‘Readymade Cabaret 2.0’ Leans in to the Avant-garde (Review)
This is Not a Theatre Company’s Dada-inspired piece bemuses us
“Dada rejects everything. Dada is freedom. Dada is the lack of meaning. Dada means everything. Dada rejects linear storytelling, it rejects genius, it rejects the logic that led us to war. Dada genius. Dada war. Is this art? You tell us,” declares a woman wearing a shower cap with a balloon attached to it. I didn’t know what to make of this or the rest of the onboarding speech that followed, but that’s exactly the point, isn’t it?
This is Not a Theatre Company’s newest digital experience, Readymade Cabaret 2.0, is a lightly interactive streamed show taking place on the virtual gathering platform Shindig. Shindig is an in-browser video chat similar to Zoom, but more tailored to event hosting. Video feeds of audience members are placed in moving squares floating around the bottom half of the screen while performers or presenters are able to pin their videos to the stage on the top half. Attendees can link their video squares and “watch together,” or prevent their square from being linked at all. I did not link my square with anyone during this performance, but I could see this as being a good way to the feel less isolated during a virtual event as it mimics the idea of attending an event with others.
Taking inspiration from our avant garde ancestors, the content of Readymade Cabaret 2.0 is rooted in the Dadaist conundrum that everything is incredibly meaningful and meaningless at the same time, which feels particularly right given the current state of the world. Using a format akin to The Neo-Futurists’ Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, audience members who raise their hand are called upon to join the virtual stage and roll the dice (or, rather, click the lozenge in the lower left corner of their screen to generate virtual dice) to determine the order in which the night’s scenes will play out. Once a scene is selected, the appropriate performer Shindig squares are brought to the stage and the action unfolds. With moments ranging from traditional proscenium scene work and pre-filmed segments to improvised movement and screen shared presentations, the night is full of unpredictable variety. Readymade Cabaret 2.0’s subject matter covers first dates, lab rats, university lectures, and more. Like any good, well-conditioned theatre goer you may be wondering, are the scenes connected? Perhaps, but really who’s to say considering the point of Dadaism is there is no point…or is there? The material is simply presented and the connections are left for the audience to make or not make at their will.
As a lover of Dadaism since my early art school days, I found this production absolutely thrilling. I thrive on the absurdity of the avant-garde and find it so fulfilling when creatives really understand how to evoke the feeling of mutual chaos while still providing just enough structure to keep it all from descending into unintelligible madness. To make things even better, Readymade Cabaret 2.0 was well researched and successfully implemented the ideas of Dadaism in a way that felt truthful, yet contemporary, which warmed my chaotic scholastic heart. Focusing on the idea of Marcel Duchamp’s readymades (the practice of taking ordinary objects and manipulating them slightly to make it “art”) was an ingenious move as it made audience participation accessible from home. In the pre-show onboarding email, audience members were encouraged to create a readymade hat using household objects and even create a readymade cocktail from three random liquids already in your fridge.
The concept of readymade keeps the playing field level while subtly recognizing the current circumstances — you can get dressed to participate in this show using solely things that are already within your home, and considering many folks aren’t leaving their homes at this time, this was a fantastic solution to creating immersion without asking too much of the audience.
The idea of readymade was also present in the artistic content itself. The scenes obviously were taking place in performer’s homes and not in a grand, designed environment or theatre, so various pedestrian settings and makeshift props and costumes felt on theme with the overall concept. Some of my favorite genres of scenes in this piece were the “Chance Dances” and “Aleatory Compositions.” In these similarly structured segments, a single performer entered the stage and the audience was instructed to enter suggestions into the question box on their screen such as a body part, a verb, and a number of repetitions or an object, a body part, and a way to play said object. The performer then created a movement or sound piece in real time using the audience suggestions, sort of like a Mad Libs-generated version of choreography or composition. This framework felt goofy in theory, but the performers were so committed and creative that these moments felt heightened, purposeful, and dare I say, artistic.
(Some minor spoilers follow.)
Another favorite from the night’s selection was a scene featuring three lab rats. If you’re like me and inherently make connections and attempt to find cohesion in sets of disparate things — a theory even alluded to in a separate scene on the need for humans to create meaning — you may have found certain motifs spanning the different scenes throughout the night, and the frequent mention of lab rats in Readymade Cabaret 2.0 was one of them. In previous scenes we heard a character telling her date about the lab rats she works with, and in another we heard scientists discussing imbibing the drink that they give to the rats during experiments themselves. But the best part was a scene with the aforementioned lab rats in which three actors joined the stage in rat masks and discussed revolting against the scientists. The layering of the rats as a motif in other scenes and then actually getting to see them on camera was a surprise that also validated my quest for meaning and cohesion during the experience.
I view Readymade Cabaret 2.0 as an excellent example of how to rise to the challenge of the times. I’ve seen a lot of jokes that current events feel like a simulation or the series finale of The World because they are so unprecedented and absurd, so why not make a show that feels just as nonsensical and unpredictable? In fact, the blatant embrace of chaos felt a bit comforting. This experience showed a world where the chaos is good and brings fun, lighthearted moments that have a deeper meaning, but only if you choose to seek them out, and that felt hopeful in a way.
Although Dada as a concept stands for no theme and all themes, no motif and all motifs, no meaning and all meaning, some of the connections I made during the show about fate, memory, human futility, and free will brought me back to a place where things made sense. Truth be told, I don’t find that many things make sense now, both in my life and in our society. So successfully finding my way through a piece that was purposefully illogical was a welcome change, and the fact that I found a feeling of sense in a world of nonsense was a reassurance that maybe it will all be okay, someday.
My experience at Readymade Cabaret 2.0 was fulfilling and profound, but also ridiculous and inane. I left with an impression of complete understanding and complete questioning at the same time. But what more could I expect from a piece about nothing and everything at the same time? I suppose that’s the point.
Readymade Cabaret 2.0 continues through December 6. Tickets are $15–25.
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