Who says they don't make weird downtown shows like they used to? In The Barbarians, playwright Jerry Lieblich takes an influential analytic concept from linguistics—John L. Austin's notion of "performative" statements, in which the act of saying something also makes it happen—and explodes it into a wildly silly satire of politics and war that doubles as a metatheatrical exploration of how plays summon worlds out of language. The show's academic underpinnings are camouflaged by (and/or expressed through) an avalanche of puns, hairpin plot turns, zany DIY trappings and confident comic performances by a cast of alt-theater all-stars—Jess Barbagallo, Jennifer Ikeda, Naren Weiss, Chloe Claudel, Nature Theater of Oklahoma's Anne Gridley—as characters including two mad scientists, a track-suited goofball, a robot-voiced woman, a puppet actor come to life and a peevish, ruthless politico named Madam President Fake President. (The script incorporates several snatches of historical speeches.) The seasoned experimentalist Paul Lazar, of Big Dance Theatre—who directs the production for Lieblich's company, Third Ear Theater—keeps things moving at a rapid clip while the mellifluous Steve Mellor, as our narrator, provides a measure of stability from a desk downstage right. It's batty and unhinged and just what you want from a three-week run at La MaMa.
The Barbarians | Photograph: Courtesy Bronwen Sharp