“Odd Man Out,” an engaging new play at Bristol Riverside Theatre, is performed entirely in the dark.
You can barely see your hand if you hold it directly in front of you. Mobile phones and other objects that emit light are collected by theater aides, dressed as flight attendants, and placed in unopenable Yondr pouches so the absolute blackout cannot be compromised or breached by lack of audience discipline.
“Odd Man Out,” part of Bristol’s America Rising series, was conceived by a company of blind actors in Argentina. A New York company, Theatre C, brought it to America and presents it under the appropriate named of Pitchblack productions. The founder of both American troupes, Carlos Armesto, directs a bilingual ensemble that offers performances in English and Spanish.
The whole arrangement, from surrendering telephones to being led into the theater holding the shoulders of the person in front of you, from sitting in the blackness to hearing voices from faces you can’t and music from instruments that might be surprisingly next to you, might register as the latest theater gimmick.
I assure you it isn’t.
Between the time of pretending to board a darkened airplane and the start of the actual play written by Martín Bondone the cynic in me asked what kind of performance takes place in the dark with the audience having to imagine how each character looks and rely entirely on dialogue, music, and sound effects?
The answer was “radio.” The cynic who derived that answer was quickly chastened.
Instead of “Odd Man Out” being a benign experience, one that involved listening and not much else, it was an intensively active one.
Bondone’s play is good and holds attention, but the discovery is not so much the details of the plot, basically the life story of blind musician who earns international fame, but how attuned you become to paying careful attention and making sure you don’t miss a line or a beat.
There I was praying the total darkness wouldn’t send me into a sleep, and it did just the opposite. With sight removed – Incidentally, I have 20/16 vision. – all my other senses sharpened. I was keenly aware of where voices and sounds were coming from. I enjoyed the way Armesto and co-directors Bondone and Facundo Bogarin fused live music and various sound effects, from noise typically heard on an airplane to street sounds and a full gun battle, into their presentation. I became invested in the script and found myself wanting to know more about the lead character, Alberto Rinaldi, and his romance with a childhood sweetheart.
In general, “Odd Man Out” provided a good time in addition to an unusual time.
I don’t whether the Armesto and company’s formula would work all the time, but at Bristol, their experiment was a success and well worth a visit between and December 18 to experience it.
The narrated story is like the production in general. It seems simple but evolves into being complex.
We meet Alberto Rinaldi when he is six, a blind child who has to negotiate a world in which he can’t see, Buenos Aires traffic or bullies’ fists that might be aiming at him. When he leaves his house to take a jaunt outside, he can’t find his way back, causing his parents to worry. Especially because it’s raining, a circumstance the Bristol audience shares with Alberto as overhead pipes douse it with scattered droplets during the storm.
Alberto’s adventure proves to be propitious. A woman calls to him and as he enjoys the shelter of her home, she lets him hold the guitar he hears he playing.
The guitar and music will dominate the remainder of Alberto’s long life. He will learn to be adept at just about every instrument and build that international reputation I mentioned.
Alberto relates his life adventures and romances to two fellow passengers, a newsy man and an empathetic woman, as he flies from New York to Buenos Aires, where he hasn’t been for more than 40 years. Among factors that kept him away were politics that did not favor artists or people who wanted to think freely. “Odd Man Out” has several scenes of a political nature. They are poignant and germane to Rinaldi’s story without being cloying or dripping of indignation as happens in too many new American plays.
Naturally, there is a romance, a woman Alberto loved deeply, one that realized she would always be second to his music while he would always be second to her mission to relieve the tyranny Alberto feared in Argentina, especially as it affected children.
A lot happens in “Odd Man Out’s” 80 minutes, and not seeing the action enhances rather than diminishes it.
It is only as I begin to write about performances that I have some regret of not seeing the actors assaying their parts. It’s a tribute to the “Odd Man Out” cast that they could be so evocative though unseen.
Carmen Borla was especially rich as Clara, the young activist that is the love of Alberto’s life, as she is the romantic center of his. Borla speaks with expressive sincerity that makes Clara’s commitment to Alberto and the plight of her fellow Argentinians equally credible. She infuses the play with heart. For the last part of “Odd Man Out,” we hear of Clara mostly in third person. She is missed from the mix of voices when she fades from it.
Gonzalo Trigueros is a master of placing Alberto’s voice in different pitches and cadences as his character ages. There’s the raspy, slower, humorous tones of the elder Alberto relating his story to supplant the eager, ambitious notes that mark his arrival in New York and beginning of serious musical study.
Youthful Lorenza Bernasconi, impressive in recent Philadelphia-area performances, belies her age as the wise, joyful Doña Elsa, who rescues Alberto from the rain and introduces him to chords and frets.
Aszkara Gilchrist is a charming Julieta, the fellow passenger who coaxes Alberto to continue his story and takes such wise attitudes towards the events of Alberto’s life, especially his longing for Clara. Andrés Montejo finds the humor, and some mischief, of Christian, the passenger who first strikes up a conversation with Alberto and asks relentless questions after.
Among the stars of “Odd Man Out” are sound designer Nicolás Alvarez, who made the dark so atmospheric and composer Mirko Mescia, who created pieces that made Alberto’s fame believable.
There’s nothing much to say about the set design, a series of blackout curtains that did their job, except to say it allowed not a sliver of light and contributed to a frisson of spinal reaction when you realized a scene was happening, invisibly, right in front of or next to you.
“Odd Man Out,” Bristol Riverside Theatre Rehearsal Studio, 201 Cedar Street (just one block west from the mainstage theater on Market Street), Bristol, PA, through Dec. 18, various days and times with Spanish language productions set for December 8 and 14. For tickets, call 215-785-0100 or visit brtstage.org.
