Eureka!

LET'S GET HIGH The Eureka's ensemble may lift your spirit.

Photograph: Jocelyn Gonzale

If you have a single drop of jaded, cynical or Republican blood, you may opt to skip the Living Theatre’s latest experiential happening, Eureka! If, though, you warm to the notion of physically reenacting the Big Bang in the close, sweaty company of excited strangers, then this show is for you.

Based on cosmological treatises by Edgar Allan Poe and the 19th-century German naturalist Alexander von Humboldt (both appear as characters), Eureka! was a work-in-progress when its writer, Hanon Reznikov, suddenly passed away in May. The project was completed and directed by the group’s octogenarian doyenne, Judith Malina, but despite her valiant efforts, this four-dimensional exploration of chemistry, physics and metaphysics still feels vague and incomplete, a theatrical thesis still searching for its ideal form.

An open, chairless space surrounded by skewed scaffolding, video projections and soundscape serves as a playground for a young, black-clad ensemble of true believers. They dance, chant liberal slogans and interpret molecular reactions via movement, with nigh-mandatory participation from the spectators. As is often the case in interactive theater, the varied reactions (from fervent to frightened) offer the best theater. Still, there are moments when the revelatory power of the company’s storied history shines through, such as when the group splits off into a phalanx of marching soldiers on one side and a cluster of chanting monks on the other, with the audience stranded in between. It’s an apt metaphor for our world in general and Eureka! itself.