Low Budget Theater Creates Universal Connections
As a newcomer to New York, I know from first hand experience that the first thing that strikes you about this great city is the sheer enormity of it. From the tops of the skyscrapers, to the lowest platforms of the subways, everything is… big. So it is easy to understand how the bright lights of Broadway and Times Square can outshine the tiny productions of low budget performing art centers. However, my growing number of experiences with theater in the city have shown me that often times, the best things come in the smallest packages. The most recent example of this? The National Asian American Theater Company’s production of Blind Mouth Singing, directed by Ruben Polentos.
The story, which follows the troubles and secrets of an isolated family in an unidentified location, focuses on the struggles of Reiderico (Jon Norman Schneider) and his strange obsession with a boy named Lucero (Alexis Camins) who lives at the bottom of the family well. In a big-time New York theater venue, the logical approach to a play centered entirely around a well would be to create a well on stage. The possibilities would be endless. Lighting, sound, and atmosphere, would recreate the damp, cold, dark feeling of a well to near perfection. And cost thousands of dollars. The challenge faced by New York City’s small theater companies is the absence of those dollars, and the ways in which these companies overcome this challenge are what makes productions like these so special.
In Blind Mouth Singing in particular, director Ruben Polentos’ careful consideration and even appreciation of this fact create an experience that is at once entirely unique, and also familiar in terms of the tendency of small theater to connect with their audience. In a talk session, Polentos passionately described his personal mission to convey concepts in the most beautiful way possible, rather than in the most true to life. “Nothing I create will be a real well, so why not create something entirely different, and as beautiful as possible.” To achieve this, Polentos created not a well, but a crude, minimalist trough with mere inches of water. This translation from vertical to horizontal allows the audience to witness the vertical interaction between Reiderico and Lucero, while maintaining views of both of their faces and actions. Enhancing this effect even more so, is the placement of the trough perpendicular to the audience, rather than parallel. This placement creates the eerie and unavoidable feeling of being down at the bottom of the well, submersed, along with the family’s secrets, throughout the play.
It is through conflicts and creative ventures such as this one, that low budget theater transcends meager profit margins and achieves a connection with the audience that is seldom even approached in Broadway venues. The talent and thought that run behind these productions are perhaps one of New York’s best-kept secrets, an art medium that blurs the lines between artist and viewer, audience and participant.