Review: The Method Gun at The Off Center
The conflict, then, of how to make an art form based on the same basic model since when the hot new premiere was written by Shakespeare still feel vital in a world where a shut-in with a Mac can become a superstar overnight, is at the core of a lot of work being done by groups today. But few wrestling with this approach manage to do it in as compelling a way as the Rude Mechanicals do in The Method Gun, their latest production currently running at The Off-Center.
Featuring a cast of five from the Rude Mechs' ensemble, The Method Gun explores the nine years spent by (the fictional) Stella Burden's 1970s theatre company as they prepared their production of A Streetcar Named Desire for its debut, in the wake of Burden's unannounced departure for South America.
Framed in such a way that each cast member portrays at least three characters—the actor himself (or herself), a member of Burden's company, and that person's character from Streetcar—the play veers off into any number of directions and time periods. Freed from the constraints of a linear narrative, The Method Gun explores two key issues: why some people who don't have a passion for creation choose to define themselves as artists; and how a charismatic mentor can fool a willing student into chasing approval long after they should have moved on.
It's the exploration of these themes that makes The Method Gun such a potent piece of work. Burden's ideas, as they're depicted by the company she left behind, are absurd and hilarious, a dead-on parody of 70s-era radical theatre (an example of the deft satire at work: the company's production of Streetcar is done without the characters of Stanley, Blanche, Stella, or Mitch).
They're also arbitrary in a way that a young artist could easily mistake for wisdom. Characters explain that the audition process for the company consisted of Burden simply asking the question, "Truth or beauty?" and often making a decision before the answer was even given. She leaves notes explaining her theories locked in a box, with the instructions to set the note ablaze before reading, and then trying to read as many words as possible before it's consumed by flames. What's more, the play opens with something called "crying practice," in which the five actors carry out one of Burden's rehearsal rituals by standing in front of the audience, wordlessly attempting to bring themselves to tears.
But the power of The Method Gun isn't restricted to an "inside baseball" satire of thirty-year-old acting tropes. The concept of directionless journeymen artists, forever trying to live up to a creative ideal they're not sure ever really existed, is one that extends well beyond the theatre, and watching these people struggle with that live and in person is what makes the play such a powerful piece of work. The Method Gun could have just as easily been about folk musicians chasing the ghost of a Dylan stand-in, or filmmakers trying to re-create the approach of a Kubrick analogue, but it's a theatrical piece, and the Rude Mechs set it in the world it inhabits. In the end, The Method Gun succeeds, first at exploring the universal themes that artists of every stripe struggle with, and also in reaffirming the medium's place in the larger artistic world.
The Method Gun runs through May 2 at The Off Center.
