Eulogy For a Bloodbath

It's more lighthearted than you might think.

The Asylum Theatre on North Armenia in Tampa just wrapped up its last performance of Splatter Theatre this past Saturday. I was fortunate enough to be in attendance, amid an audience of not more than 40 souls who seemed much larger due to their enthusiasm and easy affinity for what was happening on stage.

Splatter Theatre was certainly one of the area's more unusual cultural offerings during the past few months. If you can imagine Friday the 13th staged with the participatory ethos of Rocky Horror Picture Show, then you might come away with some idea of the atmosphere within the Asylum Theatre, as cast members were cheerfully stabbed, bludgeoned, impaled, and disemboweled, to hearty cheers from the audience.

But this convenient comparison doesn't really encompass the spirit of the proceedings. If you went expecting a play with traditional notions of plot, character development, and dramatic flourishes, well . . . A Doll's House it wasn't, either. Study the photo of the stage and draw your own conclusions; if you have any familiarity with the Grand Guignol theatre of early-1900s France, this might seem reminiscent of those bloody spectacles.

That theatre, incidentally, closed after World War II because, as director Charles Nanon stated in 1962, "we could never equal Buchenwald" or the real-life horrors of the other concentration camps. One might be tempted to ask, then, why play at gore and mayhem in this day and age, when these kinds of lurid incidents occur daily, even in this very state, as any glance at the news demonstrates? Does this very irreverence toward murder demean or diminish the tragedy suffered by those whom such violence claims, or the relatives of those victims?

There's no right or wrong answer to that, and I think such grander philosophical implications are best left untouched. It's feasible to argue, even, that such performances enable us to transcend the pessimism or cynical nihilism of real-world violence by laughing at it, by making it into a spectacle that amuses us. This kind of catharsis-inducing quality would not be unique to Splatter Theatre; on some level, every film, story, play, video game or TV show that features violent death lets us "rehearse" our mortality while assuring us we are safe in the audience.

Sadly, I can't advocate for Splatter Theatre or entreat you to attend, as its run is finished. However, if you have a taste for this kind of organic, intimate performance that deliberately blurs lines between cast and audience (and staff, since several cast members repaired to the theatre's outdoor patio to tend bar following the show, still bearing the stains of their "wounds"), then you might want to check back at Asylum Theatre in the coming weeks.

Indeed, if you've found yourself alienated from or indifferent to run-of-the-mill plays, operas, musicals, or the like (or even if you do enjoy the stage from the comfortable remove of balcony seats!) the Asylum is a local gem. They do have several more planned productions coming down the pike. One of these was described by a Splatter Theatre cast member as a "prequel" to the play that just
finished.

So it seems I was wrong earlier. Given the genre these shows parody, maybe there is a traditional notion of plot and character inherent in this follow-up. After all, what would Texas Chainsaw Massacre be if audiences were without the back-story provided 30 years later by Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning?

A more comprehensive look at the Asylum Theatre's short
history can be found at: http://www.tampabay.com/features/performingarts/for-new-comedy-theater-i...