Young Liars has done it again. Literally. They’ve resurrected their 2010 production of their own work Whammy!, subtitled The Seven Secrets to a Sane Self. If you’re not familiar with Young Liars’ work, it’s performance art, so don’t expect, for instance, a plot line or standard song-and-dance.
Whammy! is, theoretically, based on self-help books, but I think that’s a stretch. It feels to me like a not-completely-metaphorical description of what it’s like when the brain isn’t working correctly. That is to say, when thinking is scrambled or emotions inappropriate for reasons other than (as far as we know right now, except there’s that lithium thing, and so on) physical ones. I deliberately do not use the words “mental illness” – there’s too much baggage with that phrase.
Five of the six (credited) actors seem to be in a therapy group. There’s relatively little dialogue in the show, but quite a lot of choreography and careful blocking. That gives the actors a chance to stretch their physical acting skills, which they do with considerable elan. And despite the seemingly serious “topic” – if it’s not a stretch to call it that, even with quotation marks – it’s impossible for the audience not to start giggling almost immediately.
The key to enjoying this sort of performance is to go in with an open mind and leave the search for meaning and metaphors behind. It should come as no surprise to anyone of a certain age that performance art arose in the mid-60’s to early ‘70’s. Its free-form, almost what-the-hell approach was so characteristic of the edge of Western culture at the time, which is to say, it came out of the Free People, or as they came to be known, hippies. That didn’t used to be a pejorative word. Just sit back and let it flow.
This is probably, on average, the youngest theatre audience in town that isn’t at a high school or college. That’s an exciting, encouraging thing. And Whammy is definitely worth exploring.
But hurry. It closes next weekend (but is working Monday night). No intermission, about 90 minutes.
Whammy!
Through October 5, 2019
Young Liars Theatre
Centene Center
3547 Olive