Neo-Solo: 131 Neo-Futurist Solo Plays: from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind

by The Neo-Futurists

131 Neo-Futurist Solo Plays from Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is the second book of short (very short) plays from Chicago's experimental theater company, The Neo-Futurists. Too Much Light is an on-going attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes. The show is in constant flux, with at least 2 to 12 new plays written by the ensemble each week. Since the show's inception in 1988, the ensemble has generated nearly 4,500 short plays, performance pieces, and monologues, from which this collection is culled.
The book contains solo performance pieces by 25 authors, covering such diverse topics as racial politics, sex between strangers, child abuse, and what it means to be a "male secretary". Rants, poems, songs, plays without words, straight-ahead monologues, jokes and audience participatory plays are just a few of the forms used by The Neo-Futurists to present their ideas and stories.

Genres: Plays, Theatre

203 pages, Paperback

First published August 26, 2002

Reviews

[Vicky · Rating 2 out of 5]

A selection of monologues from the 90s and early 2000s era of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. Two stars = "it was ok." It is not entirely fair to judge this without having seen these plays performed live, but as a book, it was hard to understand what tone was always intended, so sometimes I was uncomfortable or confused, like the one where Ayun Halliday reflects on John from a small town who "never did anything special unless you count dying of AIDS." However, it was worthwhile to get a sense of what kind of plays were written 20-30 years ago.

In the way where some people do not "get" poems, I felt like I did not "get" plays, especially the way lines were delivered dramatically and maybe artificially, until I attended shows at the Neo-Futurist Theater (and Albany Park Theater Project, the extent of my experience with theater I really, really like, so I should explore it more!). I am a fan of the Neo-Futurist aesthetic and the tenets of their theater, and I am really glad it is still going on in Chicago as The Infinite Wrench.

[Eli Bishop · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short monologues, each written and performed by one member of a huge rotating ensemble with almost no guidelines except that if they were playing any particular character it had to be their own self. They're all over the place, funny, grieving, gross, abstract... the cumulative effect is astonishing. My only problem with this book is that it makes me awfully sad that I never got to see this material on stage. The editor and two of the actors are friends of mine, and when I finally read this it was like finding out that they had grown up in a family of superheroes solving mysteries while riding on unicorns.

[Tristan · Rating 2 out of 5]

A good book to carry around to fill those awkward waits of one to three minutes: grocery store, commuter traffic, dentist's office. It is some of the best of the Neo-Futurists. I give it three stars only because it doesn't come close to seeing the plays live.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Errr... I'm biased.

[Justin Tolley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Of course I've read this.

[Billy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book vs Theater. Theatre v Book.

Everything is better in the Neo-Futurarium.