'Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind'

"30 Neo-Futurist Plays from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind" consists of thirty mainly comedic skits performed at random. Despite the impressive number of actors – 17 in total – the show's two emcees, Ashley Alexander '09 and Tyler Crosby '09, ask the audience to play the last critical role. Not only does the audience get to request the next act, they're often invited to jump on stage and perform too. Part Quipfire!, part Triangle, plus a dash of drama, "Too Much Light" challenges Theatre Intime's more traditional niche.

Performing so many plays in so little time – just over one hour – isn't a simple task either. Actors have to be ready for whatever number the audience calls out. The play numbered "8" (titled "Déjà vu"), for instance, calls for the actors to perform the previous act all over again.

Luckily, the show benefits from a solid cast that seamlessly manages "Too Much Light"'s frenetic pace and capricious order. Rebecca Gold '09 gives giant, audacious performances, like in "Intimate Muscle, But Strong" where she instructs a clueless clan of women how to exercise their "Kegel" (you figure it out), as does Molly Jamieson '08, as she transforms into a stone-faced female, her face lit only by a candle, and recounts a tumultuous breakup.

Though some of the Theatre Intime newbies are still finding their footing – occasionally an actor is unsure of what to do with his body, or poor timing undermines a powerful vocal performance – a few older actors pick up the slack. Notably, Jon Miller '07 reveals impressive range, first delivering a satirical mock-presidential debate and then playing a lovestruck Jim Carrey-esque character in "Title."

In part, the eclectic ensemble of acts keeps the pace riveting and the audience immersed. Though most of the 30 plays veer towards the comical, every so often a dramatic piece props in, preventing desensitization from comic overload.

That too, was director Alex Limpaecher's '08 intent. In an interview, the director expressed his concern about choosing from the Chicago-based Neo-Futurist troupe's bevy of works. Since the late-1980s, the Neo-Futurists have been writing and performing thousands of impossibly short acts. Most are comic, some dramatic, many are experimental, and a few just plain weird – or "artsy" as Limpaecher calls them.

Of the last category, Limpaecher chose none. Instead, Limpaecher, a first-time director, selected pieces that could be updated or reworked to fit the current social climate or target a particular audience. Mostly it's a success, like in "Manifest Destiny." Originally written before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the script uses Communist persecution as an example of human rights abuse. Limpaecher smartly changes that to Darfur's current genocide.

But other times, the director's reformulation fails. One piece raises the issue of going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Regardless of political bias, that's a debate long over. Asking whether to stay at war, not whether to wage it, would have been more a propos.

Minor blunders notwithstanding, Limpaecher's gift is his selection of skits that not only get the best from his actors, but also his audience. "Too Much Light" may be heavy on hilarity, but it's not superficial slapstick; Limpaecher knows he has a smart crowd to please.

In "Choice of Vegetable," for example, a group sits at a restaurant deciding what to order. When the waiter asks for the order, Tim cheerfully replies: "Yes, I'll start ... I'll have the nasty divorce with a huge alimony payments, the type A personality with huge ulcers, a happy childhood, and could you make sure that's really happy?" The wit isn't in the satire of modern life; it's in the Neo-Futurists' new way of presenting it – in this case, as a restaurant scene.

When Tim's dinner guest, Betsy, is almost finished placing her order, she thinks aloud: "What else? I too will have the happy childhood and...a son...one, on drugs." The waiter, all smiles, replies: "Great. I think you're going to enjoy that."

I think you will too.