Gemma @ ‘U R ★’ - Made Me Want To Experience More Theatre
What’s it about?
“U R ★ (YOU ARE STAR) is a musical, graphic-novel experience designed for small audiences. Told through music and hand-drawn visuals, U R ★ takes you on an interactive journey that is both whimsical and intensely personal. Developed at the Orchard Project in 2014 and the A.R.T in 2015, U R ★ is an experiment in the relationship between audience and artist and an exploration of what it means to grapple with darkness” (mynameisfinkle.com).
My Experience
I hadn’t heard of Kenny Finkle or U R ★ until I saw my friend and coworker Zoe write about him on Facebook. The first time she posted about him, I immediately checked Finkle’s website, but his round of performances had just ended. And so when a little over a month later, I saw her post that the show was coming to Ars Nova, I didn’t think, I just bought tickets. Two, to be exact. One for my mother (duh) and one for myself. And considering the audience member limit per performance was six, I was expecting the show to be sold out. Thankfully, I had acted quickly enough.
Whenever I have to go to Ars Nova, I always underestimate just how far up the avenues it is (between 10th and 11th). And the night I experienced U R ★ was no exception. My mom and I started walking from the Bryant Park area feeling like we had all the time in the world. And then it was nearly 6:00pm, and the email I had received the night before warned audience members to arrive no later than 6:15pm:
I was approaching panic when the front doors to the theatre appeared to be locked. But I rang the buzzer, announced that my mom and I were there for U R ★, and we were let into the air-conditioned venue. It wasn’t long before I started chatting with a young staff member named Molly (pictured with me below). As it turns out, she knew my friend Melissa from when they worked together at the theatre. So....What did I do? Send Melissa a blurry selfie of the two of us, of course.
The time passed quickly, and nobody else arrived for the show. Nobody! It was just my mom and I, and there were supposed to be six of us total. Molly waited until 6:35pm, a full twenty minutes later than she was supposed to, before deciding to take us up. As we waited for the elevator, an upset looking couple forced their way inside. The woman told us that they had thought the show started at 7:00pm! But since Molly had waited, the woman and her boyfriend would be able to experience the show with us after all. I was relieved, because the pressure of my mom and I being the sole audience members in an already intimate show was a bit too much for me to bear.
We exited the elevator into a spacious apartment, well, spacious for Manhattan’s standards. We were greeted warmly by Finkle, who was sipping from a plastic cup of wine. We introduced ourselves, each shaking his hand, and then he offered us red or white wine. I picked white. We all clinked cups giddily. What kind of show was this? Had it already begun? Was he a character, or was he playing himself? Finkle asked us how we had found out about the show. The woman’s parents had purchased the tickets for her and her boyfriend. I told Finkle about my connection to Zoe and he smiled. I saw the recognition in his eyes.
We were ushered into a small bedroom (so, the size of the average New York City studio apartment), and encouraged to leave our belongings on the bed. My mom and I sat next to each other on one small couch, while the couple sat together on another small couch to our left. Finkle faced the four of us. He took out a bowl and asked each of us to pull out a question at random and then answer it out loud. I was hoping it wasn’t trivia.
The woman’s question: Can you describe the contents of the room drawn on this piece of paper? She showed us the picture, and it was a teeny tiny scribbled table with a window or something like that behind it. The woman described it as a room with a table placed in front of an abstract piece of art. I agreed, because I couldn’t think of anything else it might be.
My question: Can you describe summer using one vegetable, sound, and texture? When I thought of summer as a texture, I immediately thought: sticky. I thought of broccoli for my vegetable, because it reminded me of the trees in Central Park, and for my sound, I thought of people moaning in disgust at the humidity that us New Yorkers have come to know so well.
My mom’s question: If you found that you could suddenly fly, where would you go?
My mom smiled, explaining how she would assume a Superman-like position before flying to Greece, where she would island hop to her heart’s content.
The man’s question: Can you describe the feeling of a pineapple?
The man had a thick Irish accent, and I had to keep myself from laughing because while he used so many words, he managed to never actually describe the feeling of a pineapple. He said something along the lines of “I’m on an island holding a pineapple, and there’s a certain weight to it, and there’s just something about that pineapple, about the feel of it.” I seriously wondered if he had ever seen/held a pineapple before. I had my doubts.
