Death fetishists, FOX News, and drag: the trials of producing hot-button theater

One of the great challenges of theater (and one of the things that simply make it great) is working within the confines of the medium. Car chases and explosions tend not to translate very well onstage, so pretty much all emotions have to be conveyed through the words and movements of the actors. But that’s not to say ideas can’t make audiences just as squirmy as the latest contraption Jigsaw cooked up in the 17th installment of Saw. In honor of all things non-twee, The A.V. Club talked to three local theater directors and playwrights who regularly traffic in works that have the potential to make audiences uncomfortable, and find out how and why they do it.

Laughs can soothe savage beasts (or something like that).
Andrew Rohn is one of the co-writers of numerous plays that broach social issues like corporate greed (Walmartopia and Temp Slave) and, most recently, the religious right (Blasphemy!). In their newest Mercury Players Theatre work, In The Beginning, Rohn and co-writer Catherine Capellaro take one of the acts from Blasphemy! and expand it into full-length play. Naturally, blasting right-wingers in Madison isn’t exactly going to cause rioting, but that’s not to say Rohn and Capellaro aren’t cognizant of how these views are presented. “We try to keep it funny and go up to the edge without rubbing people’s noses in it,” Rohn says. “We want people of all ages at our shows, so when we talk about sex, we employ double entendres.” So if anyone starts thinking impure thoughts about the singing fish that seduces Eve (of Garden of Eden fame) in In The Beginning, Rohn and Capellaro will be taking no responsibility. That’s a problem you’ll probably need to work out on your own.

Don’t plan on provocation.
Rob Matsushita is one of the most consistently provocative playwrights and filmmakers in Madison. If his name is associated with a show, it's time to start wondering just how many bodies will pile up before the final curtain. While he admits his reputation is probably well-deserved, Matsushita doesn’t go into the writing process purposely seeking that kind of attention. “It’s a fool that believes his own press,” Matsushita says. “If I try to offend and upset people, all I’ll end up doing is offending people and nothing else. My goal is to finish whatever’s in my head, and do what I do well.” Either way, his work as a director and playwright this season should remind people that there's much more to him than guns and fake blood. He's directing Strollers Theatre's production of William Mastrosimone's play Cat's-Paw, a drama about radical eco-activists that will ideally test his knack for the fundamentals of suspense and sharp timing as much as anything else. In another departure, the act of violence that sparks Matsushita's play 1SW33T R1DE, which Mercury Players is producing this November, happens entirely offstage.

Know your audience’s quirks.
While it’s difficult to predict what an audience will or won’t like, it’s important to remember a crowd will almost never be universally approving or disapproving. StageQ produces gay-themed works for largely gay audiences, and Artistic Director Tara Ayres says even that presents challenges because its audience is hyper-political and composed of dozens of overlapping communities. “Some women think men in campy drag is misogynistic,” Ayres says. “Personally, I don’t. It’s always a balancing act knowing that some of our audience will at times be unhappy.” And StageQ’s first production of the 2009-10 season, The Stops, should have plenty to get people worked up. Describing the characters is bit like telling an off-color joke: There’s an outed Christian organist, a Nazarene, a Southern Baptist, and a Jewish Unitarian. They don’t walk into a bar, though.

Leaving the cocoon can be a good thing
Rohn and Capellaro's Walmartopia gained a great deal of national press after a run in New York, and as a result, they encountered the type of frothing lunatic critics that are tougher to find in Madison. They were invited on FOX News, where they were told their views on universal health care and free markets were, well, more or less full of shit. “It was exciting to be able to remain committed to what we believe in, and not totally crumble,” Rohn says.

Audiences like (and don’t like) what they like (and don’t like)
Even though writers or directors may have some sense of when they’re crossing the line, there’s really no way to predict an audience’s reaction. Matsushita spoke of movie he shot for a Wis-Kino event that currently has 10 times as many YouTube views as his next most popular video. It features lots of women and dead bodies, so it’s garnered a healthy following in the “death fetish” community. “I’m not going to say I don’t dig the chicks-with-guns angle,” Matsushita says. “But we had 48 hours to shoot, and I just so happen to know more women than men. At no point did I turn to anyone and say, ‘Hey, this is really going to impress the death fetishists!’”

Gratuitousness serves no one
StageQ’s specific mission is to produce plays with potentially polarizing themes, so the company usually engages in long pre-show discussions about a given work’s specific depictions. “We don’t want gratuitous, misogynistic, racist, or homophobic content,” Ayres says. “But how can you expose something if you don’t show what it’s really like?” Still, Ayres says sometimes there’s more art than science when it comes to deciding how far to go when bringing certain topics to the stage. “Sometimes it’s not until we get into the rehearsals that we can identify the nuances.” And sometimes those nuances are completely blown to hell. In Sappho In Love (Feb. 12-27), numerous Greek gods are imagined as competing lesbians. Who knows how Madison audiences will react, but it’s probably pretty safe to say the ancient Greeks wouldn’t have minded at all.