DCPA Off Center
The Wild Party was a different sort of immersive experience. Its basis was the musical The Wild Party by John LaChuisa. This musical is the very linear story of the events that unfold at a party held by Queenie and Burrs. The audience becomes guests invited to the party and the action unfolds around us. The audience was even asked to wear costumes out of the roaring twenties, the time period of the musical. I dressed as an aging paper boy out of the era. Very often the characters would come along and chat audience members up. The show begins outside Queenie and Burr’s home. We are introduced to all the characters and then invited into the house. The set was incredibly detailed with the kitchen and the bathroom at the center of the playing space and various other rooms arrayed around the perimeter. The room was filled with all the knickknacks one collects and displays as well other more personal items lying around where a nosy person could find them and we were encouraged to explore all of it. My only quibble with the set was the central space was set off by a sort of portico with large pillars at each corner. These pillars at times blocked one from seeing action taking place on the other side of the room. It was a minor thing as the characters never stood still. One definitely felt that one had entered Queenie and Burr’s home as dirty, cluttered and as grandiose as it was. As one wondered around their home, if one looked carefully, one could even find letters written between Queenie and Burrs. I was glad to find these letters as they added illumination to the relationship between them. Each of these details lent to the reality of being in someone’s home. One learned a lot about the carefree, careless, difficult people that Queenie and Burrs were just by paying close attention to the environment they invited us into.
The performers were all excellent. Each created a unique fully realized individual. The standouts for me were the performers playing Queenie, Eddie, Mea, Sally, Dolores and Burrs. Queenie was quite simply the life of the party. You could feel her desire to abandon herself to fun while still staying alert to the threat of Burr’s jealousy. She was vulnerable, ditsy, jealous, and desirous for change and sublime all wrapped up in one tiny package.
Eddie and Mae’s number was among the strongest. They clearly conveyed their love of each other, their frustration with each other, and their need for something different. I never forgot either one was present and searching for something to fulfill their needs and ultimately for each other.
Sally was just north of being a zombie. The actress playing her perfectly captured a woman who was barely cognizant of her existence much less what was happening around her. She did not have a lot of words or music. She could easily have faded into the wallpaper. Yet the actress made her just enough of a mystery, just intriguing enough that you wanted to know what was going onside Sallie’s head.
Dolores is a stage performer long past her prime, finding it hard to get jobs. The actress playing her perfectly captured the archness and bitterness that comes from faded glory as well as the still bright desire to perform again. Her two songs were highlights of the show.
Burrs is a man with a past, a previous wife whom he may have abused. He gives this party to make Queenie happy. The actor playing him shows us quite clearly that he loves Queenie and the characters descent into madness driven by jealousy over Queenie’s quite obvious desire for Black, one of the party guests.
The other characters are Gold and Goldberg, a pair of theatrical producers. They want Queenie to start in their next show. They are the comic relief. Both actors do of selling the foibles and confusions of their characters. There is Jackie, a bisexual man who always is in the mood for more. While the actor goes big for all the smarmy, debonair, charm of one always on the prowl for his next conquest, the actor seems a bit miscast. There is Nadine, Maes younger sister, very naïve and wanting all that comes with being in New York. The actress plays up the giddy joy of a young person at their first big party but little else. There are the Phil and Oscar D’Armano. They are brother who have a song and dance act. One registers only as a paramour for Jackie, the other not at all. It was an unfortunate choice to have cast one of the brothers with the conductor of the band. He disappears into the corner where the band is positioned and aside from singing a song with his brother has no part in the action. Madame Madeline is Sally’s partner. She is clearly the male of the couple. The actress playing her gives us a brassy, tough woman with just enough heart to care about Nadine. Finally, there are Kate and Black. Kate is a friend of Queenie, whom Queenie both wants at the party and yet doesn’t. Black is her date. Both performers make it clear that these people have no problem playing the field. Kate is clearly much more attached to Black than he to her. Kate and Queenie have a great song that that the actresses make both a peon to friendship and a war. Black is a gigolo. He is immediately attracted to Queenie and her to him. The actor playing Black tries hard to give him the air dangerous charm and sex appeal the character requires but does not quite pull it off. Together all these characters bring the party to wild life. They all add to the aura of a group of people ready and willing to give into their baser needs. The characters all share a bit of cruel streak, a looseness or morals, and big hearts that have seen their share of pain.
As the party goes on, it degenerates into unbridled licentiousness. Various guests pair off with each other in both opposite and same sex connections. Soon everyone is in various stages of undress and drunkenness. When the gin starts to flow, we are given small glasses of gin to drink right along with the rest of the guests. I found myself at one point with a fairly strong Bourbon Breeze in one hand and a small gin in the other, very atypical of me. Yet, in immersive theater one gives into the atmosphere just a bit. The characters had us dancing right along with them.
Overall, this Wild Party was a great show and an amazing realization of the Wild Party. From the set and costumes to the performances we are enveloped in a world where the times are fast, sex and booze are free flowing, morals are loose, and anything goes. I cannot imagine seeing it any other way. Being immersed in the actions and emotions of these characters as only a guest at a party could be makes one a witness to and participant in the chaos that ensues in a much more visceral way that seeing it across a proscenium arch ever could.
I would encourage anyone and everyone to seek out this kind of immersive theater. It is an experience like no other. All of your senses will be fully engaged in theatrical experience. I was hesitant before I saw Sweet and Lucky. I decided to let the experience happen and engage in whatever ways the experience required. It was beyond an amazing experience. So, I was more than ready to do it again for the Wild Party. Though different in structure and impact it was every bit as amazing.
Picture from The Wild Party
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