It's like Doug Funny "Bangin' on a Trashcan," but not. It's like Grandpa playing spoons on his knee, but not. It is exactly what you would expect, but like nothing you have seen. Combine household objects, a talented cast of musicians with chemistry degrees, water, sand, and a stage, and there is STOMP. STOMP's credo is the universality of rhythm -- according to founders Luke Cresswell and Steve McNicholas, lyrics and melodies divide cultures while the rhythms of everyday life bring people together.
Using water jugs, brooms, and paint scrapers, the cast recreates the pace of the street and calls attention to the stimulation of our senses that we often overlook. Of the objects used by the performers, few gave a melodic tone. Tic-tacs, tin buckets, water jugs, lighters, newspapers, garbage cans and lids, paint scrappers, basketballs, and kitchen sinks provided diverse and ample material for the performers to drum, strum, tap, scratch, and beat.
The first performer starts the act by sweeping the stage, eventually realizing she is being watched. Unfazed, she begins to beat rhythms on the stage with the broom, and as a call to arms, the rest of the cast trickles in, layering patterns of sound onto the one the sweeper has begun. Also, the same performer establishes a clapping call-and-response pattern that is used throughout the show.
Most "scenes" were performed by only three or four performers, exploring different facets of sounds and rhythms. Larger scenes performed by the entire group usually focused on one instrument at a time. "Poles" was the loudest scene, involving the cast performing the same rhythm in unison, and had a more tribal element to it. However, none of the scenes are meant to be political propaganda or a social commentary. Above all, the show stresses the tension between the complexity and simplicity of sound.
The cast members had opportunities to develop characters and demonstrate individual skills. In "Newspaper," the nerdy performer tries to read a newspaper in peace, but he is joined by other performers one by one, each of them reading their newspaper and making character-specific sounds. The final performer sits, and as the rest of the groups' noise amplifies, he turns his newspaper into Heidi braids, a hat, a boat, a pterodactyl, antagonizing the nerd. While a few of the scenes take a narrative shape; they are interspersed between seemingly more free form acts such as drumming on cans while bungeed to the ceiling.
"Busking," or trying to grab passersby's attention, originated in the booth theaters set up in village fairs of the Middle Ages. The show's creators modernized the practice and performed with a group of "buskers" in Brighton, England in the early 1990s. Elements of busking appear on the Boston stage, as the entire show is a conversation with the audience.
A few blocks from the Boylston T-stop, the Stuart Street Playhouse is the perfect venue for STOMP. Tucked under a parking garage, the theater lobby attempts to bring the street inside, although the stark contrast between the theater district on Tremont Street and the more inner-city premise of the show do not aptly correlate. However, the sense that one is going underground into the netherworld of the urban jungle allows for complete immersion in the STOMP experience. Inside the actual theater, street signs, bicycle parts, a pink baby stroller, and a weed whacker hang from sections of barbed wire fencing mounted on the walls, reinforcing the unity of diversity.
All in all, the STOMP experience must not be missed. The student rush rate of $25 is satisfactory for the caliber and uniqueness of the performance. The liveliness and talent of the performers themselves leave one energized and intrigued, if not anxious to get home to bang a broom against the bedpost.
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