As the car trailed down Ashland Avenue, the one thought running through my head was ‘This cannot possibly be the right place’. Albeit large, the avenue in which the Neo-Futurist Theater is located seemed mostly residential: highly standardized townhouses, dim lights, and no nightlife to be seen.

The apparent misplaced location of the Neo-Futurist Theater was, however, one of the many surprises that would unfold that night. Andersonville, the neighborhood that has housed the company since 1992, started to form as a Swedish community in the 1880s[1], but in the following century has begun to evolve into a LGBTQ+ settlement[2]. The theater is situated, in fact, right in the middle of the “second [after Northalsted] major lesbian and gay enclave” of Chicago[3].

Once the vehicle came to a halt, a whimsical purple light leaking through a small glass door onto the sidewalk confirmed that I had arrived. Upon closer inspection, a neon sign read “The Neo-Futurist Theater” – its lavender haze, along with chalk writing on the walls, set the tone for the night and indicated that this would not be a theater experience like others.

Entrance hall

To have a better understanding of the events that will be described in this article, a brief history of how the Neo-Futurist Theater came about is helpful. The year was 1988. Greg Allen, the founder of the company, had recently moved to Chicago after graduating from Oberlin, where he first learned about Italian futurism[4].

Filippo Marinetti, a key figure in Italian futurism, was one of the authors of the founding document of the movement, “The Futurist Synthetic Theatre Manifesto”, published in 1915[5]. The early 19th century movement harshly criticized the art’s rules in vogue at the time and called for more dynamic and current displays on stage. Even the way the document is written seems aimed at provoking the reader, as Marinetti lists a series of, as he calls them, “stupid rules” that were then fundamentals of theater.

In addition to this, the commands of futurist theater were displayed in the Manifesto[6] as:

  • Synthetic: put simply, he claimed that theater should be brief. Just a few minutes long or encompassing a low number of events.
  • Atechnical: he argued that while traditional theater is strongly based on literary rules and the writer’s written vision of the play, futurist theater was designed to abolish such commands.
  • Dynamic, simultaneous: Marinetti’s vision was that the set of rules embedded in theater left little to no room for the present moment. Lighting cues or interactions with the audience, for example, were attributed an importance that they did not have before.
  • Autonomous, alogical, unreal: finally, his perspective was that futurist theater should not have any commitment to logic, to plays that came before, and, above all, resemble life as we know it.

Although roughly 70 years separate the Manifesto and the founding of the Neo-Futurist Theater, Marinetti’s precepts are noticeable into Allen’s concept of the company. Its first play had a fairly simple motto: 30 plays in 60 minutes, under the name “Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind” or “TML”, for short[7].

With regards to the original concept, as put by Allen on an interview to the Chicago Reader in 2013:

I wanted to combine this belief of what I thought theater was that everyone was ignoring—the fact that it’s live bodies in a space with you—to create an interactive, ever-changing event that actually reflects the community it’s performed in and with, and meld that with the Italian Futurist sensibility of brevity and dynamism and randomness.

After its opening night on December 2, 1988, TML has run almost uninterruptedly since. In 2016, the play’s name was changed to “The Infinite Wrench”, in order to consolidate the group’s commitment to change and dynamism.[8] The concept, nonetheless, remains the same.

Given this backdrop, we may return to the chilly September night. Once inside the building, up the stairs, and at the box office, you are met with the request to wear a mask. In a 2020 flashback, you either agree or cannot enter the main stage – that is the first rule you are presented with, but not the last.

Mask-on, you arrive at a long corridor, and, at its end, there is a waiting area that seems straight out of an amusement park yard sale. The miscellany of strange objects is crowned with LGBTQ+ flags hanging on the walls and a few high tables and chairs.

The symbolism existing in the first interaction with the company, as well as in the decorative choices, does not go unnoticed. In fact, it is made to be obvious. Following the Manifesto’s principle of synthetism, the Neo-Futurist Theater is quick and straightforward with the messages it chooses to convey.

