Ever wanted to attend your own funeral? Ever wondered if your memories are real or imagined? Ever desired to get inside the big brain of big-suited Talking Heads frontman David Byrne? Now’s your chance via Goodman Theatre’s site-specific walking flashback called Theater of the Mind, created by Academy, Grammy and Tony Award-winning Byrne and writer Mala Gaonkar, who brings the neuroscience research. Andrew Scoville directs with the help of Amanda Berg Wilson and Betty Hart.
This 75-minute perambulating production (wear your walking shoes!) takes 16 folks at a time through a remembrance of the character David, in a bowtie and summer seersucker suit (by Sarita Fellows), portrayed in each group by one of nine actors (and two understudies) The result is fresh and fun, but also purposely discombobulating as audiences follow a David from room to room of his brain/memories, questioning past choices and current sensory perception at each stop on the timeline. To capture the dichotomies inherent in the experience, writers Nancy Bishop and Karin McKie have both contributed to this review.
Scenic designer Neil Patel, with local assistants Ryan Emens and Lisa Orzolek, have cleverly filled each room of the 15,000 square foot space with a lifetime’s worth of ephemera, from backyard barbecues to dusty attics. Under technology director Heidi Boisvert, the production team successfully integrates tech elements into each moment, from the exploration of bright light to utter darkness by lighting designers Jeanette Oi-Suk Yew and Brian Elston, to the tonal explorations by sound designers Cody Spencer and Forrest Gregor, to visual and VR-headset creations by LeeAnn Rossi.
The result is quizzical and childlike, and also very Byrne-like and contemplative, asking audiences simple questions about perceptions, then putting those to the test in real time. The result is charming and thoughtful, and sometimes confusing and disturbing by design. This immersion is a welcome step forward into a new type of theater, one that invites but confronts, personal and societal exploration within an expansive framework.
In the first room we enter with our guide, a recorded David Byrne welcomes us to the experience we’re about to have. We then draw our nametags from a dollhouse and find that we each have a new name. Nancy is now Shonda and Karin is Emma. We walk around the room, introducing ourselves to our fellow participants.
Each of the seven spaces and experiences that follow in this peripatetic event are designed and fully furnished as a way that might have been part of David’s memories—or of yours. Each space offers some sort of sensory or perceptual experience, some of them quite surprising. Several of the rooms are clearly part of David’s childhood home, with memories that might remind you of yours. As we experience each one, our David guide tells us part of his memories of the time.
Our guide is charming and helpful, always looking out for the guests and their comfort. David obviously has a script but is not tied to it. When a pair of distortion goggles made one of the guests dizzy, David noticed and told her to sit down and rest. Many of the rooms have seating that are part of the experience, so you are not on your feet for the entire 75 minutes.
Goodman’s Theater of the Mind runs through July 12 at River North’s historic Reid Murdoch Building, 333 N. LaSalle (near the Merchandise Mart L stop), and is recommended for ages 12 and up. Tickets are $66-99, and performances are offered every day except Mondays. Each walking performance is 75 minutes with no intermission, with groups of 16 starting every 15 minutes between 5 and 8:45pm. The performance contains flashing lights and complete darkness, sudden and loud music. No late admissions allowed. A coat check and free lockers are provided because you can’t take any belongings into the show.
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