Unexpected Theatre

Keith Hennessy in Crotch

Thanks to JPF for introducing us to this one man show. Keith Hennessy gives his audience chocolate, speaks to them, and reads them a poem before they even move into the auditorium. And once we are in there, we are not to sit down immediately but move up onto the stage to examine some posters, books, a number of lemons with night-lights jammed into them, a chair with a big pile of shea butter on it. Meanwhile, Keith dresses up as if to enact an S&M scenario and begins whipping a big stuffed animal hanging by a rope, with a black hood.

At its worst, this seems like pure shock tactics, perhaps a crude effort at awaking political consciousness (I seem to remember one poster asking us to think of all the people in pain, but I forget the details). But then we sit down again and Henessy begins to do a more familiar one-man show. He lectures a bit about the artistic and philosophical traditions that contextualize Joseph Beuys: Plato, Hegel, Butler. One thousand plus years of art history. From the worship, and thus, portrayal, of gods, to that of men, to that of the self in general: Gott, Ich. Shamans play a role here. So do many Germans and German terms.

This lecture/mindmap scene is one of the show's strongest. Later it turns just a bit crazy as Keith tries a modern shamanic spirit journey/call, and crazier still when he gets naked and breaks out a needle and thread.

Still, a fun way to spend a Friday evening, especially if a friend can score you five-buck tickets. Minneapolis proves itself a solid place to find some avant-garde goodness.