Last Friday and Saturday, the Boston University Neofuturist Project held its show “Pity (Us) Fools.”
It was a high energy hour and a half of nonstop theatric randomness and chaos. The format of the show involved thirty two-minute plays, all of which were student-written. The order of the scenes was selected in a semi-random process involving audience participation, a dart, and a wall covered in colorful balloons.
The Neofuturist Project, a student group here at BU, is based on an experimental-theater group in Chicago of the same name. It is is the most literal interpretation of the concept Short Attention Span Theater imaginable. It’s impossible to be bored; the time restriction simply doesn’t permit it.
This weekend’s show—and, indeed, Neofuturist theater on the whole—challenges many norms of theater. It demolishes the so-called fourth wall and unites audience and stage. As one of the performers said, the performance was “a show in which you do not suspend your disbelief. So keep it.”
The format seems to immediately imply madcap comedy. There were certainly laughs. There were sketches on many subjects, from the Titanic (“Get on the Goddamn Boat, Rose”) to proper bathroom etiquette (“Perfect Information.”) Then there were wildly sexual farces about stripping (“Forgive me Father”) and sexting (“Phone Sex Seemed Too Dignified”).
But others were quietly thoughtful. In “Houston, We Have Contact,” player Cathy Kirch discussed America’s uneasiness about human contact while covering her arms with mud. She then demanded a hug from an audience member, and an eager friend in the front row happily obliged. Other plays, such as “Ugly,” and “A Pain In the Ass,” were heartbreaking and powerful in their own ways.
The short time frame of the scenes is perhaps what makes the Neofuturism experience so powerful. The plays neither revel in their own punch-lines nor dwell on their own messages. They simply move on to the next bit. A number is called, a dart thrown, a balloon popped, the scene title underneath read. The actors get into position. The show goes on.
