BWW Reviews: Rude Mechs Take Aim at Gurus with THE METHOD GUN

Austin, Texas-based ensemble, The Rude Mechanicals (fondly known as the Rude Mechs) are creating a spectacle at the Dance Theater Workshop with Kirk Lynn's THE METHOD GUN. Armed with life-size pendulums, (a surprising new use for) helium balloons, a tiger! and flames – THE METHOD GUN is a dizzying commentary on real-life acting gurus like Stella Adler, Sanford Meisner, and Lee Strasberg. Now – postulates Lynn and his crew – meet Stella Burden; an amalgamation of the aforementioned emotional honesty offenders and Method acting hounds, the fictional Burden has led her team of truth crusaders through nine years of rehearsal on Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire using a dangerous acting technique which she refers to as The Approach. THE METHOD GUN wisely begins here: three months before opening night, and two years after Stella herself has vanished.

Realism junkies beware:  the Rude Mechs (a tightly bound ensemble including Thomas Graves, Hannah Kenah, E. Jason Liebrecht, Shawn Sides, and Lana Lesley) aren't putting up your traditional high school production of Streetcar - - but expect to see the legendary piece in its entirety.

Excluding Mitch, Blanche, Stanley, and Stella.

The resulting production is quite beautiful in its syncopation – oddly moving when rendered onstage - if incredibly short. It's when we bear witness to the cast's final days of rehearsal (things are really deteriorating after nearly a decade of "Flores! Flores para los muertos….") that things get a little hazy.

Let me say first – if you go see THE METHOD GUN, you won't walk away disappointed. The Rude Mechs are a breath of fresh air in a theater world seemingly bound by the kitchen sink; in fact, they offer a powerful argument for the limitless possibilities of the stage. The spectacle – and it is quite a spectacle – is satisfying, it's the structure that isn't.

THE METHOD GUN has all the components of a truly moving piece of theater, but would have benefitted from a closer dramaturgical eye. Spectacle and good old-fashioned principles of narrative don't have to be mutually exclusive. A moment of visual beauty is merely fun to look at if the emotional context hasn't been provided. The play, aided by a transparency announcing the date of each scene, skips and leaps over months and years. I just wish we had stayed in one place long enough to feel the impact.

Photo Credit: Alan Simmons