Billed as “an experimental theater piece about the end of an experimental theater,” this opening night show in the 19th annual Under the Radar festival turned out to be, as the title promised, an “Open Mic Night” — but not, as the title implies, a voluntary one; this is not a show for theatergoers who are spotlight-averse.
It began with Julia Mounsey sitting in front of a laptop and a microphone telling us about Life World, the illegal performance space in Gowanus, Brooklyn she ran for two years with Peter Mills Weiss and others until it shut down last September – illegal because the building was on a block that was not zoned for entertainment.
A few minutes into her description, while making fun of how Weiss used to attempt a stand-up routine that was really just “crowd work,” Weiss himself walked by with a ladder and elaborately set up a spotlight. Then he walked to a microphone at the center of the spotlight – and turned on the bright houselights, washing out the spotlight. This got a laugh. He told us how anxious he was, then started what seemed to be a stand-up routine, something about bowling with various sauces. After a moment, he said “We’ll have to speed things up a little bit”…followed by a long silence.
For the next 45 minutes or so – by far the bulk of the show — Weiss did standup as crowd work, asking questions of the audience as a whole – “applaud if you came here by train….by bus….by car.” – and of each and every individual in the theater. I don’t think he missed anybody. Sometimes he asked a multiple-choice question – “beer or wine,” “life or death.” Sometimes he wanted an essay, asking someone to stand before the microphone to praise their theater companion. Sometimes the questions were deliberately intrusive – which may be why Mounsey would occasionally use the laptop to make buzzing or beeping noises.
“Raise your hand if you make more than $10,000 a year,” he began one routine. “Keep your hand up if you make more than $20,000.” He continued at $10,000 increments all the way up to $200,000, when he turned to the one remaining gentleman with his hand up, and said “Would you consider supporting us…” This got a laugh, but Weiss was serious; the man was led to the Q-code where he could pay with his smartphone (Those codes were used a short time afterward when Mounsey and Weiss brought a cooler of soda cans to sell.)
For the last five minutes or so, they handed out photo albums of some of the shows that had been done at Life World (“more than a thousand illegal performances,” Mounsey had told us), and Weiss mumbled out a monologue of reminiscences: “I remember being in the red…I remember the room…It was a place that sensed its purpose,” he said several times.
It was hard to sense the purpose of “Open Mic Night,” which, like other Mounsey/Weiss shows I’ve seen, seems to be both a spoof of something and the thing itself; kind of funny, but mostly weird. If nothing else, the performance is evidence – an assertion? – that an experimental theater may die, but something calling itself experimental theater lives on. (Which I suppose makes it appropriate to have launched this year’s Under the Radar after the festival’s near-death experience.)
Open Mic Night is at Performance Space New York (150 1st Ave., Manhattan, 4th floor) through January 18. Running time is about an hour.