Corridor

Waiting area

After a few minutes, two of the actors show up and give instructions about the play – this is the moment when the audience listens intently to the other set of rules for the night. The way it works is that above the stage there is a line with thirty pages (each one representing one of the plays) and after each play is over and the actors shout “Next”, the audience may scream the number of the next play.

For such effect, every member of the audience receives a “menu” that will guide the performance, as displayed on the image below. Audience participation is not mandatory, but escaping unscathed seems highly unlikely.

The Main Stage

The Infinite Wrench’s program or “The Menu”.

Each short play is completely different from the next. Some are very heart-felt, discussing themes such as coming of age and feelings of anguish; others reflect on political themes, race, gender, and sexual orientation; some are just nonsense; but, above all, they will have you laughing off your chair.

It would be foul not to mention the “Am I not a cloud?” piece – with the lights down and blasting thunder sounds, the brilliant JJ shoots a water gun and a taser while yelling viciously “Am I not a cloud?” for thirty seconds straight.

So, why is it that the Neo-Futurist Theater remains relevant, even after running for 37 years? Surely, it seems like it is the combination of many factors.

Maybe it is the fact that the “The Infinite Wrench” has no characters – each actor will play themselves, and only themselves. The lack of a linear narrative and of characters that the audience must get to know makes it all surprisingly more palatable than a traditional play.

Maybe it is the highly innovative nature. Who would have thought that the 2-minute play concept could be even more relevant now than it was in 1988? With the insurgence of TikTok and short videos, and the consequent decrease of people’s attention span, a series of short independent scenes instead of a long-concatenated play is more current than ever.

Maybe it is the absolute randomness. Audience participation makes for a completely different lineup every night. It is impossible to watch the same show twice when going to “The Infinite Wrench”.

But my guess is that, notwithstanding all the elements above, the Neo-Futurist Theater is still a hit because it makes you feel. As cliché as it sounds, feeling art has been in a downfall. The infinite (pun intended) access to any type of media at any time has made audiences care less and be less present with the available content.

This is why when entering that ill-lit door in an avenue at Andersonville and being completely surrendered to the company’s world, it is almost like being transported to a different reality, where no phones are allowed and, for an hour, you will only focus on having fun.

As short as the sketches are, they each will make you reflect, question yourself and, mostly, think. As stated by Marinetti in his Manifesto, “everything is dramatic when it is meaningful”. I think he would have liked this play.

#NeoFuturistTheater #InfiniteWrench #TheaterRocks

[1] Gustafson, Anita O. “Swedes”. Encyclopedia of Chicago.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/1222.html

[2] Gellman, Erik. “Andersonville”. Encyclopedia of Chicago.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2466.html

[3] Heap, Chad. “Gays and Lesbians”. Encyclopedia of Chicago.

http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/509.html

[4] Potter, Janet. “Too Much Light at 25: An oral history, 2013”. Chicago Reader. https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/too-much-light-at-25-an-oral-history/

[5] “7 Futurist Theatre Concepts and Synthetic Plays, 2018”. Angry Fish Theater. https://www.angryfishtheatre.com/single-post/2018/06/07/7-futurist-theatre-concepts-and-synthetic-plays

[6] Marinetti, Filippo T., Settimelli, Emilio, Corra, Bruno. “The Synthetic Futurist Theatre: A Manifesto, 1915”. https://www.jstor.org/stable/1144612.

[7] Albeit not directly relevant to this article, the reader may be curious about how the name came to be. Back in Oberlin, Allen was in a show that included a case study of an autistic child who would smash lightbulbs while repeating the phrase “Too much light makes the baby go blind”.

[8] Rogers, Addison. “Thirty plays in sixty minutes: How the Neo-Futurists keep theater fearless, 2025”. The DePaulia. https://depauliaonline.com/77585/artslife/thirty-plays-in-sixty-minutes-how-the-neo-futurists-keep-theater-fearless/#:~:text=The%20ensemble%2C%20a%20clever%20and,only%20a%20single%20held%20pose.