Love Tapes In Chicago

"It's a modern mating ritual," Carl explains to his photographer in the quirky comedy Love Tapes co-authored by Penn Jillette and Steven Banks. He is referring to the videotape he plans to shoot of himself, posing as a metal-rocker wearing nothing but a Fender bass guitar, and then dispatch in reply to a likewise self-produced videotape from Melinda of herself, dressed as an Anna Nicole Smith lookalike who hula-hoops in the nude. Why risk the rejection associated with face-to-face introductions when you can swap carefully-calculated images by means of "love tapes" instead?

Throughout history, insecure lovers have lied shamelessly in order to impress one another, but the proliferation of home-movie devices in our time lends a veneer of newness to this far-from-modern romantic ruse. Love Tapes being an Inconvenience production, however, the shutterbugs assisting the smitten couple in their deception are selected from among the theatergoers in attendance at that evening's performance to receive a quick lesson in mini-cam lore before giving us a lens-eye view of the action we see on the stage.

Just a minute! You mean that every night, complete amateurs are entrusted with expensive electronic equipment to gamble on their mechanical expertise (or absence thereof)? Surely the "assistants" are trained MoPic artists disguised as audience members—or perhaps the footage displayed on the monitor screen at center stage is pre-recorded, and the improvised technicians only pretending to film their subjects.

Wrong on both counts, says director Shade Murray, "They are real audience volunteers, operating real cameras, which transmit a real live-feed to the television on the set. It adds dramatic tension to the experience of watching these characters bare their souls to a total stranger."

That's not all they bare—have any of the improvised cinematographers attempted to inflate their roles? "Not so far. Some are polite and quiet, others are more chatty and creative in their interactions. I studied audience-participation theater in grad school, and Penn [Jillette]—who's lured lots of people onstage for his Las Vegas act—offered his advice on how to maintain control of the scene. Mary [Williamson] and Chris [Chmelik] are both skilled, too, at getting people to speak up or settle down."

So it's not quite as unstructured as it looks, Murray assures me, "We rehearsed the show with a live camera and television feed, inviting friends to play the 'minicam operators' while we explored desirable camera angles and how to guide people toward getting them. We also decided that if technical difficulties arose, Carl or Melinda could call their 'next-door neighbor'—actually Lauren [Lassus], our stage manager—to come and fix it."

Any problems so far? "Well, there was the night that we had someone in the audience who was adamant about not going onstage. Now the box office asks customers, when they come in, whether they're willing to play with us, and if they are, they get these bright red bandannas to wear so that Mary and Chris can find them easily."

Do you get many takers? "More than we can put onstage in a single evening. Personally, I think people consider it an honor to share the spotlight with these courageous performers."

Love Tapes runs at Angel Island through July 5.

Mary Shen Barnidge
Contributing Writer