“There’s something special about the energy of this show,” says Jaime Keeling with deadpan Keanu Reeves-like understatement.
The show in question is adapted from a movie that features surfing, skydiving and bank robberies, all of which are dutifully recreated for a live theater presentation that generally plays small stages in nightclubs and bars.
“Oh, we skydive,” Keeling continues, matter-of-factly.
Likewise, when she notes, as so many theater hustlers do, that “the audience is a big part of our show,” she’s not kidding. If you’re in the audience for “Point Break Live,” which swoops into the Infinity Music Hall & Bistro in Hartford for a single performance 8 p.m. Nov. 19, you are given a wad of fake money, which will be taken back from you at gunpoint. You may also get spattered with blood (also fake), so hold onto that rain poncho that’s part of the Survival Kit that “Point Break Live” offers to all attendees. And you may even get to star in the show as young hotshot federal agent Johnny Utah.
Jaime Keeling is a genuine fan of “Point Break,” the snappy, wet-suited 1991 adventure flick that is distinguished by its many canny comments on contemporary American culture. (The bank robbers pull their heists while wearing Halloween masks of former U.S. Presidents.)
A self-described “cinema nerd,” Keeling had run a film society in college and later programmed a film archive screening series. But she first came to “Point Break” as a movie-loving child. “Keanu Reeves was huge back when it came out,” says Keeling, who’s now in her 30s. “I just liked it. Then, when I was in college, I revisited it, on a VHS tape during Spring Break.” She sensed the film’s genre-crossing, multi-disciplinary, self-deprecating, mindblowing potential. She honed “Point Break Live” through a series of small theaters on the West Coast. Besides this national tour (which involves 10 performers, a projection screen “and a whole van full of props”), the show’s currently a weekly sensation on Sunday nights at the Dragonfly club in Los Angeles and a monthly event at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, with productions in other cities, and even private parties with “Point Break Live” as the centerpiece. It played the Bonnaroo music festival last June. Among the show’s avowed fans are the original “Point Break” movie’s co-screenwriter Peter Iliff and one of its stars, Gary Busey.
The Infinity Hall date marks the show’s Connecticut premiere, and despite “Point Break Live”‘s 11-year history, East Coast gigs have been few and far between. The show got a regular New York berth just a year ago, and has yet to play Boston.
Keeling realizes that stage shows based on cult movies have been a big trend for a while now, but that “I didn’t come from that world at all. I didn’t go to school for theater.We first did this show in 2003.” She realizes that the whole Survival Kit concept, and the fact that many audience members dress up specially for the experience (in this case, that can mean swimsuits and sunscreen) makes it sound a lot like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” But her inspirations are more filmic — to Keeling, the props and gimmicks hearken back to horror films of the 1950s, where images jumped off the screen and into the audience thanks to electrically charged “spine-tingling” seats, ghosts that flew through the auditorium and knife-wielding ushers.
Keeling explains that “Point Break Live” audiences — who are invited to arrive early, get a drink, and soak up the atmosphere — will find themselves “inside a movie production. It’s a bit meta. Everybody in the audience are our extras. We’re all ready to make the movie, but the lead didn’t show up.”
That star would of course be Keanu Reeves. “Point Break” was released in 1991, a couple of years after Reeves’ career-making flurry of hits “Dangerous Liaisons,” “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” and “Parenthood.” The same year as “Point Break,” Reeves appeared in the sequel “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Adventure” and the cult hit “My Own Private Idaho.”
Keanu Reeves is no stranger to Connecticut clubs — the band Dogstar, for which he played bass, famously performed at Toad’s Place in New Haven in 1995. But it’s unlikely that if the actual Keanu Reeves ever turned up to reprise his unintentionally hilarious turn as undercover FBI agent Johnny Utah, he could make “Point Break Live” any more fun than it already is. A good chunk of the show is spent selecting an audience member to take on the coveted Johnny Utah role. One of the show’s appealing dramatic conceits is that an unprepared amateur actor, looking at a script for the first time and reading it cold, sounds an awful lot like Keanu Reeves at his best.
But playing this material too fast or too loose would quickly lose its “blue flame special” charm. “That’s the failsafe on it,” Keeling says. “It’s the audience’s choice. We put [the candidates] through some trials, and the audience always chooses the right guy. They may clap for their friend or their cousin at first, but they end up taking it seriously. Because if you choose a [bad] Keanu, that’s going to suck for all of us.”
Often, the Johnny Utah wannabes are familiar with the show, and the original movie, and have come ready to fight for the chance to perform. Others are just naturals, caught in the moment. Keeling says she’s often asked if certain excellent Johnny Utahs were prearranged “plants” or ringers. Her response to those accusations: “Weren’t you there? You all voted for them.”
Keeling had the originality of her staging concepts validated in court when “Point Break Live”‘s producers attempted to cut her out of royalties and other payments and she succesfully sued them over the rights to this unique parody. “It was a pretty fun trial, actually,” she recalls. “The jurors got these little video screens so they could compare scenes from the film and the show.”
Keeling continues to perform in “Point Break Live.” At the Hartford performance, you can see her as Kathryn Bigelow — the real-life director of the original “Point Break” film, who went on to become one of the most filmmakers in Hollywood, the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director (for “The Hurt Locker”).
“This film is very personal to me,” Jaime Keeling confides. “It’s important to my childhood. I didn’t just come up with a concept and apply this to it. It’s a fascinating social experiment.”
Keanu Reeves couldn’t have said it better.
POINT BREAK LIVE will be performed Wednesday, Nov. 19, at 8 p.m. at Infinity Hall in Hartford, 32 Front St., Hartford. Information: 860-560-7757 and infinityhall.com.
