- OTHER MEDIA
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- review in the SF Weekly
- by Nathaniel Eaton
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- One might think the initial attraction to see 21/One is that it takes
place on a moving bus, but once the guests climb aboard, it's all about
the jello shots. I recommend having a few, because there's plenty of audience
participation — lap dances, condom balloons, and, yes, drunkenness
(the best performance turned out to be by an obnoxiously intoxicated audience
member). As the decorated charter bus creeps around the city, we become
the guests of a semiscripted bachelorette party gone wrong. As we peer
out through the steamy windows, dreamlike scenarios play out on the streets,
carried out by performance group Double Vision, including a pillow fight
on the steps of St. Mary's Cathedral. Even as some attendees started to
lose interest (one read the festival schedule the whole trip), others began
to experience something quite original. I, along with another innocent
participant, was asked by an actor to jump off the bus to buy some more
beer at a squalid liquor store. The bus abandoned us, and then a whole
new show began in the market — complete with actors, real customers,
and, of course, more beer (which we drank while walking down the foggy
streets — thus thickening the plot). The bus eventually scooped us
up, and by the end I had the strong sense that Boxcar Theatre had succeeded
in its mission to give each spectator "an unshared encounter with
the performance."
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