This year’s theater season began in the ’92 two weeks ago with “The Game We Used to Play,” a half-hour show created and performed by the building project, a production group comprised of Max Goldblatt ’05 and Michael Rau ’05. Putting on a show this early in the semester requires preparation and flexibility, and the show displayed both in ample amounts.
This is no surprise from Goldblatt and Rau, who have long been associated with Wesleyan’s avant-garde theatre contingent. Anyone familiar with their work over the years no doubt expected whimsical yet insightful subversions of theatrical convention. This can be seen as a backhanded compliment. To some, this means pretension, and in some cases I agree. Some shows end up using innovations like Cool Use of Space as giftwrap on an empty box. However, when there’s something worthwhile inside, the show truly becomes a gift to its audience.
And this show was undeniably wrapped well. Those who arrived early enough were treated to a pre-show adventure: Audience members were admitted one by one into an almost completely darkened theater, given headphones and a flashlight, and told to close their eyes and count to ten. They then had to navigate the spooky space, their light hitting strange combinations of objects littered around the theater: stair units leading nowhere, toy mice in a bed, checkers and Scrabble, a couch and large coils of metal cable. The whole time they listened through the headphones to an eerie soundtrack over which Goldblatt’s whispery voice told how he and his brother used to play hide and seek, challenging the listener to find him, or to call ollie-ollie-oxen-free. The walk through ended, seating the audience member on the stage proper, which was cordoned off from the rest of the space. The program (which had ample room since Goldblatt and Rau filled every production role themselves) explained the list of rules that formed the show’s creation. These included “No Performers may break the fourth wall” (arguably broken by the preshow), “No standard theatrical lighting instruments” and “No stage crew.” But the final rule was really the most telling: “Ultimately the STORY is more important than the RULES.”
In the show, Rau and Goldblatt played brothers, the former a tie-wearing breadwinner, the latter an artist, always borrowing money from his brother. Goldblatt’s character has disappeared. For years, it seems, no one has heard from him. His brother comes home from work every day and searches. Rau’s monologues, laden with the guilt, frustration, and anger, rang true of a person powerless to help a loved one. They were inter-spliced with enactments of the brothers’ childhood obsession with hide-and-seek. Rau narrated to himself while he and Goldblatt went through the game’s physical bargaining, which escalated through the years to the point that Rau’s character wonders if his missing brother just never stopped playing.
This all took place in a blank, black space directly in front of the audience. The only set was two tall black flats and a table, its sides covered in dark fabric. The main lighting came from flashlights, handheld emergency lights, and the two ever-present iBooks on the table, which played music and displayed title cards, supplementing the dialogue. Goldblatt’s ever-strong presence was often more physical than verbal: he did most of the light manipulation, swinging them to create scrim and strobe effects, charging at Rau and then cutting the light just before the moment of impact.
The malleable character roles kept the audience on its toes (despite one overly confusing point, when the two traded jackets, and characters, for three or four lines, then switched back roles but stayed in the other’s costume).
They speak several times through the show of the last time they saw each other, at a lake, and they return to this moment at the end. As Goldblatt sits at the table, titles appear on the computer facing the audience, stating for the record: “My brother did not drown. He disappeared.” Other titles follow, negating possible fates. The show seems about to answer the big question, and it does, only to leave the audience questioning. The final title card reads “I did not hold him under,” and it is not until this card repeats itself, and the audience sees that a blue cloth has found its way across Goldblatt’s face, swallowing him, that we realize Rau has protested too much. The end.
This powerful and intimate show was one of the more thoughtful gifts Wesleyan audiences have received. It was a chilling gift, a gift of noir uncertainty and unexplainably quickened pulses. Consider this a heartfelt thank you note.
THE GAME WE USED TO PLAY created by the building project (Max Goldblatt ’05 and Michael Rau ’05).
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