "Curtain," and that’s when you begin shouting another number. The show continues on with a random display of tragic, comic, personal, political, experimental two-minute plays over the course of one hour.
As an audience you will be asked to participate individually and as a whole.
"We have some great plays that really can make some audience members upset and push their buttons. I love doing that," Allen said.
With plays that will stimulate the audience intellectually, emotionally, and personally, the performers see it as their mission that every member of the audience gets the "full" experience.
"We try to get through all 30 plays, but some nights [are] slower than others and we don’t do it," Allen said.
Either way, at the end of the 60 minutes, someone in the audience is asked to roll a die to determine the number of new plays that will be written for the following week.
"That way we keep new plays coming in and take old ones out. It’s better because if you come once, you know the second time you’ll see different plays," Allen said.
"I loved it. People really get into it. I was a little quiet at first, but you learn right away that you’ll never see the play you want unless you shout it really loud," Stoddard said. "I’m definitely coming again."
"I’ll be back in a couple weeks," said DeVaughn. "They never disappoint me."
"Too Much Light" at Neo-Futurarium is located in Chicago’s Andersonville neighborhood on the corner of Foster and Ashland Avenues at 5153 North Ashland Ave. Plays are performed every week, Fridays and Saturdays at 11:30 p.m. and Sundays at 7 p.m.
"I’ve been here since the beginning and I’m happy to say that we have compiled over 3,500 original plays and performed them in front of sold out crowds 50 weeks out of the year," Allen said.
PHOTOS:
Outside looks at the Neo-Futurarium Theater.
return to underground chitown entertainment