Photo by James Blucher and Story by Matt Kelley
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Did you know that the male fiddler crab waves a giant claw to attract female mating partners, or that elephants interlock their trunks as a way of expressing love? How about the fact that before Napster, torrent sites, or even the Internet, (I know right?!) human beings used to regularly spend countless hours copying songs to rectangular pieces of plastic known as compact cassettes that they would then gift to potential romantic partners as a way of saying “Hey there… I like you, but this stranger who wrote a song for someone else does a way cooler job of letting you know than I ever could”.
Much like hand written letters, shared walks without cellphone interruptions, or dudes wearing hot pants without irony (offenders you know who you are), such practices have been moved into the realm of folklore to make room for faster and less personal technologies. But worry not my fellow Bonafide, Bohemian, Boh drinking Baltimoreans; Glass Mind Theatre Company has taken the timeless practice of mixing and matching music for other people’s enjoyment and infused it with the exploratory, anything could happen experience we’ve come to know as the Baltimore Theatre Movement and their calling it Brainstorm v.2: Baltimore Mixtape!
Walking into the Load of Fun last Friday, it was impossible to not take note of the laid back and sociable atmosphere prepared for those in attendance. The up beat music playing through the house speakers and delicious Natty Bohs being served center stage could easily make a person confuse the North Avenue theater for a jovial neighborhood bar. Needless to say, it appeared as if everyone had been won over before the first act even began.
Photo by James Blucher and Story by Matt Kelley.
Brainstorm v.2 Baltimore Mixtape opened with POETIC MEAT, where in three patrons of a diner try to make sense of the recent, self-inflicted demise of the establishment’s struggling poet. The concept of time was irrelevant as the recollections of the patrons and house cook (who would occasionally serve as comedic relief to lighten the mood) drove the the other half of the performers re-living the events leading to the diner’s peculiar tragedy.
Glass Mind blurred the lines between stage and audience by exchanging the black curtains often used at the LOF/t for neon painted VHS tapes poring their shinny black entrails against the back wall of the stage and fully lit set changes that brought performers through the crowd in what came off as more of a choreographed dance than a transition from one piece to another.
The first half of the night continued with Which Way We Step, Written by Julie Lewis and Effect of Songs, written by Ben Hoover. The two pieces fit well next to each other by both addressing the topic of romance, but focusing on two very different aspects. Add yelling, grunting and an assortment of sexual positions and you have a first act that brings you more sexually driven drama than Jerry Springer on a good, whatever that means.
Photo by James Blucher and Story by Matt Kelley.
Kicking off the second act was the most talked about piece in the entire production Dust, written by the Lab School of Baltimore, a program that serves students with moderate to severe learning disabilities and is apparently hoarding an entire roster of playwright pros, but be careful. The actors’ performances are liable to have you throwing money into the offering plate of the charismatic and corrupt preacher played by Alex Scally one minute and then joining the other performers in the desire to kill him dead the next.
Photo by James Blucher and Story by Matt Kelley.
Photo by James Blucher and Story by Matt Kelley.
All in All glass mind theatre company did a superlative job in pulling the creative energy from dozens of artists into a room and somehow molding it into a production that both was easy to make sense of and flowed with considerable ease, and to quote a the person that sat next to me “When you watch small theatre you know you are watching actors but when the actors can pursued you to believe something is real it’s amazing and they did that tonight”. Brainstorm v.2 Baltimore Mixtape will be running from now until May 29th and YES the Natty Bohs will be there the entire time. Don’t forget! You can’t TIVO theatre. So find $10 bucks, head to the LOF/t and get your mixture on.
