WONDERBAUM & LAPD at The Walker’s Out There 2014

The cast of “Hospital” at The Walker

Almost a decade ago, I learned my lesson about walking into a theatre space and rolling my eyes at the set.  I was at the Walker Art Center’s annual “Out There” series.  Back then I was going through my first Jerome Fellowship, and the Walker had generously offered us comps to the entire festival.  The show was Cynthia Hopkins’ “Accidental Nostalgia” —the playing space a kind of life-size erector set, with areas portioned off for the band and the video equipment, and a small stage built between the two areas.  Behind this smaller stage was an enormous screen for the live video.  I honestly don’t recall what I found so annoying about it, but I do remember girding myself for an unbearable, self-indulgent, self-congratulatory evening of arch nonsense.

Instead, the show blew me away.  I went out of my way to catch all three pieces in the trilogy Hopkins extrapolated from it (each one more masterful than the next), and, as I said, learned a valuable lesson.  Even more than simply “keeping an open mind”, I realized that theatre had been experimenting for many, many years, even during my own short span (I saw my first Wooster Group piece in the late 80’s)—there was no style, no way of doing the work that guaranteed success—we had reached the point, where, quite simply, you can get away with pretty much anything you want.  Instead of a set criteria, each theatrical event teaches you its rules as you experience them.

All this came to mind last night during Wunderbaum and LAPD’s “Hospital”, the inaugural production of 2014’s “Out There” series.  Their set evoked the earlier Hopkins piece in its mechanical spareness—a long U of skeletal white tables set way upstage, each with its own white architect’s lamp.  There was the video equipment—all black, in this case, to contrast all that white.  And, of course, a giant screen in the middle of the action.  This time, marking my lesson, I did not roll my eyes.  And, as you might suspect, I once again had the incorrect response.

“Hospital” is co-devised piece—Wonderbaum is a group of five actors/theatre makers, based in Rotterdam, whose self-described mission is “creating plays on social, urban and metropolitan issues”.  LAPD, on the other hand, is made up of people who make art and live in Los Angeles’ Skid Row.  They “create performances and multidisciplinary art-works that connect the experience of people living in poverty to the social forces that shape their lives and communities”.

Together, the two groups lead us through the “Healthy Life Of John Malpede”.  Malpede is a founder of LAPD, apparently born in 1945—the piece takes us through the various health crises of Malpede’s life, and how health insurance—or the lack of it—determined the outcome of each situation.  Are the facts of the story true?  Does it matter?  For the record, it seemed factual, a worthy account of one man’s journey through illness, bureaucracy and eventual healing.  Joking aside, no theatre piece made in good faith deserves an eye roll, but this one comes very close.  Mostly because aside from the fact there were people onstage, carrying props, who were artificially lit, it really didn’t seem like a theatre piece at all.  At first, its casual nature had a ramshackle charm—but as the evening progressed and you realized this parade of information—some of it lightly dramatized, much of it rattled off in mind-swimming detail—was the entire show, it started to feel as if a band of pranksters had the actual cast tied up in the dressing room and were winging it for a laugh.

I realize this could be a matter of taste.  There are many advocates for theatre with a purposefully amateur feel, but “Hospital” takes that idea to its very outmost limit.  The performers, taken as a whole, are charismatic and compelling, but the show itself is so casual in its structure and yet so rigorous in its delivery of facts and information it becomes difficult to stay focused.  Even a New Yorker article on healthcare has more to grab hold of, deeper revelations and insights.  I don’t doubt the mission or commitment of either group, but at some level we begin to wonder what the point of a theatre piece actually is.  Why did we come out last night instead of sitting at home with a beer and that New Yorker?  Was it simply to pass the time pleasantly?  To learn something?  Some benign combination of the two? Or is there some unconscious expectation of insight or emotional experience that will rattle us out of our sleepwalking and bring us suddenly into the present tense of our own lives?

OK, I loaded that multiple choice.  But it’s an important question.  This isn’t a festival of works-in-progress—I assume both companies are dedicated to this aesthetic, and I admire the social justice aspect of their respective missions.  But is that enough for a worthwhile evening of theatre?