'Stop Hitting Yourself' at Lincoln Center Theater

That’s the chicanery going on now in the tiny Claire Tow Theater, LCT’s venue for new work. Their current occupants, a devilish troupe called the Rude Mechs, are living up to their namesakes (the Rude Mechanicals, a raggle-taggle troupe of workmen who perform “Pyramus & Thisbe” in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream). This young, talented, Texas-born collective has devised a wicked evening of entertainment called Stop Hitting Yourself — and after 90 minutes of their shenanigans, you might end up wanting to hit them instead.

Rough theater

Stop Hitting Yourself is a mixed bag: a provocative evening of theater nonsense with a no-nonsense message, one that’s meant to sock us in the jaw and kick us in our private parts (to use Peter Brook’s description of “rough theater”). It’s a full-frontal attack on elitism, greed, and the alarming absence of altruism in our culture today. It’s also rough going on the audience, so be warned.

The Tow Theater features a stage decked up like Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas — a gold-plated, glittering emporium complete with a gushing fountain, gold Greek statue, gilded grand piano, and a six-foot, neon-lit dollar sign at the epicenter. Sixteen ornate chandeliers glow overhead. With so much bling onstage, you hardly notice a man lying asleep on the floor as you take your seat. Long-haired, ragged, he looks like a cross between Jesus and a homeless person. What is he doing there?

Suddenly, six other performers — men in tuxes, women in glitz — enter and perform a stylish song-and-dance number, setting the tone for the wild ride to follow. It’s a story told Brechtian style, featuring a series of vignettes alternating with musical interludes. (Stock characters include Magnate, Trust Fund Sister, Socialite, and Maid, among others.)

Here’s the tall tale: It’s a few days before the charity ball at the queen’s palace (the queen is played by an actor in drag, wearing a silver-plaited wig and a sparkling tiara, who drives around the stage in a gold-painted motorized wheelchair). Anticipation runs high, as the Queen will be bestowing a prize upon the guest with the most worthy cause. The main contender is Wildman (the Jesus figure), who preaches Greenpeace and humanity and wants to “change the way we think about the Earth and the way we treat each other.” His opposition is a young, upwardly mobile interloper who claims to be a prince and wants the Queen to restore his royal title. “I just want what’s best for me,” he sings.

In the ensuing scenes, we watch the society women coach the putative prince in the ways of the rich and famous so he can gain entrance to the ball and vie for the prize. We also watch them try to corrupt the incorruptible Wildman (through songs like the one celebrating “the ice cream that never runs out when I lick the cone.”)

As you can tell by now, Stop Hitting Yourself is an energetic, often entertaining attempt with a meaningful message. But these noble ends don’t justify some of their rough artistic means.

Anything for a buck?

For example, in the opening minutes of the show, an actor serving as master of ceremonies welcomes the audience warmly, offering $20 to anyone who will come onstage. At the performance I attended, there were several volunteers, and the audience applauded the young woman who claimed it. But after she had taken her seat, the actor asked for it back. “Wouldn’t it be fairer to give it to the nice man in the first row who helped Wildman to his feet?” Confused, embarrassed, she obeyed. Next, the M.C. offered $1. One volunteer was asked to bark like a dog in order to claim it. The next young woman was asked to show her belly button. Both complied.

All right, we get the message. You’re trying to expose our insatiable greed, and our readiness to do whatever it takes for money (even when the prize diminishes). But my sense is that these hapless audience members felt trapped into cooperating so as not to disappoint the performers and spoil the alleged fun. In other words, they were being good sports. Must they be humiliated in the process?

Even more uncomfortable are the occasional strange interludes, wherein the action stops and the ensemble comes downstage and addresses the audience directly, in a series of spontaneous revelations. At the performance I attended, the comments were non sequiturs that were either obscure or silly (“You can tell if an artist is a good guy or a creep by how pretty what he creates is”). Others were too scatological to mention here. Call me curmudgeonly, but that kind of reckless artistic freewheeling gets in the way of the ensemble’s intent. You’ve got our attention, now give us a little credit. We hear the Wildman’s message: “Renounce your greed! Abandon your ridiculous possessions while people starve to death!”

The embarrassment of riches

Ultimately, Stop Hitting Yourself is a well-intended artistic effort that ends up sabotaging itself with the kind of excesses that it is condemning. Like the performer Sacha Baron Cohen and his notorious attempts (e. g. Borat), this is satire that goes too far.

Rude Mechs offers the kind of popular, interactive, “in yer face” entertainment that a number of companies are offering these days, like Punchdrunk’s Sleep No More (the “immersive” adaptation of Macbeth) or the Public’s Here Lies Love (the disco show about Imelda Marcos), both in New York this spring. It’s arresting theater, it’s novel, and you won’t forget it. But it leaves a peculiar aftertaste.

Meanwhile, there have been a number of strong Brechtian productions this season — each with a worthwhile message. At the Public Theater, The Good Person of Szechwan teaches us what it means to be decent in this world. Classic Stage Company’s A Man's A Man gives a lesson in integrity and corruptibility. Similarly, Stop Hitting Yourself offers an urgent message about charity — one that our culture of greed needs to hear. Its creators might do well to follow Brecht’s example, sharpen their focus, and clean up their act.

In the evening’s program, the Rude Mechs explain that they create their works collaboratively. As admirable as their intentions are, maybe next time what they need is a playwright.