Get this set up: the performance is built from over 100 hours of recorded telephone conversations between members of the company, their family and friends. There’s no script, just a four-hour recording of the conversations fed into the performers’ ears from iPod nanos. They sync the nanos just before they go on stage. None of the performers deliver dialogue from their own conversations. The performers actions and locations on the stage are chance-based, in this case determined by a draw of playing cards, not dice, hence the title, No Dice.
Nature Theater of Oklahoma performs the four-hour No Dice as part of PICA’s TBA Festival in an undeveloped space in the Art Institute for the few nights beginning at 6:30 PM. If four hours seems a bit long to you, know that it comes with a ham sandwich and a soda.
These are ferociously committed performers who are capable of making you laugh until you hurt.
Tags: art, pica, tba festival
What?!? That show was many things, some of them even good, but laugh-until-you-hurt funny it was not.