It was a little like attending a secret meeting of the Illuminati, or some underground organisation à la Fight Club. I had an address and directions and a vague idea of what the Neo-Futurists were going to do in their work Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind, but little else. The subway ride was quite a trip. There was a talented violinist playing on the platform to a generally engaged audience, and on board the cars were full of attendees returning from the Gay Pride march, decked out in rainbow motifs. It rather reaffirms your faith in humanity to see acceptance on such a wide scale. Indeed, on the way to the Neo Futurarium I passed a church with a sign reading “CELEBRATE THE GIFT OF DIVERSITY”, which certainly is a welcome alternative to the policies of the Westboro Bapist Church, et al.

I got off at Berwyn in the northern suburb of Andersonville, far from downtown, and as I strolled down the rainswept, tree-lined avenue I realised that this was my first foray into an American suburb. As I passed gas stations and 7-11s and dental practices I realised how this place had a much more genuine feel of America about it, compared to the cosmopolitan city centre. 

After a longish walk I saw the Neo Futurarium, a doorway next to, rather fittingly, a funeral home. Inside, the anticlimax of a small waiting room with several chairs awaited, where I sat confused for a few minutes before heading upstairs. There I found a door, which I opened cautiously, before being told to wait a little while. Eventually I and the increasingly large crowd of attendees went through to a room with chairs of all descriptions and a blue-and-white sky motif across  the walls. You could tell that this was going to be something different.

Our hosts, Ryan and John, appeared and gave us a short introduction before taking our money. In a novel twist, to see the show you must pay $7 plus the roll of a die. I rolled 2 and hence paid $9. As I stood in the queue I could hear a recording of this seriously squeaky voice repeat: “Hi, what’s your name? Have a nice show!” After I paid, I walked through to see a seriously squeaky young woman in giant sunglasses ask me “Hi, what’s your name?” “…Matt,” I said, as she scribbled on a name sticker. “Have a nice show!” she said, handing me a nametag with “sausage wallet” scrawled upon it. Sticking it on, I walked through to the theatre. I say theatre, but it was really a small room with seating for 150 around a small central stage. I say stage, but it was really just the floor.

Seriously squeaky young woman, real name Jessica, came out and introduced the show. There were six cast members in total tonight, including new girl Caitlin. We all received pamphlets with a list of 30 plays on. Above the stage, a clothesline with pieces of paper marked 1-30 pegged to it. We had to shout out numbers and they would perform the plays, trying to cram 30 of them into 60 minutes. And so it began.

There’s no way I could describe them all, so I’ll just pick the highlights:

• 20:A play not about Politics, but kind of about Politics, but not Really. Well, kind of. “I just felt like eating sandwiches with Barack Obama.”
• 9: Tiny Pride Parade. With tiny gay Action Men and party poppers.
• 11: Marshmallowed: The cast fill their mouths with marshmallows while embracing the audience and telling us how lovely we are.
• 25: The Neo-Retrofuturists’ Arcade. Tetris, Donkey Kong and Asteroids on stage. With accordion accompaniment and real barrel jumping.
• 27: Oedipus Simple. Oedipus: “Oh no! I killed my father and married my mother!” Greek chorus: “That’s what we’ve been trying to tell you!” Oedipus: “Oh! Gouge gouge gouge gouge.”
• 3: This City Dreams You. Oddly affecting this one. To a song which I have just discovered was called “Back in your Head” by Tegan and Sara, two of the cast members, illuminated by torches held by a third, find each other on a dark stage and embrace. Two more cast members, wearing lamps strapped above their heads like giant snorkels, try to get close but can’t reach each other. They remain, isolated, bent over, until the song abruptly ends and all we can hear is the heavy, laboured breathing of those on stage. One by one, the torches go out, until there’s just one left, one with the lamp strapped to his head, and then finally he too goes, and the stage is completely dark.

I came out stunned. It was a fantastic experience - experiment - and I’m left thinking: these are my people. I’ve always hoped that somewhere out there, there are people who still have that bohemian spirit, that artistic temperament, that love of the weird and the new and disdain for the everyday and conservative. Who knew I’d find them above a funeral home in a nondescript suburb of Chicago?

I chatted with two of the cast, John and Heather, who I think have been with the show throughout its twenty year history. (I imagine the lineup has changed a lot over the years.) John, strangely enough, has actually played Norwich in a punk band called Screeeching Weasel whom I took to be just a minor college indie band but in actual fact, I have just discovered, are apparently rather famous indeed, so shows what I know. I bought a book of their scripts for $16, which I shall treasure forever, and I promised them that whenever I’m next in Chicago I’ll pay them a visit.

I’ll never see this show again, because it’s forever changing. At the end of every show they roll a die and add it up over the week and the number they get is the number of plays they take out and replace, so after a couple of months the show is completely different: as they say at the end, “If you’ve seen it once, you’ve seen it… once”.

And that’s sad, in a way, that all these brilliant plays are going to be lost: but it’s also exciting. The fact that out of all the endless moments and all the infinite things going on in the universe you happened to be in the right place at the right time to enjoy this single, particular moment is irresistible. It’s something you have to live with when travelling: you make friends for twenty minutes, or maybe a day at the most. You enjoy a city for a week and then you have to move on. You experience a perfect moment, some divine combination of light and sound and location, and then it’s gone, poof.

I remember when I saw Owen Pallett at the Waterfront I was struck by the transitory nature of each of his songs. They were a one-time only construction, put together on his loop sampler effects pedal and then wiped out with the flick of a switch at the end of each one. Same deal.

And so I caught a train back to the city, listening to the Smashing Pumpkins’ Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Of course, what with them being from Chicago, the tracks seemed to have a certain freshness, some previously undiscovered subtlety to them as I watched the city fly by the window. Farewell, Windy City. I could have done with another three days to see all of you, but it was certainly fun while it lasted.

And the embers never fade
In the city by the lake
The place where you were born

Neo-Futurists, Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind on Wikipedia