Colluding with the Alchemist on New Year's Eve

(Even without the hat, Shakespeare looks kinda like Lenin in the right lighting during a Soviet-themed party.)

Aaron Kopec considers it one of the best shows he’s ever done. Only it wasn’t a show. It was a New Year’s Eve party at the Alchemist Theatre. It was a show that wasn’t really a show. (And maybe on some level it was an initial study for something much bigger that he’ll be doing in the space next Halloween.)


Conceptually the Alchemist Theatre’s Soviet Spy Themed New Years Eve Party on Dec. 31, 2017 was...remarkably well-rendered. Recent politics have given Russia a creepiness that's lived-up to some of those things they told us about the Soviet Union in the '80s. There’s genuine concern over our sense of autonomy in the U.S. with an infected orange stain in the oval office that seems fascinated with fascism. And so naturally there’s a desire to laugh in the face of any authority (phantom, puppeteered or otherwise) as one year becomes the next.


There was an agent at the front door checking people-in as they arrived. Step inside and there was a guy in track suit and women dressed as spies. (Didn't see any excessive denim, though. Soviet-era Russians LOVED denim. There was a fetish for "Authentic Amerikkan Bluezheance," as I understand it.) Natasha Mortazavi wasn't far from the entrance in white dancing with a stripper pole. There was a go-go girl on a platform over a bar made out to look like Checkpoint Charlie. There were posters and barricades. The entire place was strung with ropes tied to look like barbed  wire. The music blared in a place filled with smoke pierced by dancing laser lights amidst video of vintage tanks and missiles on video screens.


Libby Amato was standing next to the bar--a cool precision in a little trench coat as my wife and I entered. Actresses milled about the bar as cold war-era Russian spies with comically thick Boris-and-Natasha accents. It was an immersive atmosphere that seemed to preternaturally know when to lay back in favor of something that felt much more like a traditional New Year’s Eve party. Nevertheless there was something slinking along the background that made the party feel like...something more. Speak the right words and you might have ended up in some back room.


If I’m not mistaken it was April Paul from the go-go platform who told us a password to enter the speakeasy behind the bar. (“Sexy Sexy Fun Times” turned out to be wrong. And it might have been the Carrie at the bar who told us there was a third “Sexy” in the password. Or maybe not. As always, you’ve got to be careful where you get your intel from...)


The speakeasy was behind a plywood wall actually onstage at the Alchemist...with Randall T. Anderson behind the bar fresh from his run as The Bartender in the one-man show of the same name. (Turns out it's not just an act. The guy LOVES talking about mixed drinks. This is a good thing because he's really good at it. He told my wife and I the story of the Old Fashioned.) There were anti-alcoholism posters from the USSR plastered all over the speakeasy. There was Lindsey Gagliano in black with a thick Russian accent resting at the bar in a quiet corner away from the lights and loud music.


Exiting the speakeasy, the rest blurred in big, furry hats and various mixed drinks amidst more traditional New Year’s Eve club attendees. Naturally there was a champaign toast.  The video images of May Day parades and Cold War-era military operations, demonstrations and detonations made way for a video celebration of the year that passed. It ended up being one of the more sophisticated pieces of New Year’s video I’d ever seen anywhere. The video was meant to be a call to action and inspiration.


The atmosphere didn't quite slide perfectly into place at the end. Ideally there might have been more of a gradual breakdown of the artificial authority over the course of the party that culminated in the video, Throwing-in too much artificial structure would have led to problems, though. You don't want to try to be too oppressive with the formatting where a party is concerned, especially where it's New Year's Eve and people want to slink and sink into a haze with the lasers and the smoke machine. Still...it was conceptually remarkable and one of the more sophisticated parties I've ever seen. It was a tightly-rendered small stage theatre backdrop to the end of a year that could have been the end of the world. 

Kopec has put some of that night online. Here's that final countdown video straight from YouTube.

As always with the Small Stage...you kinda had to be there...oh well...Happy New Year anyway...

Aaron Kopec's next big show at the Alchemist Theatre is Columbo in May. For more information as it becomes available, visit the Alchemist online.