Pig Iron's "Pay Up' at the FringeArts Festival (1st review)

Fringe fever has hit Philadelphia this weekend, with scores of theatergoers scurrying from event to event, eager to see "the hottest ones," whichever they are, from among the dozens of innovative works being offered.

The temperature was high in the lobby of the Asian Arts Initiative this past Friday night, as rows of jostling patrons waved their print-outs (whatever happened to old fashioned theater tickets?) and pushed each other out of the way to enter the dystopian world of Pig Iron's Pay Up. This endlessly inventive company (remember Welcome To Yuba City! and Chekhov Lizardbrain, among numerous others?) has revived an earlier theater piece, and you'd better heed Pig Iron's advance warning to dress comfortably and pack lightly for this bizarrely arresting hour-long experience.

Pay Up is an example of what's called "site specific, immersive" theater nowadays"“ meaning (a) the event doesn't take place in a theater but rather in a space designated for a performance, and (b) the audience is immersed completely in the experience, rather than detached as an observing unit.

A handful of dollars

In the case of Pay Up, you are admitted (through a series of novel rituals which I'd rather not specify, lest I spoil the surprise) to the third floor of the Asian Arts Initiative building— an empty white space that has been divided into eight or so pre-fab rooms. You're given a handful of dollars, and you spend the next hour going from room to room, where a "scene" takes place and you pay up to gain entrance.

You're guided by some two dozen performers dressed in white. In fact, the entire mise en scène is antiseptic, as if it were a laboratory for the study of the production's central theme: money, and how we use it.

In between scenes (you get to see four or five in your allotted hour), the performers treat you to song-and-dance routines (and other ensemble stunts) related to the subject matter.

Terror in New York

My problem with "immersive theater" is that you remember the form more than the content— the physical experience rather than the art (if indeed there is any). With Sleep No More, the Punchdrunk's current wordless production of Macbeth in New York, I vividly recall the terror of groping, masked, through a series of abandoned warehouses on West 37th Street in the pitch dark, being scared out of my wits and ultimately fleeing the theater altogether. The fact that scenes from Macbeth were being played throughout this experience has receded from my memory.

With Here Lies Love, the Public Theatre's bioplay of Imelda Marcos set in a disco, I recall being pushed and shoved around a dance floor, while the oppressed stage managers lugged long platforms atop of which dancers writhed to the disco beat. The memories aren't particularly pleasant— and that aftertaste tends to dull whatever message these productions were offering.

Herding audiences

By contrast, in Pay Up, Pig Iron's sharply satirical voice comes through loud and clear. Pay Up appears to be a razor-sharp, insightful investigation of how we interact as human beings (and, in one scene, even animals) when it comes to money and commerce.

As always, Pig Iron captures your attention with its quirky, provocative theatrical choices, like letting you loose in an empty space with nothing but a map, or forcing you to wear headsets while watching a scene, or having you compete with other audience members to find a niche in a wall to peer into a room where a scene is taking place.

It's not always a pleasant experience, and sometimes— in the company's effort to provoke— Pig Iron's approach can be too aggressive, as I found it in Pay Up. (I don't like being physically herded and pushed around in a theater. Do you?)

Disembodied farewell

Still, Pay Up serves up plenty of food for thought, as well as plenty of novel theatrical surprise. And it's exciting to see a corps of two dozen performers— a rare and welcome sight these days.

"You could have spent your time somewhere else," a disembodied voice called out to us through a loudspeaker as we were ushered out of the theater while frantic cast members counted the money they'd collected. Maybe so. But you'll remember Pay Up if you go— for its content as well as its form.♦


To read another review by Alaina Mabaso, click here.