Production Manager Mark Meuter and his awesome wife Rosa welcomed Maya Icela into the world on Monday, May 18. We can’t wait to see what she thinks of the 09/10 Season line-up.

Jeremy Barker from Seattlest posted a review of Orgy of Tolerance this afternoon:

Jan Fabre may be direct, but he’s not didactic. In Orgy of Tolerance, which played last weekend at On the Boards, he avoids becoming just another European leftist railing against capitalism and instead delivers a nearly two-hour exploration of the fear and loathing that underlies Western liberal capitalist society.

Read the full review.

Regina Hackett at Another Bouncing Ball reviews this weekend’s performance:

Jan Fabre’s splendid company saves him from the didactic tedium of his text, but just barely.

Read the full article.

Christopher Frizzelle at the Stranger opened up a thread about Orgy of Tolerance. See what commenters have to say about show.

The show this weekend has kicked off some debate. Words (fighting and otherwise) have started to hit over at the Stranger:

The show—which involves competitive masturbation, sodomy with rifles, and a shopping-cart ballet—is playing this weekend and I’m already receiving emails and overhearing arguments about it.

Misha Berson from the Seattle Times writes:

As an unfettered (sometimes unclothed) Euro-stomp howl against the sins of a bespoiled Western Civilization, this “Orgy” is certainly impassioned.

Read more.

Welcome to our review blog for Orgy of Tolerance. Read our patron reviews, press reviews, and click on the Comments button to read the comments of others. Take a moment post your own thoughts!

Please try this experiment with me: attend Orgy of Tolerance at On the Boards. Observe, react, process in sleep and in waking. Pull yourself together the following morning, sit down to read some news, clutching your coffee for comfort and support. Possessed by some demon, decide you might as well read the online article the Atlantic has recently posted on SpongeBob SquarePants. Hold on tight as interesting and horrifying associations speed through your mind.

To the point: I strongly recommend seeing this show. It is brilliantly constructed, brilliantly performed. Jan Fabre places an immense amount of trust in his performers and they are worthy of it. I’m fighting the impulse to make all sorts of disclaimers to accompany my recommendation. I’m only going to give in a little by saying that I knew I would have my work cut out for me in explaining why I liked this performance so much. In fact, I’m not really able to fully explain it yet but look forward to having conversations to help me hash that out. Gut reaction was (and remains) all in favor. I’ve been positively amazed by performances in the past and later surprised to hear that people I respect hated it. In the case of Orgy of Tolerance, I won’t be surprised.

As with any experience viewing art, one is more likely to gain the most from the experience if one ditches one’s preconceived ideas and instant-judgement-trigger at the door. I’m not mentioning this to be pedantic, I’m saying this because it was difficult for me to do – especially when faced with a performance that hammers stereotypes and clichés at the audience nonstop. There will be plenty of time to process it all later; actively watch it while you watch it.

The only major criticism of the work I can think of is that there’s too much thrown at the audience too fast, akin to an insubstantial, unsatisfying sexual experience. I’m aware that this ties in perfectly with the theme, but damn it I wanted to indulge myself by spending more time in some of the visuals and Jan Fabre wouldn’t let me. The last dance section was gloriously indulgent: much obliged for the release.

I can think of many criticisms in regards to our culture and society, in terms of excess, in terms of mindless accepted patterns, in terms of crippling composite social responsibility and blame. As is evident, so can Jan Fabre.

- Kate Ratcliffe

I had not quite registered the image onstage until I heard, “Sometimes this is just the more modern way of doing things.” The cast was onstage warming up in their underwear and sports socks. Someone else responded, “Oh, now I see why everyone is sitting so close.” I was sitting in front of an older couple and their friends who were seemingly out for a nice night of art/theatre. The piece began and launched into a masturbation competition. I’m fairly certain that they didn’t know what they were in for and I very was happy that they came. I’m not sure they were.

It is worth noting the absolute fearlessness of the performers. I don’t mean fearless like, “I did a lot of trust falls and I’m so fearless.” I mean fearless like, “I’m going to take off all my clothes and fuck myself in the ass with this automatic rifle while I talk to you.” It is also worth noting the design. The lighting by Jan Dekeyser/Fabre was stunning.

This is the kind of work that my well educated, open-minded parents would hate, so naturally I’m drawn in. I understand why they would hate it (and I’m guessing the nice people sitting behind me did hate it). This is the type of work that is so often done horribly, that can easily retreat to shock value without a point. Maybe I have gotten so jaded that a guy flipping his dick though bicycle spokes isn’t really shocking to me, but what I saw was well crafted, intelligent, committed, and fucking brave. It was also self-important and self-indulgent, which usually pisses me off and it would be a disaster without Fabre’s smart self-aware humor. It saves the piece from becoming the kind of work that has something to prove. This was something different. This was rock and roll. More GG Allin than the Beatles, but still rock and roll.

- Ben Zamora

‘When you sit on your sofa at home in the evening and watch television,’ says Fabre, ‘you see so much perversity and violence, such extreme excess, that as an artist you cannot top it.’

Many of Jan Fabre’s choices in Orgy of Tolerance make perfect sense in light of this quote. Each “scene” we encounter throughout the evening is a complete and striking image that is sustained with minimal development for a longish duration. I never had the sense that Fabre was tying to top the “perversity and violence” he is referring to – I felt more like he chose a language of perversity and violence to speak in, presumably because that language is what we have all grown accustomed to.

Highlights for me:

The opening of the work. This sex was actually about sex for me, while most of the sex in the show read as a metaphor for consumerism. The performers were bold and entertaining in their masturbating and the duration of the section was essential to it’s content – this duration WAS development. When they dissolved into tears I was emotionally invested and felt empathy for the performers in a way that I did not again during the course of the piece.

The shopping carts. One cart shifting back and forth, seemingly of it’s own free will, taunting us as a symbol for having and not having. A Busby Berkely style canon with shopping carts sparkling in the sidelight. And three women birthing snack products into the carts. I could have watched that for hours.

The omnipresent guns strapped to everyone’s backs. Especially on the pregnant ladies. I wanted to enjoy the omnipresent dildos strapped to the guns and dancers’ faces as much as I enjoyed the guns, but they were somehow sort of mundane – which is conceptually right on, but doesn’t necessarily make for the most effective theater. Maybe I would have had the opposite experience if I spent more time around guns and less around dildos.

About twenty minutes from the end of the work I started craving some big, gratifying dancing – maybe because I wanted something viscerally easy to watch in contrast to the rather tense visceral experience I had been having – but mostly because the journey of the piece was starting to feel like sex without an orgasm, and I was ready to climax. Thank you Jan – it may have taken a while, and I’m not sure if it was the smartest section of all or the cheapest (although I’d place my wager on smartest), but you certainly gave me just what I wanted in the end.

- Ricki Mason