Shakespeare Explodes
10/26/2009 | Andrew Vanden Bossche |
When you tell your friends you're going to see The Donkey Show this week, remember to be sure they know that it's a play. As the performance shares a name with an extremely obscene show viewable in unsavory Tijuana bars, it's good to clear up any misunderstandings before you start getting weird looks at work.
The Donkey Show is scandalous in all the right ways, a disco reinterpretation of a Midsummer Night's Dream that creates theater so explosive it comes right off the stagequite literally, in fact.
Calling it theater isn't enough to do it justice, and I hesitate to even use that word since it gives a false impression. The Donkey Show isn't a play about an 80s nightclub, it is an 80s nightclub, and unless you've scored some tickets to the limited VIP seating, the rest of the space is dancing room only.
Until the show closes, A.R.T.'s arrow street theater is the dance club OBERON (caps intended). If you're not ready to dance, you're not ready for this show. Besides, you'll leave the actors hanging if you don't get out and dance with them. This is interactive theater at its finest. You don't just feel like you're at Studio 54, you are there, as the theater unfolds around you.
Depending on how you look at it, the actual show starts at before or after the advertised 8:00 PM start time. Although the storyline doesn't kick into high gear until after 8:00, you could say the performance really starts the second the actors get into character, around 7:30, and the entertainment starts as you wait in line. Vinnie and Vinnie, a pair of 'fro clad rude mechanicals, start the evening getting thrown out of the club by the bouncer Steve-O, as the patrons wait in line to get in. If you stick around, you can even see Dance club owner and King of the fairies Oberon have a fight with his Disco-Diva girlfriend Titania.
Once you get into the club itself, you can enjoy a dance with one of Titania's very buff and nearly naked glitter fairies while you wait for the show to really start.
The Donkey Show doesn't require knowledge of Shakespeare's text, but it helps. The performance follows the the romance between Oberon and Titania, and the love triangle between Helen, Dimitri, Sander and Mia, Most of whom fall under the sway of love potions at the hands Dr. Wheelgood, the Puck on Rollerstakes.
It is explosive, outrageous, and maybe a little too much if you're expecting to sit down and quietly enjoy some theater. IF you treat it like your wild night out, though, you'll be hard pressed to find anything as wild and sexy as The Donkey Show. Click on a thumbnail to magnify image.
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