Fringelog 2006: The Aleatory Project: An Experiment in Fate
The Aleatory Project: an experiment in fate (I keep accidentally typing faith there, and for good reason) is a play that is partially constructed as it’s performed. Supposedly the variables in the play make it so there are as many as 512 variations. The variation we saw was, in my opinion, pretty poignant. The basic premise, that supposedly all performances have in common, is that there are two people in a hotel room for a night and they play a card game that’s designed to help them get to know each other better. The relationship they have to each other and even their characters are determined by things like the coin toss that happens at both the beginning and end of the play, the card game, and the time on the clock when a particular event in the play occurs.
I like the idea. Normally I’m not very fond of improv (because it’s usually either extremely rehearsed *cough*Who’s Line is it Anyway?*cough*, or just really bad *cough*Theatresports when I’ve gone*cough*), but this struck a pretty good balance. Especially interesting was what happened when they got the Joker the first time (they got it twice). They swapped roles, reversing the decision made by the first coin toss of the story. Some of the cards seemed underdeveloped or even like they didn’t really know what to do with them, but mostly it was pretty interesting.
At halfway through the play, a ticking clock noise signaled what I think was a freezing of the characters so that no more ‘discoveries’ were made through the cards, and the plot started to evolve on it’s own, and that’s where it really becomes interesting.
I’d definitely see this one again, and one of the interesting things about it is that in order to prove that it’s really different every time *they give away tickets to the next showing* at the end. So if their claim holds true, you can actually see two plays for the price of one, which is a pretty good deal. Unfortunately, tomorrow’s showing is at a time I can’t do, so we didn’t grab tickets for it. But I would have taken them otherwise.
