Shows (magic or otherwise) with implications that spill outside the show

December 19, 2024 1:49 PM

Human-Search-Enginefilter: I've been thinking a lot about theater that spills outside the context of the specific performance. For example "In and Of Itself", Derek DelGaudio makes a brick disappear and has it reappear at an intersection named by an audience member. Or, extreme haunted houses might give participants a tattoo during the performance. What are some other examples of this? I'm particularly interested in examples where the stage component is a 10-15 minute self-contained piece that teases the much larger context, rather than e.g. a 3-hour show that starts before the showtime or ends after the curtain call.
posted by LSK to Society & Culture (10 answers total)

Best answer: Joshua Jay did something like this where a participant had to carry a briefcase through the whole show. It was filmed but i can’t remember which. In the end, the participant opened the briefcase and it was full of ice— with their own credit card frozen inside. Love all the ways Delgaudio repurposes the brick.

(Sorry, now seeing that doesn’t fit)
posted by mermaidcafe at 2:35 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Stage Hypnosis shows have always struck me as having a big component of this. Part of the show is what you are seeing happen on stage. But because so many audience members are on stage and hypnotized during the show, you know that a big part of it is going to happen later, as friends & family of the hypnotized person quiz the person about what it felt like, whether they were really hypnotized, what they remember about it, and so on.

And then of course for the person who was hypnotized on stage, that was a real experience they had and that they take with them. It's quite different from just going somewhere and "watching a show". They were the show.
posted by flug at 2:46 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Best answer: This might be too long but at the end of the Broadway show The Outsiders, Pony Boy has a monologue and then hands a signed copy of the novel "The Outsiders" to an audience member in the front row. (the novel implies that Pony Boy goes on to write the novel).
posted by muddgirl at 4:45 PM on December 19 [2 favorites]

(there are other stage shows that sometimes hand stuff to the audience but IMO the implications that the character Pony Boy is handing someone the book that he wrote is what extends this show into the real world.)
posted by muddgirl at 4:58 PM on December 19 [1 favorite]

Would a murder mystery dinner fit your criteria? The audience isn't watching from their seats, they participate in finding clues, solving the case all while eating dinner.
posted by ashbury at 5:48 PM on December 19

Best answer: Would Andy Kaufman's Carnegie Hall show count? Thinking specifically of taking the audience out for milk and cookies after the show.
posted by neilbert at 8:11 PM on December 19

I once saw a production of Pippin (er, spoilers? I guess? for a musical from the 1970s?) in which the staging made very clear that the audience and its desire for entertainment were at least partly and possibly fully culpable for setting Pippin up to die (and, by extension, for all the bloodshed in the rest of the show). Does that count, or is a blatant fourth-wall break not enough here?
posted by humbug at 7:45 AM on December 20

Response by poster: (For what it's worth I love all these examples even the ones that don't exactly fit!)
posted by LSK at 7:52 AM on December 20

I once saw a production of Pippin (er, spoilers? I guess? for a musical from the 1970s?) in which the staging made very clear that the audience and its desire for entertainment were at least partly and possibly fully culpable for setting Pippin up to die (and, by extension, for all the bloodshed in the rest of the show). Does that count, or is a blatant fourth-wall break not enough here?

At the end of Pippin, when Pippin decides not to end it all (represented somewhat ambiguously in my high school production as uh, stepping into some kind of box to go up in glorious flames?), the Leading Player turns to the audience to as if anyone would like to volunteer in Pippin's place for the Grand Finale. The show's written as though no one will volunteer, though I'm sure there are plans in place for if someone does.
posted by deludingmyself at 10:04 AM on December 20

The current run of Sunset Boulevard on Broadway includes a scene after intermission where the action continues outside, in times square. Video of the song.
posted by true at 3:59 PM on December 20 [1 favorite]