Theater experiments

Don’t be afraid to walk into a random warehouse in Denver. Well, that is if the windowless garage-style building is on the corner of 22nd and Stout. Because, thanks to The LIDA Project, there’s a lot of acting going on inside. 

Going to experimental theater is kind of a rite of passage for anyone who wants to join the ranks of academia. The performance of Roller Skating With My Cousin at 8 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays until Feb. 20 offers such an opportunity. 

Roller Skating provides a unique look at both Ronald Reagan’s presidential years—and the eerie coincidence that his three names are each six letters: 666—and what it means to create your own universe.

This production focuses on the premise of what would happen if one was allowed to create their own universe. In the beginning, two women dressed in black spandex and sporting bright-neon sunglasses circa 1982 monologue about how it is physically possible to create a world. 

Somehow this monologue leads to a wall being blown up and a lot of over-starched laundry being slowly dangled from the ceiling to the rubble of the wall. This doesn’t make a lot of sense, but it gives the audience a taste of what obscurity they’re in for.  

After this, four women sing while building up the Tower of Babel, which is inevitably  knocked down—a pattern emerges.  Then things get really weird and a bevy of roller girls start skating around the theatre to great 80’s music while doing their best not to fall over. 

The rest of the performance is a conglomeration of a revisionist’s skeptical look at Reagan—who sports a pair of devil horns, gets repeatedly shot by John Hinkley Jr. (whose actor also plays the Creator), and calls his wife “Mother.” Theater apparently isn’t known for its adoration of politicians.

There isn’t anything that can be clearly written that would best describe the experience of Roller Skating, and for that reason you should slap down $15 for a ticket to see a revisionist’s world that was created for roller-skating abhorrers of Reagan and the people who love them. 

Roller Skating With My Cousin 2180 Stout St  8 p.m. Fri & Sat until Feb. 20  Tickets:$15-$17

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