Bucky

[magid]

Thanks to a last-minute ticket via Hani, I ended up going to see R. Buckminster Fuller: THE HISTORY (and Mystery) OF THE UNIVERSE at the ART Tuesday night. It was a fabulous show.

It's a one-man show about the life and ideas of R. Buckminster Fuller, ranging from how he didn't see much of the world before getting special glasses at age 4 (and therefore how he navigated what he experienced in other ways) to his thoughts on domes and triangle strength, to his family life, to his belief in the genius of children, and more. (More about his ideas at the eponymous institute.)

The actor in this one-man show of course was an important part of why the show succeeded so well, capturing what must have been Fuller's verbal tics as well as his words. However, this show also very much depended on the lighting designer, who had much more to do than in a regular play.
The lighting pieces included:

• the usual overhead assortment
  
• a lot of smaller incandescents in a variety of sizes that became stars
  
• a large screen behind the main circle of stage that was used for a variety of photos, old family videos, modern nature clips, 'animated' old works (a la Monty Python, taking a piece of a still image and moving it around), and also where the overhead projector showed up
  
• a wider scrim behind the large screen that allowed the images or motion to bleed into a larger space, making it feel more encompassing
  
• not only the overhead projector, but a camera located directly above the table, projecting what was being drawn onto the screen behind

There were a lot of ways of getting information across, not just the script and the images/videos, but there was a chalkboard as well as the overhead projector for writing on, as well as many manipulatives (unsurprisingly, triangles and solids based on triangles).

A few more things about the set: both smaller and larger projection areas had some curved structural pieces that echoed the curve of the circular blue stage area on the floor. The table with an almost infinite roll of wide paper off it made me want to get one and play play play. And the area overall was open enough that the actor easily meandered into the audience as well.

I hadn't known much about Fuller before the show, other than his name, and Bucky balls, and domes in general. I think I now know a tiny fraction more about someone whose thinking was very interesting, even if I don't always agree with it (there were some mystical parts wrapped up in more concrete things that didn't ring as true to my inner compass as other parts of his thinking). He felt (knew?) that though in the past, selfishness was understandable due to a scarcity of resources, now there is no such scarcity: we have the ability to feed everyone on the planet, if we only chose to do so, especially with all our technological innovations that allow us to do more with less. And he saw school as what kills kids' genius (and he thought all kids were geniuses, with curiosity and desires that could lead who knows where). He rejected society's demands as much as possible, feeling that it's important to do the things that you see need doing, not what other people think need doing. And in there there was a demo of the strength of triangular structures, and how things can flex and deform into other shapes. And the whole audience sang "Home, home in a dome" (to the tune of "Home, Home on the Range") along with him.

At some point, I want to read the script for some amazing thoughts that went by too fast; I'm very visual when taking in ideas, so reading them (at leisure, rather than trying to catch them before the next one flies by) would be great. I was saying after the first half of the show that my brain was fuller (and, believe it or not, hadn't even planned the groaner :-).

Two thumbs up; worth seeing if you can.