It takes a ‘Stand Up’ guy to bring this theater audience to its feet
Jim Ortlieb says the unexpected, even disjointed, nature of “Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight” works in his favor.
“I can take the measure of the audience,” the actor says of his role in John Kolvenbach’s one-man show, which runs in the Huntington’s Maso Studio theater Saturday through March 3. “I can help them get settled and see what they need.”
Written during the pandemic, the play asks those existential questions that are at the center of every theatrical experience, Kolvenbach says. “What’s it for? What do we owe the audience? How do we blur the boundary between me [the playwright] and the audience? Really, it’s a relationship play.”
But in this play, the relationship is between Ortlieb, playing the Man, and the audience. Like any successful relationship, neither party can be passive. And, as the title suggests, the audience will be required to stand up at one point or another as the Man searches for connection. Audience participation may include rhythmic clapping and some humming, but nothing too embarrassing.
“Everyone cringes at the thought of audience participation, but I want them to love it,” says Ortlieb. “In our performances, in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Paris, we’ve discovered audiences are desperate to be part of something.”
Although the plot may feel a bit undefined, Ortlieb says that’s where he comes in.
“John’s language is so playful, and comedy has always been easy for me. It’s tragedy and loss that are harder,” he says. “The play has very funny moments, but I need to find the flow.”
Kolvenbach (“Love Song,” “Fabuloso,” “Gizmo Love”) wrote the play for Ortlieb. “Jim is the most in-the-moment actor,” he says. “He’s always able to respond to the audience’s mood. In a way, this is a playwright’s nightmare, in that truly every show can be completely different.”
Ortlieb and Kolvenbach have known each other for more than a decade, meeting when Ortlieb appeared in Kolvenbach’s backstage comedy “Half ‘n Half ‘n Half ” at Merrimack Repertory Theatre in Lowell. Ortlieb has been on Broadway in “The Farnsworth Invention,” “Of Mice and Men,” and “Guys and Dolls.” He’s also worked extensively on TV.
“I don’t usually like to write for someone specifically,” says Kolvenbach, “but Jim has a very singular and idiosyncratic voice — he shares that quality with my mother, so the character has some of her voice and personality, too — and as we emerged from the pandemic and isolation, talking about how to reconnect seemed timely.”
Kolvenbach is the director of “Stand Up If You’re Here Tonight” and says the minimalist set design, by Kristine Holmes, suggests any available corner where people have already gathered, with the Man pulling up in a beat-up old station wagon and setting up a folding card table to talk.
“I’m trying to pare down the theatrical experience to its essentials,” says Kolvenbach. “I create the scaffolding for the play, taking away time, place, and character, leave a little plot, but basically you are left simply with the playwright’s intention and character. It’s a language play, so my job as both the playwright and the director is to lay a track and then let Jim follow it as best he can.”
While solo shows can be the ultimate challenge for actors, Ortlieb says he’s only nervous in the few minutes before the curtain goes up.
“Once I see what the audience demands, I respond to that,” he says. “In the script, the Man tries, and fails, and tries again. Sometimes it’s an existential experience, sometimes comedy, sometimes it exposes everything about you, but I start alone and end up in a community.”