Reckless Abandon

David McTier isn’t your typical campus revolutionary. The professor of theater at Rockhurst University believes that plays can be fun. Not funny but fun.

Neither a comedy of manners nor a ribald farce, Rockhurst’s Reckless nonetheless has members of the audience jumping out of their seats. With each plot twist, viewers follow the action as it travels back and forth between Sedgwick and Massman Halls, with short outdoor scenes en route to the next location.

“It’s kind of like watching a golf tournament,” McTier says. Though Reckless wasn’t written as a multilocation play, its script inspired the format. “The play is kind of a wacky adventure, and when the main character takes off running, we thought it would be fun if the audience had to run with her.”

Described by McTier as “a very, very dark comedy,” the play follows Rachel, whose husband has just informed her that he’s hired a hit man to kill her. After a change of heart, he begs her to make a run for it. Along the way, Rachel stumbles upon con men and psychiatrists and wins a game-show jackpot.

“We call them found-space performances,” McTier says. “One of the main reasons we do it is to help people, students especially, realize that performance can take place anywhere. The heart of the play is always going to be the actors.” Rockhurst has put on two other found-space performances, but neither was as ambitious as Reckless.

Reckless ignores the usual boundaries between viewer and art, allowing audience members to surround the scene and encouraging actors to see faces usually hidden in the fourth row. McTier explains, “Instead of performances in our usual setting, this becomes more like theatre in the round and is more intimate, both for the actors and the audience.”

McTier also says it’s just plain fun. “I think a lot of people are interested in not just being a passive, inert presence. If they have a sense of involvement, they’ll have a good time.”