The Neo-Futurist Theater can tell you HOW TO BE COOL 

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On the top floor of a building in Andersonville, you’ll find the 37-year-old Neo-Futurist Theater. Founded in 1988, The Neo-Futurist aesthetic demands that everything that transpires in their theater be non-illusory, which is to say that they pretend nothing; actors only play themselves. It makes for an intimate and immediate experience that feels unique. The home of the long-running late night show, The Infinite Wrench, a collection of 2 minute long plays, this production is a “prime time production” directed by Anna Gelman. The theater space itself has an inviting, lived-in feel, there is art and the evidence of the production of art, everywhere. The lobby area outside of the theater looks like a college bar circa the early 2000s. Audience members mingled at tables and chairs, watching video screens set up on either side of the room.

We were invited into the theater once it was time for the show to begin. A long, narrow space, the room was stark: a projection screen was up on one end, with no other embellishment. The show began with writer, performer and Neo-Futurist Ensemble Member Neil Bhandari crawling into the space from behind the screen and lugging the biggest baggage (pun intended) I’ve ever seen.

Neil opens the brisk, hour long show with a narrated video essay on what it is to be cool. Iconic images and characters from the  eighties and early nineties carried the audience on a nostalgic wave back to when Harrison Ford, the Goonies and Eddie Murphy were defining cool for American kids. He gets the audience involved in the musings, and together, a definition of “cool” is established. Once we know what we’re talking about, Neil recounts his own childhood desire to be cool, the motivations behind it, and the attempts to achieve it.

He bounces from monologue and dance to live music, costumes are changed on the spot on stage, and he sets up all the props or sets he might need while staying engaged with the audience. What begins as an examination of coolness turns into an exploration of insecurity, identity-building and the lies we tell ourselves as we try to make our way in the world.

Neil embodies much of the cool he describes: he’s funny and smart, he can play guitar and make fun of (and share) his eighth grade poetry with confident self-deprecation. As the hour continues, he also reveals the dark side of building an identity based on what others think of you. What at first seemed a cute kid’s journey into becoming an adult turns into an adult recounting the mistakes of an insecure kid, yearning to be cool. Smart, funny, talented Neil lists the kids who paid a price for his attempts at popularity. He mourns the loss of relationships, the loss of time, the loss of who he thought he could be vs who he was.

The evening is a funny, unexpected, melancholy and thoughtful treatise on what it means when the perception of others is what you chase, because you can’t stand your perception of yourself.

Recommended

Reviewed by Alina C. Hevia

Performances are held at The Neo-Futurist Theater, 5153 N Ashland, Chicago, IL 60640 from  February 6th – March 1st on Thursdays/Fridays/Saturdays at 7pm. Tickets are PWYC – $20 and available now for purchase. 

Additional information about this and other area productions can be found by visiting www.theatreinchicago.com.