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| Show | Did He Like It?* |
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Club beats and mellow new world music fill the air as performers run and tumble, whirl and spin, and sail over the heads of the audience in a new show from the creators of the long-running aerial sensation De La Guarda. Click here for tickets. |
Don’t Slump: Stand, Gawk, Collaborate
*By CHARLES ISHERWOOD
Published: October 25, 2007
“Fuerzabruta,” the new show from the Argentine creators of the long-running “De La Guarda,” is another entry in a dependable if not exactly venerable genre: theater for people who don’t really like theater. Patrons are not required to think, feel or even sit down for this hourlong sensory bath at the Daryl Roth Theater. Standing and gaping are all that is strictly necessary, although jumping up and down and dancing are intermittently encouraged.
For true enjoyment, a powerful affection for thumping techno music would probably help. So would a delight in being befogged by acrid smoke, blasted by bright lights and shuttled around in packs like cattle. Also getting wet in public. The key demographic for “Fuerzabruta” is probably clubgoing, overstimulated college kids not worried about soiling their togs from H&M. Not to mention all those on the dark side of 30 who wish they were still clubgoing, overstimulated college kids.
Created by Diqui James, “Fuerzabruta” (the title is Spanish for “Brute Force”) is akin in some respects to hugely popular, no-language-barrier works like “Stomp” and the Blue Man Group shows. The drawing card here is that you get to be part of the experience too.
At “Stomp” and “Jump” and “Splat” and “Thwak” (only one of those is a joke), and for that matter at Cirque du Soleil’s many extravaganzas, you could choose to make like a tired businessman and slump in your seat, dozing until the house lights rise. Not so at “Fuerzabruta,” where you are expected to be a semi-active collaborator in the fanciful proceedings. If you’re really lucky, you could have a pizza box stuffed with powder and confetti smashed over your head.
Resist at your peril. I am fiercely averse to audience participation, and discovered that my habitual routine for repelling the attentions of frisky cast members — tightly crossed arms, forbidding stare — was useless here. I was set upon by a small, feisty fellow who mocked (rather well) my glowering stiffness, grabbed me by the shoulders, and insisted I join the jumping throngs. I compromised with a hop or two, and he left me in blessed peace.
Of course the performers — and the hard-working stagehands scurrying about in the dark — do most of the heavy lifting. The show’s central figure is a mysterious man in white who opens the proceedings walking on a giant treadmill rolled into the middle of the audience. The stroll turns into a jog, the jog into a desperate run. A shot rings out, blood spatters his shirt, and he falls to the ground. At which point the audience applauded, for reasons that completely eluded and slightly disturbed me.
This figure lives to walk again, however, past bits of furniture tossed on the treadmill by assistants, past other performers who zip by and topple off, and through a series of cardboard walls that disintegrate as he smashes into them. More applause.
I suppose you could say he represents the indomitable human will in opposition to the destructive influences of our assaultive world. You could also say that PacMan is a profound digital meditation on the human capacity for greed. But why would you? “Fuerzabruta” does not aspire to create meaning but to goose the senses through a series of mind-freak spectacles of variable originality and technical sophistication.
The most impressive is a massive shallow pool made of clear Mylar that descends from above, eventually scraping the heads of the taller audience members. Female performers splash and slide around alluringly in the water, like frisky mermaids in a big goldfish bowl. The more aggressive viewers ogle and grope, with only a quarter-inch of plastic to shield them from misdemeanor charges. (There’s something a little sexist about the absence of male performers in this aquatic sequence.)
Also requiring sustained neck-craning is the aerial catfight performed on a giant circular curtain of a tinfoillike substance that descends to the floor, surrounding the audience. “It’s like being inside a giant Jiffy Pop,” observed one of my companions. Absolutely true, but if you’re old enough to have a nostalgic affection for Jiffy Pop, I suspect that “Fuerzabruta” is not for you.
FUERZABRUTA
Created by Diqui James; music by Gaby Kerpel; lighting by Edi Pampn; sound by Hernan Nupieri; costumes by Andrea Mattio; automation design by Alberto Figueiras; general coordinator, Fabio D’Aquila; production, Agustina James; technical director, Alejandro Garcia; technical supervisor, Bradley Thompson; production stage manager, Jeff Benish; general manager, Laura Kirspel. Presented by Concert Productions International, Fuerzabruta, Ozono and David Binder. At the Daryl Roth Theater, 20 Union Square East at 15th Street, Manhattan; (212) 239-6200. Through Feb. 17. Running time: 1 hour 10 minutes.
WITH: Freddy Bosche, Hallie Bulleit, Daniel Case, Michael Hollick, Joshua Kobak, Gwyneth Larsen, Tamara Levinson, Rose Mallare, Brooke Miyasaki, Jon Morris, Jason Novak, Marlyn Ortiz and Kepani Salgado-Ramos.
Click here to buy tickets to Fuerzabruta Off-Broadway.
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