the christmas show

saturday night i was lucky enough to bare witness to a most amazing piece of theatre called the christmas show, ie. hamlet. it was an invitation only, free event gifted from the cast to their friends+family, and gifted to me by my friend+family. the invitation prompted an intimate audience who, while enjoying the complimentary hot chocolate, were asked to physically follow the action as it happened - starting @ a quaint holiday party and ending with a rather bloody new year's eve. we, the guests, moved with the play around the space (the clarkstreet playhouse) from lobby to warehouse to outside and back again; we even crammed into the men's bathroom. we followed, we watched (sometimes in the most voyeuristic sense of the word) and we became a part of the play as the action literally unfolded around us. the beauty in the show was in it's simplicity.... a well placed beam of light from a flashlight or cracked door in an otherwise pitch black scene, or a piece of chalk used to draw us to the next scene. listening in on terrifying conversation from behind closed doors, or being forced a little too close to the guy with the knife by the crowd behind me; the scenes grew organically allowing each audience member to decide their own involvement. some scenes i found myself right up front, others i let the audience become a part of the scene and watched from a distance. it was so beautiful that wish i could come back and photograph the show, though i'm pretty sure i saw the last performance. furthermore, someday in the future i'm gonna produce a piece of theatre like this one. something interactive but not invasive, small and intimate and makes full use of a space in it's natural form. i felt privileged to see the christmas show and loved every minute of it... minus the two audience members who couldn't get their high school giggling under wraps. this post doesn't begin to scratch the surface of the show... thank you to everyone responsible for my seeing it.