Somebody sometime may write a darn good e book about all of the ingenious theater work conceived throughout COVID. That was when levels went darkish, faces bought masked, and audiences and artists dared not collect in particular person. Amazingly, that didn’t cease some determinedly imaginative creators from discovering methods to maintain telling their tales and connecting with of us in new genres, notably digitally but additionally by different unconventional means. I used to be reminded of this underappreciated burst of originality when two pleasant items of dwell theater not too long ago opened in DC, every conceived below and in response to COVID’s constraints and every shifting the shape and feeling of dwell efficiency.
Deal with With Care: the place the viewers turns into the efficiency
Deal with With Care — a fully astonishing audience-participation expertise — is operating in Studio Theatre’s fourth-floor Stage 4 solely by means of October 25. The idea — mainly a delivery field filled with props and texts that immediate the viewers into doing their very own multi-scene theater factor — was created by and imported from a Belgian efficiency collective named Ontroerend Goed. The corporate’s tagline for the manufacturing is exact: “No actors. No technicians. Only a field. And also you.” The idea has grow to be an enormous success, the corporate says, with tons of of productions in 16 nations and 10 languages.
Ticket gross sales at Studio are capped at 45 seats per efficiency, and the viewers on the one I attended was remarkably up for regardless of the heck was to return. Ushered into the black-walled, merely lit house and seated in risers, some started nervously cracking jokes as we waited, and waited, for one thing to occur. Finally, one courageous soul broke the uneventfulness, opened the conspicuous field at middle stage, and took out one thing like a letter, studying it in silence as if we weren’t meant to know what it stated. Our curiosity whetted, a curated sequence of self-guided directions quickly adopted, faraway from the field as directed and skim by random viewers members, almost all of whom entered the taking part in house and did what was informed. “The whole lot you do is theatre,” we had been suggested by an unfurled banner. “You’re the efficiency.” (I gained’t disclose extra particulars, as that may spoil the shock.)
I used to be struck by how the viewers steadily turned extra alive and concerned, as if spontaneously. By the tip, the viewers, beforehand strangers to at least one one other, was as sociable, collaborative, and communal as any I’ve ever been a part of in my theatergoing. It felt like an impromptu grown-up occasion recreation, or like art-making as a enjoyable mixer, besides maybe with some goal past play that we had been left to surmise and ponder on our personal.
I used to be most impressed by how the undertaking’s backstory materialized and what it was meant to make occur. What the corporate calls “theater efficiency in a field” was straight impressed by the extended pandemic social isolation and the awkward problem of reconnecting with folks (who can neglect?). “All of us felt that these digital connections we made then didn’t deliver us nearer collectively,” stated Ontroerend Goed’s Alexander Devriendt. In response, the creators got down to design a efficiency that may foster connectivity and togetherness amongst of us: The corporate stripped away all trappings of dwell theater besides a field stuffed with props and printed prompts.
I’ve usually heard theatermakers say that what theater, as an artwork type, does greatest is create neighborhood. Deal with With Care does so on the fly by considering method outdoors the field.
Oedipus in Seattle: the place two unrehearsed, unscripted actors are ear-prompted to play out a narrative
The opposite work of unconventional, post-pandemic theater I took in not too long ago was Oedipus in Seattle, a hilariously of-the-moment efficiency piece conceived by playwright Savannah Reich. Independently produced by Chad Dexter Kinsman, it ran for 3 performances, October 10 to 12, in a gallery house referred to as Studio 1469 on the finish of a signageless alley in Columbia Heights.
Reich, in her creator’s word, was eloquent about what COVID needed to do with the work:
Like plenty of us, I spent giant components of 2020 in my condominium, considering that theater in all probability didn’t exist anymore. A play script is a blueprint for a future occasion, and I merely may not think about the long run….
That is the play that I wrote after I couldn’t think about writing a play.
Reich’s Oedipus in Seattle has no rehearsals. A distinct pair of actors performs every present, by winging it. They hear prerecorded prompts on headphones and are directed to learn aloud on two stand mics from designated scripts, reply questions, and work with preset costume items and props. A part of the enjoyable from the viewers’s POV is that generally we too hear the prerecorded voice (it’s like a feminine god mic), and generally solely the actors do. The sound design and authentic music by Douglas Vento, mixed with uncredited lighting results and scenic projection of a rocky seashore, created a surreal aural and visible world within the naked white-walled house. Plus, the expertise was terrific.
The night time I noticed Oedipus in Seattle, celebrated DC actors Kimberly Gilbert and Jacob Yeh gamely carried the present, and the viewers had a hoot. The whole lot that occurred was a shock to everybody — save for temporary autobiographical monologues every actor had been requested to prep.
The storyline, such because it was, was a crazy mashup of the traditional Sophocles tragedy and the 1993 Tom Hanks–Meg Ryan flick. I can’t say I adopted precisely what the one needed to do with the opposite — comedian scenelets paying homage to every supply alternated — besides that there gave the impression to be some theme-sharing about future and destiny. Or no matter. This was not an event for intellectual lit crit; this was for everybody a free-for-all night of on-the-spot play.
_____
It initially occurred to me to mirror on and examine these two novel theater experiences as a result of they’d each been conceived in response to COVID-era isolation. In a single, a artistic workforce devised directions for the viewers; within the different, a playwright composed directions for the actors; in each, the expertise turned uniquely alive and vibrantly participating; in neither did a lot resemble standard theater.
And now I’m wondering: Is there maybe a lesson right here concerning the resilience of creativeness in adversity? Or a message concerning the important worth of dwell theater? Or a immediate to embrace much more ingenuity in type and content material? Or a promo for much less passivity and extra participation? Or ____ ? (Fill within the clean and say it to somebody someday.)
Working time for every manufacturing: About an hour with no intermission.
Deal with With Care runs by means of October 25, 2026, in Studio Theatre’s fourth-floor Stage 4, 1501 14th Road NW, Washington, DC, and performances are promoting out. For extra data and to buy tickets ($37, with reductions obtainable), name the Field Workplace at 202.332.3300 or go on-line,
Oedipus in Seattle ran October 10, 11, and 12, 2026, at Studio 1469, 1469 Harvard St NW, Washington, DC. (Entrance is by way of the alley off fifteenth Road between Harvard Road and Columbia Highway.)
Deal with With Care
CONCEPT & CREATION: Alexander Devriendt, Karolien De Bleser, Samir Veen, Leonore Spee & Charlotte De Bruyne
DESIGN: Nick Mattan & Edouard Devriendt
ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS: Samir Veen
EDITOR ENGLISH: Tiffer Hutchings
VOICES: Karolien De Bleser, Leonore Spee, Samir Veen, Charlotte De Bruyne, Aurélie Lannoy, Alexander Devriendt, i.a.
PRODUCTION TEAM: Lynn Van den Bergh, Leda Decleyre, Willie-Marie Hermans & Hannes Pieters
PRODUCTION: Ontroerend Goed
Oedipus in Seattle
By Savannah Reich
Sound Design and Authentic Music by Douglas Vento
PRODUCING TEAM
Producer: Chad Dexter Kinsman
Stage Supervisor: Justine Morris
Technical Director: Taylor Stewart
CAST
Dylan Arredondo
Kimberly Gilbert
James J. Johnson
Erika Rose
Martina Schabron
Jacob Yeh
Understudies: Joel Brady, Mollie Greenberg James, and Jeffrey Stanley
SEE ALSO:
Fringe hit ‘Oedipus in Seattle’ involves DC for one weekend solely (information story, September 24, 2026)