Finkle’s question: What was the first piece of music you bought with your own money?
Finkle made us all each answer this question before he answered it himself. I thought back... I remembered the first music I really loved. Chubby Checker’s The Twist: They even played it at my birthday party in Kindergarten. I thought of the first CD I remembered owning: Hilary Duff’s Metamorphosis. But that music was all provided for me, by parents and friends.
Then it hit me: Ronan, by Taylor Swift. I explained that in this generation, not many people paid for music. I sure didn’t. I would download it illegally, or stream it on YouTube or Pandora, or Google Play Music, etc. So it was never necessary for me to actually spend the money. But I did for Ronan, because I knew that it was written about a little boy who had tragically died from cancer before his 4th birthday, and that my donation would benefit the Ronan Thompson Foundation, a charity that supported childhood cancer research. The people around me seemed very touched by this fact, particularly the woman sat to my left. She clinked plastic cups with me, explaining that she was a cancer survivor. Wow.
The woman remembered spending her money on a vinyl of Michael Jackson’s Thriller. My mom remembered spending money on a CD that featured Andrea Bocelli’s Con te partirò. And the man remembered stealing various pieces of music, but none that I had ever heard of. Then Finkle answered that he had first spent his own money on a Madonna record. He lived in a very pro-vinyl household, and he was nostalgic for the time when music was something that happened to you and took you somewhere, regularly, that told a story you could follow. I could kind of understand what he meant. The only times I actively listened to music were on my commutes to and from work. And how actively was I really listening? I had headphones in my ears, and I was more tuning out the subway than tuning into the stories the music was telling. With that in mind, Finkle introduced us to U R ★. It was an original soundscape that we were meant to experience guided by hand-illustrated graphic novels, all telling one big story. Our job was to feel for when the music told us to turn the pages. At the start, Finkle would do this for us, but soon we would be on our own.
My mom and I were partners responsible for one graphic novel, and the couple to our left were responsible for the other. Both graphic novels were telling the same story, and all of us were listening to the same soundscape.
The main characters were Brandon (a dreamer), Ramona (an escapist), Veronica (a romantic), and Tricky (darkness). Tricky was as dangerous as he was irresistible, and he regularly committed unspeakable acts.
I was impressed at how I just knew when to turn the page. I was easily following the story - the music and the graphic novel were one. Together, I really was transported into the worlds of Brandon, Ramona, and Veronica, and their attempts to confront darkness.
After we made it to the end of the first graphic novel, we took a brief break. There were several stations set up throughout the living room of the apartment with all sorts of activities and surprises. There was a pile of index cards containing secrets from previous audience members. Among these were cards that read, “I feel nothing inside” and “I think of other women when I sleep with my wife.” I added two of my own. Masked by curtains were floor-to-ceiling windows that contained hand-written notes. I signed my full name: Gemma Marina Lolos <3 There was a pamphlet written by Finkle on tips to help fall asleep. There were cassette tapes and a cassette player. I played one of the tapes and couldn’t make much sense of what I heard. There was audience-made art topping the piano.
I decided to use the bathroom before the break was over, and was a little surprised to find a shower inside. I guess I was in an apartment, but it was still an apartment owned by Ars Nova. And it smelled like someone had recently taken a shower. Huh...
We all returned to the little bedroom, but sat in different seats and next to a different person. We were given new graphic novels, and the music began to play again. If Tricky really represented darkness, then he was aptly named. I knew we all had our own sort of Tricky. Veronica and Brandon decided to blow themselves up to simultaneously escape him and remain together. When Tricky wormed his way into Ramona’s life, at first she tried to resist him, then, baby him, and ultimately, she gave into her desires and accepted the pleasure that he brought. But this time, SHE called the shots. As long as she consented and controlled their interactions, he would never destroy her. She both embraced and tamed Tricky, her darkness.
I believed, even then, that we all had darkness inside of us. But wasn’t there a difference between darkness and evil? I thought so. I didn’t know if I wanted to live with my darkness, though, to actively accept it. I wanted to strive to be better.
We all took turns signing Finkle’s guestbook before we left. I wrote:
“I love seeing (experiencing?) theatre that makes me want to experience/make more theatre.”
Previously published on the HuffPost contributors’ network on 09/08/2017 11:02 am ET
