Chicago Reader on Social Acupuncture

By 9/11 Toronto actor Darren O’Donnell was already fed up with the political limitations of traditional representational theater. So, after the 2003 northeast blackout, when he saw the disparate residents of his neighborhood come together in something of a utopian moment, he set out to find a new approach to making art, one that stimulates civic engagement. He calls his method “social acupuncture”—structured moments that break down boundaries between performer and audience. In the first part of this somewhat bipolar book, he lays out his manifesto and gives examples from his recent work. In one project an audience member whose name was drawn from a hat was invited onstage to field questions from the house—though, in a crafty shift of power, he or she was also welcome to refuse to answer any or all of them.

The second half of the book is a rough script for O’Donnell’s interactive one-man show, A Suicide-Site Guide to the City. I’ve only seen parts of it performed—and by design it’s different each time, so some readers might find it tedious doing the mental gymnastics required to fully imagine the experience. But O’Donnell’s synthesis of critical and conversational writing styles can make for wildly entertaining reading, of a piece with his scorching 2004 novel, Your Secrets Sleep With Me.