Wednesday, August 08, 2007

A Two-Character Play Starring Both Members of the Audience - New York Times:

Silvia Mercuriali, 30, and Anthony Hampton, 32 — the artistic team behind Rotozaza, an inventive London-based company with a growing reputation on the experimental theater circuit — don’t think so. They have found a way around the problem of pesky performers by giving the audience something else to look at: themselves.

The troupe had already been practicing an unusual brand of cerebral theater, building darkly psychological dramas about surveillance, communication and modern love that use a mix of actors and unrehearsed guest performers who are told what to do and say by an Orwellian voice offstage. This chilling aesthetic is based on a certain uneasy ambiguity among viewers over whether a guest performer knows the script or is just following instructions.

But if the line between audience and performer seems blurred, Rotozaza’s new drama, “Etiquette,” which they created with Paul Bennun, erases it entirely.

12:26 PM