By Nelson Pressley
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Quick, now, a wrap-up of the Chicago-based Neo-Futurists' "Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes)," the slap-happy stunt comedy at Woolly Mammoth:

It really is 30 plays -- or as close as the cast of five can get -- in 60 minutes. How? The pieces are skit size, whether they're simple frat house pranks or provocative vignettes, and the actors move fast.

Irreverent? Oh, yeah. See the slo-mo Apollo 11 lunar landing, the setting of which is an actor mooning the crowd. The frisky atmosphere is established early as the casually dressed cast mingles with the audience; you half-suspect someone might even tap a keg. (Instead, the cast mates order a pizza, a tradition whenever they sell out; no wonder this is a long-running late-night hit in Chicago.)

Even how cast member Kristie Koehler Vuocolo announces the troupe as "edgy" has a comic knowingness to it. Something about the way she cocks her hip and sort of mocks the word; nothing is serious.

Except, that is, the occasional snippet with a conscience that wiggles into the mix -- say, an earnest bit on waterboarding that's weirdly, purposefully unfunny, or a sober consideration of how we overprotect kids. (That one's dramatized with bubble wrap.)

Those particular "plays" might be out of the rotation by now; the company puts in three new pieces each night. The running order is determined by the audience: Choose from the menu in your program, shout out your choice by number, and watch as the actors race around to set it up.

The work is full of hits and misses, of course, but there's a governing intelligence that keeps things on a fairly high plane. If the actors got quizzed about how their work connects with such artistic movements as dada and futurism, they'd likely pass with flying colors. Then they'd squirt the cheeky questioner with seltzer.

So there is fun with bananas, a brilliant theater-insider gag called "The Art of Acting," and something about a bike messenger that plays like a hilarious, action-packed music video. There is audience participation of the very best kind, which is to say that the audience actually wants in, whether that means taking part in a quirky survey or maybe taking off your clothes for a buck. (Or maybe not.)

To say the cast is relaxed is an understatement, yet it buzzes with street-theater energy as the show flits from inspiration to sheer perspiration and back again. Vuocolo gets one of the few polished, subtle laughs lip-syncing to Barbra Streisand during a fantasized hyper-personal stage musical of "Yentl," and "Light" creator Greg Allen acts as a kind of laid-back comic Godfather. All of the cast members are very quick and certainly game; it's hard not to root for them as they dash from bit to bit with bare costumes and just a few props.

Besides, you don't go to this for nuance. You go for laughs, and to see whether the cast can beat the clock. On Friday, it didn't quite make it; a few plays were left behind, and that was that. It's rare to forgive a show for being so blatantly anticlimactic, but "Too Much Light" gets away with playing by its own rules.

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes), created by Greg Allen; written, directed, and performed by the Neo-Futurists. With Jessica Anne, John Pierson and Ryan Walters. Through Sunday at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, 641 D St. NW. Call 202-393-3939 or visit http://www.woollymammoth.net.