Art in a Bar: When drunks become unwitting extras

Is a bar the new stage?

Texas has a long history of performing in bars, and  I'm not talking about art on the walls, or those spontaneous dances that occur on top of the bar after a few too many.

The Horse Head Theater Co. production of Stephen Belber's Fault Lines opens tonight (and runs every Thursday, Friday and Saturday through March 27) at the Brewery Tap, a historic watering hole underneath the Magnolia Ballroom. It makes sense too. Belber's entire play takes place in a bar.

"We could have built a bar, but it seemed a lot easier just to find a bar that was willing to work with us," says Kevin Holden, Horse Head's artistic director.  "Brewery Tap is kind of English pub-y, but not remotely trendy. We expect the audience to be right on top of the action." 

Fault Lines concerns the gulf between two friends, Bill, a guy completely set in his life, and Jim, who is set on nothing. Called a "dude" play by critics, Belber's play exceeds its broship surface. "This night at the bar is the last chance these men have at getting their relationship to regain its legitimacy," Holden says. "They need to evolve by taking some behavioral practices from each other."

Holden doesn't mind if his audiences get a little rowdy, in fact, misbehaving is part of the Horse Head mantra. Holden's epiphany about how to engage audiences happened while he was watching Mexican wrestling matches. The actors and creative team spent time getting the feel and vibe of the Brewery Tap before deciding on the venue. So what about the regulars?

"Oh, they see the play for free," Holden promises. "It's almost like they are the regulars in the play. We are becoming regulars too, which is actually a little scary."

The relatively new troupe is all about creating the total environment of a play. Holden and his collective did their best to recreate Amsterdam for their inaugural play, Red Light Winter earlier this season. Holden wants to build an audience-centric experience.

People are free to move around or order a beer during the play. Thirty five beers on tap anyone?

Pinter on tap

Now there's an idea. Could Pinter go down better with a pint?  To be specific, I was sipping a Dogfish Head 60-minute IPA while watching Harold Pinter's The Caretaker, a Stagger Lee Presents production at Khon's a few months back.  And yes, it did take the edge off of Pinter's already terse terrain.

Matthew Carter, Stagger Lee's artistic director, found the gritty adjoining room at Khon's an ideal setting for Pinter's stark drama about two brothers and a homeless man. Robustly performed by Carter, Sean Patrick Judge and Greg Dean, The Caretaker seemed to grow out of the walls of the rough-hewn setting.

"We needed a place we could create an artistic mess in, a place that would allow the audience to be in the apartment with us," Carter says, over a Jack Daniels and Coke at Warren's bar. "Being next to a bar meant that the audience would loosen up a little. Wasn't the idea at the beginning of  Western theater to celebrate booze and the harvest?"

For Carter, who is about as intense in person as he is on stage, it's not just about the bar, but the immediacy of the setting.

An empty space, a reasonable price, a killer play, a handful of Houston's top actors, and something can happen. It's visceral, no fuss and jives with Carter's volatile vibe.

Next, he is considering Sam Shepard's Buried Child. At the moment, he's uncertain whether it belongs in a bar.

Dancing the drinks away

Modern dancers have been known to let loose at bars as well. Psophonia Dance Company performed a little free-form improv at Boheme during Cultured Cocktails a few weeks back. "Dance is a living art form, and I really wanted to connect to the audience and give them something to look at and engage with," Sophia Torres, Psophonia's co-founder says. "I'm also questioning how we can better bring dance to people." 

Sara Draper's Dancepatheatre did a little Boheme boogie too, performing excerpts from her upcoming show, Letters You Wrote.

"Dancing in high heels while freezing has its challenges," Draper says. "Still, I was thrilled by the way my dancers used the bar and the furniture."

And then we have our performing-in-bar veterans. Choreographer Sarah Irwin and Edie Scott (co-founders of the Urban Animals) performed One Too Many at Warren's in the mid 1980s as a Lawndale boycott of sorts.

"Oh those were the glory days; we were rebels against the proscenium back then," Irwin remembers. "It was random and unstructured, which was not very much in favor at the time. A huge crowd came over to see us. I seem to remember something about wearing roller skates too, possibly masks too."

Puppets are entertaining while sloshed 

Joel Orr, founder of Bobbindoctrin Puppet Theatre,  found a home for his one-of-a kind puppet shows at now-defunct places like Mary Jane's and Instant Karma. These days, they do their annual festival at Ovations, and have also presented at Rudyard's (home of Bootown's Grown-up Storytime) and Poison Girl (home of Poison Pen Reading Series).

"We may return to bars if the piece is appropriate. It needs to be fast and funny, with an occasional explosion," Orr says. "You can't expect the audience to behave the same way in a bar as in a theater. They might be loud, drunk and talk back. You have to expect that and not get prissy."

Sometimes it's about the actual bar. You know that scene where a guy walks into a bar and everyone goes silent? Well it all unfolds A Fistful of Dollars-style in A Western by Gemma Paintin and James Stenhouse of the UK-based troupe, Action Hero on April 18 & 19 through Diverseworks at Rudyard's and  April 24 as part of the Fuse Box Festival in Austin.

The show is billed as a site-responsive piece for a bar, in their Austin show, the Historic Victory Grill. Action Hero works to customize the piece according the specs of the bar, and strives to enlist the audience as co-conspirators. Feel free to cheat at cards and gun the hero down if you so choose.

For Paintin and Stenhouse, it doesn't much matter that the guy walking into a bar myth didn't happen in Texas.

"It feels so much a part of my experience growing up that it belongs to us by proxy," Paintin insists. "The first word of the piece is 'Texas,' so it's going to be incredible to perform it in Texas. People do go a little crazy at the end though; they shoot our hero down. Everyone wants to do that, don't they?"