Ed Sullivan’s famous catch phrase takes on a new level of import as the theatrical performance industry reaches for ever-more-complex produc-tions. Just loading in the paraphernalia for the new show Fuerzabruta at the Daryl Roth Theater in New York in October, it looked as though it would require the services of more than a couple of tractor trailers proceeded by cars announcing, “Wide load coming through.” It took a 45-man crew 15 hours to bring in a 20-foot flying curtain and an oversized treadmill, in addition to a 45-foot, clear-bottom swimming pool that, secured to the ceiling, would hover above the audience.
Fuerzabruta — the word means brute force in Spanish, the language of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where the show was conceived and first per-formed — is in the vanguard of a number of shows whose special effects and machinery push the boundaries of even the ever-expanding Las Vegas theatres, where production waiting lists are longer than that for a new Trump condo, and which attract shows that de-emphasize the narrative quali-ties in favor of the spectacle. (Special effect shows with effective story lines usually head for Broadway, which has been known to fit a crashing helicopter into the script on occasion.)
These theatrical extravaganzas are defining themselves with technology as they move forward. They are not the narrative fantasies of Broadway and conventional theatre, nor are they the more technologically bombastic progeny of other content or titles — this is not High School Musical on Ice. Slava’s Snow Show, which continues to tour, relies upon technology to replace narrative to an extent, immersing the audience viscerally as op-posed to engaging it intellectually or emotionally. Other shows, including Stomp and Speigeltent, also use technology as a significant part of the attraction, as did De la Guarda, the Argentine predecessor of Fuerzabruta, but Fuerzabruta takes the notion to another level.
Fuerzabruta’s technology is as complex as a Swedish existentialist whodunit, and well beyond the artsy-crafty cuteness of troupes like Mumen-schantz, which can be credited with popularizing the genre 25 years ago, or even Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soleil, both of which turned the notion into a franchise.
As the show’s press release puts, it, “Fuerzabruta breaks free from the confines of spoken language and theatrical convention, [and] both performers and audience are immersed in an environment that floods the senses, evoking pure visceral emotion in a place where individual imagination soars.” Put more prosaically by Steve Garcia, the associate general manager of the Daryl Roth Theater, “This is a show that you’re not going to get on your iPod.”
No irony is necessary — the apparent pursuit of the overwhelming and immersive industrial theatrical experience may well be a reaction to an en-tertainment industry that has become engrossed with migrating the entertainment experience from large scale to small. It could also be the theatre’s reaction to the fact that the music industry is refocusing itself on live performances as recorded music revenues disappear. Will theatre come to rely more and more upon technology to attract and retain its audience? Will the helicopter in Miss Saigon become less an effect than a surrogate for nar-rative in the future?
One thing that this trend does augur is for the all-encompassing theatrical experience to take place in smaller venues. This, says Garcia, serves the purpose of making the show “intimately” immersive, as in the case of Fuerzabruta, by letting the audience actually touch the sides of the Mylar fishbowl as it’s lowered into the house. “This wouldn’t work in a typical Broadway house with a balcony,” he says.
Probably not, agrees Bradley Thompson, “Fuerzabruta’s technical supervisor and a member of a small, but growing, cohort of technology transla-tors for the visions of increasingly imaginative theatrical performance art directors. But technology is being relied upon more and more to attract what he believes is a developing demographic of theatergoers who want more than Disney and warmed-over (Tim) Rice. “There is a definite group of people out there that wants to see flying 40-foot swimming pools, and there are people out there that can dream them up. The technology exists to satisfy both of them,” Thompson says.
But will technology for its own sake overtake artistic vision at some point? Will something be done simply because it can be done? If we start the show with the helicopter crash, where do we go from there for the next 90 minutes?
Thompson agrees that is a danger. “It’s teetering into the realm of modern dance-meets-high-tech or performance art-meets-high-tech,” he says. “But look, the technology does keep getting more complex and interesting. There’s always new gadgets, new moving lights. In some ways, I can’t see the theatre not using what technology offers it.”
Contact Dan at ddaley@plsn.com
