‘Geek’ puts credibility as insider to the test
You can’t create a show called “The Geek Show 2: BindleCon” without some serious nerd cred. Strike a single false note in your survey of geek and convention culture, and you might court the rage of trolls, summoning the fury of their tweetstorms and subreddits. Worst of all, you might expose yourself: Maybe you’re not a true fan after all.
Happily, Bindlestiff Studio’s series of sketches, shorts and monologues, seen in a community preview Thursday, April 12, demarcates the peculiarities of a most peculiar culture as only insiders could. Created and produced by Thomas Paras and Marc Abrigo, the show is keenest of all in its exploration of what makes an insider. Are you a legit fan only if the question you ask at a Q&A with your hero is one no one has ever asked before, not-so-casually betraying your
must you create art in addition to consuming it? Are you higher status if you’re an originalist who’s eternally suspicious of new artists and artworks in a franchise? How many followers do you have to have?
To peruse the program bios of the 26 self-declared “geeks” who write and perform in the show is to absorb countless testaments to fandom: from “Star Wars” to LARPing, from RPGs to “Sailor Moon.” That enthusiasm comes through even in unfocused or tentatively performed sketches (a few of which could be dropped altogether; at almost two hours, the show’s a little too big for its Technicolor spandex). Undergirding every scene is contagious awe of costumes and super powers, of richly imagined worlds and storytelling prowess. As one character rightly asks, how could you not be “into all that awesome s—”?
Bindlestiff, which bills itself as the country’s only theater dedicated to Filipino artists and stories, plans to continue drawing on the compilation format for much of its programming, Artistic Director Aureen Almario said in a recent interview. She took the volunteer position at the 29year-old theater in October 2016, just six months after SoMa Pilipinas, Bindlestiff ’s neighborhood, was designated an official cultural district by the Board of Supervisors. Still, she identifies displacement as one of the theater’s chief worries. “How are we going to serve our community when our community is disappearing?”
Part of the answer will come from workshops the theater already hosts for seniors and after-school classes it will start offering to neighborhood youth later this year, thanks to a new grant from the Department of Children, Youth and Their Families. But it will also come from a recognition that “we’re only one of the institutions that exist in SoMa,” she says, citing Bayanihan Community Center, Kularts and Kearny Street Workshop, among others. “We go to their shows, and they come to ours.”
Already, Bindlestiff has what so many other theaters in the region crave: a diverse and young audience. Almario attributes that primarily to relatable content and low ticket prices, but another big factor is how open the company is to huge numbers of young people being a part of its shows. Annual series of shorts like “The Geek Show” as well as “Queer as F—,” “Stories High,” a Tagalog Festival, “Love Edition” and sketch comedy from the troupe Granny Cart Gangstas can each get at least a score of community members involved.
A wealth of participants, of course, doesn’t necessarily translate to actual wealth. But in this year’s “Geek Show,” a light saber battle between comic virtuosos Joe Cascasan and Jamie Nallas wanted for no special effects from George Lucas. Cascasan fenced as dextrously as if he were holding the bow of a violin. When Nallas started to electrocute her foe, a la the Emperor from “Star Wars,” Cascasan absorbed it with convulsions to every nerve ending. But if that’s what enemies do to you, it doesn’t look that different from a geek’s fanaticism.