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Review: ‘The Method Gun’
What to inaugurate the Rollins Studio Theatre with, the smaller of two venues at the new $77 million Long Center for the Performing Arts?
After all, the Rollins is intended as a showcase for Central Texas’ not-so-big arts groups — a stage where emerging or experimental creativity can enjoy a bit of time in the mainstream spotlight.
What a brilliant stroke it is then, that the first show produced by the Long Center is an utterly original play by the Rude Mechanicals, one of Austin’s most utterly original theatrical teams.
Two-years in the making, ‘The Method Gun,’ which opened Thursday for a two-week run, is nothing short of the best work this theater collective has done in its 13 years as it has carved out its well-respected reputation on the international indie theater scene.
This is the Rude Mechanicals doing what they do best: crafting a rich series of stunning and surprising visual moments, lacing those moments with kinetic physical movement and wrapping it all together with a script both lyrical and cheeky.
Sweet, irreverent and terribly funny, ‘The Method Gun’ pays homage to the creative process itself as something of the ultimate ‘theater about theater’ play.
Five unnamed actors — engagingly played by Laura Cannon, Thomas Graves, Lana Lesley, Jason Liebrecht and Shawn Sides — recreate the experiments of Stella Burden, an illusory actor-training guru whose training technique, known as ‘The Approach,’ used exercises that were loaded with potential danger, both physical and psychological. Burden’s ‘Approach’ intended to infuse even the most minor theatrical roles with complexity and depth. One acting exercise in particular 00 ‘The Method Gun’ — was so dangerous that it eventually led to Burden’s death.
Written by Kirk Lynn — one of the five co-producing artistic directors who founded the Rude Mechs — this jewel-like 70-minute play finds the actors recreating the last public performance Burden’s troupe did before Burden disappeared into the jungles of South America. It’s performance that took Burden’s troupe nine years to rehearse. And given her odd penchant for small roles and over-looked parts, that performance was Tennessee Williams’ ‘A Streetcar Named Desire’ — only performed without any of the primary characters.
That’s a lot of theater about theater. And sometimes ‘The Method Gun’ scoots a little too close to being for insiders only. But happily, the Rude Mechs — whose creative process is wholly collaborative though Lynn remains author of the script — deftly find a way to speak more universally. What is theater if it isn’t ultimately a reflection of life?
‘I have no idea how to act in my life,’ says one of the actors, frustrated. Well, there isn’t a guru in the world that can teach you how to be true to yourself.
‘The Method Gun’ continues 6 p.m. April 6, 7:30 p.m. April 8-10, 7 and 10 p.m. April 11, 3 and 7:30 p.m. April 12. Rollins Studio Theatre, Long Center, 701 W. Riverside Dr. $28. 474-5664. www.thelongcenter.org. This show contains adult language and nudity.
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By Robert Matney
April 7, 2008 4:29 PM | Link to this
Fantastic! A glowing review of a fabulous play.
I fell especially in love with the Rude’s usage of this new space for this production. Rather than obscure the architecture, they highlighted it’s dimensions and hardware, taking staging and narrative advantage of its grids and height. I cannot imagine a better showcasing of the Rollin’s native features and what can be done with them. I took notes like a student.
As usual, Lynn’s text is smart and economical. The production is visually beautiful, skillfully executed, and equal-parts navel-gaze and self-effacement. It holds a mirror up to the nature of theater holding a mirror up to nature. Dig.