By Ana Sobral
There are many ways in which you can enjoy this powerful performance at Neumarkt — if ‘enjoy’ is indeed the right word. There’s laughter, for sure, and you may well find yourself applauding frequently, screaming out words on demand, and rooting for your favourite participants in the crazy dance marathon unravelling before your eyes on stage. But it may not feel all that… voluntary. As a Belgian pop song from my youth put it: “Feel free, but don’t feel too comfortable”. That sums up my impression of this fantastic stage adaptation of Howard McCoy’s classic Depression-era novel (and legendary 1969 film of the same name). The plot is simple, if somewhat disturbing: a bunch of very energetic, very desperate people take part in a dance marathon, an endurance contest where only one dancer can emerge victorious after hours and hours and hours on end moving non-stop, except for a 10 minute break every hour, for money. When the audience enters the theater, the contestants have been dancing for more than 600 hours. They will continue doing so, we are told, until there’s only one person left standing.
The mediator between the audience and the contestants is himself permanently on the move: a Master of Ceremonies on roller-skates, drawing loops around the hall, repeating slogans in a soothing voice, reminding us that all of us — audience as well as contestants — are there out of our own free will. Isn’t freedom a wonderful thing? The Master of Ceremonies himself continually exercises his free will by ordering the technical team around: he asks the video technician to play certain films, the DJ to play the desired rhythm, the treadmill controller to accelerate the treadmill mat on the central stage so he can skate on it. “Aren’t we all just skating through life?”, he asks philosophically, all the while barely keeping his balance on that contraption. And that, too, feels very much in accordance with the play’s message.
If you’ve read the novel or watched the film, this stage adaptation of They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? will surely ring many bells. Stripped down to its core, it is a wonderful reminder of Horace McCoy’s original message: that there’s something incredibly rotten about the American Dream, which is itself only a flashy incarnation of Capitalism in all its crudeness. That the actors are able to so perfectly embody that dispiriting message is one of the play’s great achievements. If you’ve had the occasion to watch the first two parts of Neumarkt’s experimentation with this dance marathon theme at either Theater Spektakel or Zurich central station, this may well feel like the necessary culmination of an intense and daring experiment that does not shy away from involving the audience on an emotional as well as intellectual level. If you’re coming to this last part only and are totally unfamiliar with the novel and the film, you’re still confronted with the naked reality of a bunch of people so distressed that they will do anything to entertain you — in the hope of getting paid, of course. Finally, if you’re familiar with the amazing culture jamming activist group The Yes Men, you will be delighted to be guided through the entire show by none other than Mike Bonnano, who, as Master of Ceremonies, does not fail to articulate his own notorious brand of Capitalist critique. His precision is surgical, cutting right to the heart of Capitalism – Switzerland.
This is Theater Neumarkt at its absolute best, doing what it’s done so well for so long, but with a very welcome fresh breeze and just the right amount of chutzpah to take on late Capitalism in all its guises. The show is a must for everyone willing to be shaken out of the complacency we’re pushed into by a system that’s entertaining us to death.
“They Shoot Horses, Don’t They” will return to Theater Neumarkt in December, 2019. Dates will be announced soon.
ENGLISH THEATRE IN ZURICH 