Coining a Stage

You could call Back to Back Theatre’s _small metal objects_ “theater in the raw”: Instead of sitting on the Flynn’s velour seats, the audience members perch amid pedestrian traffic in the University Mall. Ticket holders get headphones that allow them to eavesdrop on a candid conversation between two unseen actors. Random mall shoppers react to the audience and become part of the scene; to passersby, the theatergoers may seem like outsiders or weirdos. That’s part of the point for Back to Back — an Australian company whose members are all considered to have intellectual disabilities, though that’s no help in picking them out of the crowd. Meanwhile, the overheard conversation becomes a plot. A businessman calls one of the two friends, keen to strike an illicit bargain, and the subsequent drama, by turns breathtaking and hilarious, questions how society assigns value to things — and to people.