By: Janet Preus
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What if a group of brain damaged people gathered to discuss “what is the brain?” This is the premise that drives the plot of Interact’s Broken Brain Summit, which opened last weekend at the Old Arizona Theatre. The company makes a decidedly not funny subject laugh-out-loud funny, proving once again that good comedy is always about something serious.
The show is also enlightening, ragged around the edges, touching, and genuinely entertaining. It sort of lurches about in a way that suggests the erratic timing of a broken brain, rather than the slick, super-timed jokes of a polished professional troupe. It was real theatre by real people. Honest and dauntless, with the looseness of a community production that just made it under the wire to opening night, and all the passion of a theatre committed to a larger cause. I loved it.
You see, the artists are brain injured. Can you imagine that you could sit for an hour and a half and listen to people share their personal tragedies and not collapse in tears? You won’t. Their stories are presented with unflinching humor, clever staging, inventive musical offerings, and a fast-paced, joke-riddled script that exposes just about every stereotype you’ve ever heard or thought about brain trauma: people in a coma are closer to God, or brain injured people need to just try harder to get better, and people with serious brain damage are just vegetables. (The “corn-y” jokes just kept coming.) Or as rendered in “The Anger Song”, people with “broken brains” who react with anger to rudeness or insensitivity need more therapy or pills to deal with their unresolved issues. The response to that is universal: “no, sometimes I’m just pissed.” Hilarious.
It may have been clacking along, in the rickety way of a well-used mechanical toy, but it worked perfectly where it needed to – in the monologues delivered with more emotional honesty that I have ever experienced at a major professional theatre. Ever. Isn’t this why we go to theatre? Communication? Interaction? Engagement? These artists were not there to impress us with their resumes, or the skill with which they executed this or that method of acting. They just played the characters that they know only too well.
So, ok. They are those characters, but I wonder how many more experienced and highly trained actors could portray themselves with as much courage? The point is, I believed them, and I was totally fascinated by their stories. Furthermore, this was a true ensemble piece, in concept and performance, which accommodated the performers’ disabilities sensibly and gracefully. Some actors, for example, carried a script and some didn’t. It was quite irrelevant.
The Broken Brain Summit ends its imaginary meeting with unresolved questions about what the brain is, or is not, but, although “the answer” is not delivered, dark corners have been illuminated and meaningful connections between broken brains on stage, and presumably not broken brains in the audience, have been formed.
One minor point. I had to really look for the writers in the program, which I finally discovered was actually the cast, or larger company, and Amy Salloway, who pulled the work together into a cohesive script. They should all be more properly credited.
Broken Brain Summit runs through April 26. Tickets through ticketturtle.com, or call 651-334-3888.
Location Info:
Old Arizona Theater
Artist Info: Interact Center for the Visual and Performing Arts
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