KEEP CALM AND MURRAY ON: FOR FRIENDS AND FAMILY ONLY

by | Oct 17, 2024 | Review | 0 comments

Keep Calm and Murray On is kind of like a kids’ tap recital: the only reason to attend is if you know somebody who’s performing in it and you want to be supportive. With a couple of exceptions, the evening is an amateurish mess.

Keep Calm is being billed as an immersive Halloween show inspired by Bill Murray, but it’s misleading to call this piece immersive. Want to know what immersive theatre is? Look it up. There are many definitions online, but they all agree that immersive theatre removes the stage and plunges the audience into the world of the event, transforming audience members from passive observers to active participants. In my own experience, the term applies to shows like Punchdrunk Theatre’s Sleep No More, which expanded the world of Shakespeare’s Macbeth until it took up several meticulously designed floors of a warehouse, which participants explored at will while mingling with the characters, and De La Guarda, an Argentinian extravaganza in which aerialists burst through the ceiling and audience members were bombarded by wind machines.

So walking through a corridor where you meet a few zombies, then moving to a couple of rooms, where you sit obediently in chairs and wait for the next act to start, doesn’t really cut it in terms of immersion.

And waiting, in my experience, is what Keep Calm and Murray On is largely about. It took forever for us to get through the door and into the venue. We went downstairs and watched a woman do low-key things with bubbles and smoke. Nothing else happened. Then we went on to a couple of other performance spaces where we waited — for ridiculous lengths of time — before we watched skits.

Within those skits, there are flashes of talent. In the first sit-down space, a narrative unfolds. It’s nonsensical, but it features a guy named Chris Myrdock who manipulates clear glass balls — balancing them, rolling them around, making them move as if they have wills of their own. Myrdock’s act is lovely to look at and it involves genuine skill.

In the second sit-down room, Teresa Riley sings an aria from Carmen — “L’amour est un oiseau rebelle” — in a strong, clear soprano. But that’s within a Ghostbusters scenario that’s so loose it’s meaningless. There’s a lot of stage fighting that might have been cute if the performers were eight years old, but they’re grown-ups.

The Bill Murray connection never really fired for me, other than the obvious Ghostbusters references, but the big Bill Murray heads that some performers wear are impressive objects. Gail Taylor made them.

I don’t doubt that the artists involved with this show have the best of intentions and some of them have skills that would be better displayed in a more disciplined work. I’m thinking of burlesque artist Melody Mangler, for instance.

But Keep Calm and Murray On is too randomly conceived. I was invited to attend the preview; the show’s wait times might tighten up as the run goes on, but the overall production is never going to be good.

KEEP CALM AND MURRAY ON Directed by April O’Peel. Produced by the Beaumont Studios Artists Society. On Wednesday, October 16. Running at the Beaumont Studios until October 31. Tickets

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