It was a bit of a stressful evening, beginning first with trying to get a friend in at the last minute and then jockeying for position at all the different theatre productions. I didn't get to see the shows that I wanted to get into, which was highly frustrating. One had a one-person audience and used a lottery system to get in. You had to draw straws (only 10 were available), and out of the 10, only one of them had the magic mark on the end, and the person with that stick was the one who got to go in to see the show. My friend Emily made it in, and described the intimate show as this: "You look into a microscope and see this eyeball staring back at you. Then you look at this book and a projector is showing drawings and images on it for you. Suddenly a real life hand comes crashing down on the book and this actress appears before you and starts performing." Those aren't her exact words but you get the idea.
The Electric Company's "Flanigan Affair" was apparently the best show there, but I didn't get to see it because it was constantly surrounded by a mob to get in. This probably had a lot to do with a review in a local paper that basically said, "This is the best one there, go see it if you can" causing the onrush. Boo!!
Another production had us all get orange armbands which we wore all night long until a soldier came to grab us without notice. Peter and I were in line for one production when we were pulled out, put into orange jumpsuits, blindfolded and had headphones placed on our ears. We were then led through the room holding onto a rope and shut into seperate rooms. Peter was put in a room where he saw images and news footage of Guatanamo Bay, including George W. Bush repeating over and over, "We haven't done anything wrong." I, on the other hand, was sequestered in a room that was pitch black and heard audio of soldier's talking about the prisoners. "I like to throw corn at them," laughed one. It was a neat experience, scary and sad. Actress Sandra Oh was in attendance a week prior and the word spread like wildfire that this particular production brought her to tears.
One that I missed out on was a YouTube thing, where people from the night before pick out videos for the next night's audience to see, and then after watching the videos, actors come out and do a performance by using the comments that are left underneath the videos as their dialogue. Supposed to be pretty hilarious, with lots of stupidity and homophobia in the comments. The reason I missed this was because our group of 4 got separated. Two of us were able to make it in, but the other two weren't, and I felt obligated to keep everyone together so we decided not to go in without the rest of the gang. We thought we could hit it up again by the end of the evening but it never happened.
Boca Del Lupo's offering this year wasn't as cool as last year's dumpster bin diving, but it was still nice to see. We were led into a space where we all had to lay down and look up into what appeared to be an elevator shaft of sorts. Seperating us was a see-through plastic partition, on which lay an actor looking down at us. Without words, the piece told the story of someone trapped at the bottom of this shaft or well, and slowly going insane down there. From above, a cover is slid open to reveal blue sky and the arrival of someone to come rescue our fallen character, who ends up striking the rescuer with a monkey wrench and climbing up the rope ladder to freedom and closing the lid behind, leaving the new person laying on the partition staring down and waiting for the next audience to arrive.
Next year, if they have it again, I have a plan: go on a weekday and don't go on the last night of the event. Also, if I'm going to be with more than one person, screw them if they can't get into a show and let everyone fend for themselves!!!
