LA Party
Engaging story telling matched with innovative low-tech but high-concept special effects.
That pretty much sums up LA Party, a 40 minute Spalding Grayish monolog delivered with zest by the entire cast and crew. A skilled narrator, an attentive camera person, a guy laying on the floor, a minimalist keyboardist, and a woman sitting in a chair with duct tape covering her eyes and mouth all work together to tell the story of one man’s fall from monastic-vegan/raw-food-purity into a night of drug induced hedonism and guacamole consumption.
The text alone is entertaining enough, one of our favorite punchlines was the girl he meets on a vegan dating website who turns out to be bulimic, but with the generous helpings of d.i.y. special effects the words take on a life of their own. We have seen similar technics in museums and art galleries, but never executed with this level of competent coordination on stage. The level of drug-reality verisimilitude is so high that we found ourselves experiencing minor flashbacks.
The show takes you on a trip (pun intended) slowly stripping away one device at a time, until the author is directly communicating with the audience without any affectation. And that’s what we took away from this very funny and tender show; you have you peel away at your own facade to find out who you really are, or you just have to do a lot of drugs, or maybe both.
Life is messy, and no one can stay a prisoner of their own purity forever, especially when psychatropic drugs are involved.
Conceived and Directed by Phil Soltanoff Written by David Barlow
Presented by HERE Arts Center
$15 tickets at here.org or 212-352-3101
HERE Arts Center 145 6th Ave., between Spring and Broome