A man in a bathrobe smoking a cigar recited "Green Eggs and Ham" to quiet drum accompaniment in front of the Brown Bookstore. Eight singers at one end of The Walk competed with the sound of a group of drummers at the other. Arrr!!!, Brown's pirate a capella group, sang sea shanties outside of Faunce Arch.
For a half hour yesterday evening, Brown's campus and the surrounding streets were transformed by a massive outdoor theater event thanks to the hard work of a theater collective known as EXP and about 200 volunteer performers, most of them students at Brown and the Rhode Island School of Design.
EXP, which began as a group independent study project, consists of Hollis Mickey '10, Chrissie Bodznik '10 and Karin Freed '09. The three are dedicated to creating unlikely theater performances. Throughout the semester, each group member is responsible for the planning and execution of a major theatrical event. Freed was the creator of yesterday's "Street Theatre Eruption." She said the concept appealed to her because she likes "big, communal theater." She wanted to "put theater in a new place" and give pedestrians a "welcome shock." The point of the event, she said Thursday afternoon, was to get people to "imagine the world as it could be."
"What if the streets were always like this?" she asked.
Though Freed said she told her performers they couldn't do "anything illegal," it was important to her that participants be as free as possible. "Anything is performance if you think it's performance," she explained. "At least, that's the mentality that we're taking to this event."
The Theatre Eruption, which lasted from 5 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., was met with surprise and appreciation by most witnesses. Mariposa Garth-Pelly '08.5 stopped on the Main Green to watch two circus performers doing acro-balance - a combination of balancing and acrobatics - and walking on stilts. "I think it's really cool," Garth-Pelly said. "It's really fun that everybody gets to do what they want."
Watching with her was Lindsay Southworth-Schall '09, who added, "It makes you think about what a place Brown is. All these things could happen individually and no one would notice. It's just special because they're all happening at once."
On George Street, a group of girls watched ruefully as their boyfriends, wearing nothing but sailor jackets and underwear, read aloud from Dante's "Divine Comedy" while dancing to techno music.
Freed said that video clips of the event should be available on EXP's blog by next week. In the meantime, EXP aims to do at least one small event every week.
"There are ways to make art happen all the time," Freed said, "and we're doing it."
