Interludes

THE HANGOVER REPORT – For us or against us?: THE AЯTS on the NEA

• By drediman
• September 22, 2018
• No Comments

The company of Sponsored by Nobody’s “THE AЯTS” at La MaMa. Photo by Wilson McGrory.

I recently attended a performance of Sponsored by Nobody’s THE AЯTS at La MaMa in the East Village. The quirky docudrama tracks the evolution of the National Endowment for the Arts, from its heyday in the mid-20^th Century to its demise in recent decades. The piece is created by Kevin Doyle (co-directed by Mike Carlsen) using an array of amusing footage of politicians and artists, which is projected on a large screen behind a panel of five seated actors (they don’t remain seated for long).

Right from the start, THE AЯTS acquires a bizarrely satiric, scattered tone that’s inconsistent with the plaintive plea to rescue the NEA – and by extent the state the arts in this country – I thought the piece was trying to go for. Perhaps its creators wanted to highlight the absurdity of the NEA’s downfall, but to me that’s not enough reason on its own to pursue the show’s flagrantly vaudevillian tactics. In fact, intentionally or not, the topsy-turvy, unnecessarily fussy approach seemed to be mocking the very type of performance piece that the NEA used to support. It’s as if a spoiled child was having a tantrum.

Nevertheless, oddly enough, I was mildly entertained by it all. Even if THE AЯTS didn’t in any way inspire me to rally the troops, I was amused by the antics of its committed group of its young performers – Dracyn Blount, Alexander Chilton, Shayna Conde, Nick Daly, and Georgia Lee King.

SOMEWHAT RECOMMENDED

THE AЯTS
Off-Broadway, Play
Sponsored by Nobody at La MaMa
1 hour, 10 minutes (without an intermission)
Through September 30