The IU Department of Theatre, Drama and Contemporary Dance debuted its adaptation of Greg Allen’s “Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind” on Thursday at the Wells-Metz Theater. The show was directed by faculty Sarah Johnson and Jonathan Michaelsen, and produced by special arrangement with Playscripts, Inc.
Devised in 1988 by Greg Allen, the founding director of The Neo-Futurist Theater in Chicago, the concept involves the audience shouting out a number for the cast to randomly pick from a clothesline above them. They then perform a corresponding short play until all numbers are picked or the one-hour timer runs out. Allen’s rendition is the longest running show in Chicago history, owing primarily to its nuanced nature, as no two shows are ever the same.
The production strictly adheres to three core neo-futuristic principles — the cast members are always themselves and don’t play any characters, everything takes place in the present and on the stage and the cast commits to every action without any pretense.
Evan Anderson, a senior theater student at IU and one of the ensemble members, spoke about the complexity of incorporating neo-futurism.
“It’s kind of hard to wrap your head around it,” he said. “Theater is very much a performative thing and neo-futurism is trying to go against that and say, ‘You’re just a normal person on stage doing your thing.’”
Director Sarah Johnson, assistant professor of dramaturgy at IU, said the individual plays are written by the cast of 10 undergraduate students. She said they began rehearsing twice a week since November and nightly since the start of the semester. She said while this was her first time directing this production, she had prior experience working on the show at the University of Iowa with Allen.
“It won't feel like any show, probably any piece of theater that you've ever seen before,” she said. “You are who you are, and we're not going to be pretending, so people are also totally more serious and authentic with their stories. Some of them have a point, but most of them are open to interpretation.”
Johnson said she wanted to make it a unique experience for the audience and, to that effect, prefaced the show with an eccentric opening. Cast members greeted attendees and guided them to their seats from backstage, making a pit stop at a room where staff members invited them to pick a color of thread to weave into a tapestry to commemorate each of the showings at IU.
Each attendee was given a menu with all the plays and their corresponding number. The first couple of rows of the theater demarcated a “splash zone” for those more inclined to interact with the cast for some of the plays.
The cast members started by introducing the audience to the concept, adding that any plays that don't get completed would receive a “funeral,” and the audience would be invited to a triumphant dance party on stage should they complete all 30 plays within the hour.
“We wanted to get it really close so there was a good chance that we would both be successful and a good chance that we would not make it some nights,” Johnson said.
All 10 cast members were on stage during the entire show, with some plays requiring everyone’s participation and others requiring only a couple actors.
The cast shouted “curtain!” and the audience called out a number. The performers then grabbed it from the clothesline, read the title aloud, crumpled the paper, tossed it into the audience and promptly began the play by yelling “go!” Once they finished, they shouted “curtain!” again.
“I hope the audience feels really empowered to be a part of the theatrical event,” Johnson said. “Empowered to make decisions about what they're seeing and make their own opinions about what they're saying. They might really love some of the plays, but not like other plays, and that's kind of the point.”
Johnson said the process was highly collaborative, with students responding to prompts and bringing in plays they had written. At times, she would divide them into groups and give them assignments to create short performances, which they would then present to one another.
She said preparing the cast for the improvisational elements of the show was crucial, as a live audience could change the dynamics of a performance at any time. Johnson credited her co-director, Michaelsen, for helping the cast develop improvisational skills. Michaelson trained at Second City, an improv comedy theater in Chicago, and was able to coach the students accordingly.
Jeremy Clark, one of the audience members seated within the “splash zone,” said the show was a completely new experience for him.
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“It was phenomenal,” Clark said. "It was the craziest piece of theater I think I’ve ever seen in my life.”
The opening night performance was a success, with the ensemble finishing all 30 plays just moments before time ran out. They cheerily turned the stage into a dance floor and called upon the audience to join them in celebration.
“Listening to the students tell their own stories in their own words and really be in control is my takeaway,” Johnson said. “Every time I watch them, I’m like, ‘This is why we do theater, to tell these stories to empower people to tell their own stories.’”
The production will run through March 14 at the Wells-Metz Theater and tickets can be purchased from the IU Theater & Dance website.
