By Laura Kennelly
Last weekend, Playhouse Square’s Lab Theatre became a safe space to experience a mild form of “immersive theatre” (a newish fad that includes the audience as part of the setting, say in a real Turkish bath or in a mental hospital–read all about it here in Playbill).
So for the (too-short) weekend run of this Playhouse Square/Baldwin Wallace University collaboration Murder Ballad viewers sat at bar tables (the rest of us in seats around the U-shaped set) and watched while Tom, the sexy bartender and Sara, his lover, and Michael, her husband, fell in and out and in again of love. Meanwhile a glamorous woman, “Narrator,” sings us a ballad, a true “Murder Ballad” as it turns out. (It would spoil the fun to say more about what happens.)
On a preview trip during rehearsals, I tried the table-sitting view and when Sara (Kyra Kennedy that night) slammed her cell phone down on the table, we all winced. It was both unsettling and impressive to watch someone up close who found us invisible. The main downside to breaking the fourth wall and sitting on stage that night was all the neck twisting to see what was going on behind our backs.
For a return trip for the final performance, seats on the side provided a great view and, despite the earlier novelty of being “in the show” and on stage with no effort on my part, seemed to better way to hear and appreciate everything. (Now if the bar had been open as it is in some theatres and drinks had been served, that might have been a different story.)
It was a joy to watch these intense young actors meld into their roles. The saucy narrator, sexy Sara, handsome Tom, and the kind-hearted Michael (Sara’s professor husband) created their own little world of steamy sex, domestic responsibility, and betrayal in a little over an hour. The double cast featured current BW students Kennedy and Keri Rene Fuller as Sara, Kyle Jean-Baptise and Zachary Adkins as Tom, David Zody and Anthony Sagaria as Michael, and Sara Zoe Budnik and Nyla Watson as Narrator.
Creators Julia Jordan (book and lyrics) and Juliana Nash have conjured up infectiously pulsing rock songs to go with another sad (not really) tale of sex in the big city. The production, directed by Victoria Bussert, was choreographed by Gregory Daniels, with music direction by Andrew Cooper.
Alas, the show’s over now, but here’s to another collaboration next year and here’s to the Lab Theatre, an improvement on the now-vanished 14th-Street Theatre where previous shows have been staged.
[Photo: Sara Zoe Budnik Credit: Laura Kennelly]
Laura Kennelly is a freelance arts journalist, a member of the Music Critics Association of North America, and an associate editor of BACH, a scholarly journal devoted to J. S. Bach and his circle.
Cleveland, OH 44115