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A California native and fan of obscure British electronic music, Christopher Loar is the adapter and director behind The New York Neo-Futurist’s recent performance of The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill Vol. 1 Early Plays/Lost Plays. Hilarious and innovative, this production featured seven Neo-Futurists performing only the stage directions of renowned playwright Eugene O’Neill’s early and lost plays (as the title so directly fleshes out). A sold out success, the idea for the play had been brewing in Loar’s head for quite some time. Obsessed with O’Neill’s work in school, after joining the Neo-Futurists in 2009 Loar originally used the playwright’s 1941 Pulitzer Prize winning play Long Day’s Journey Into Night to test the functionality of having a script of only stage directions in the company’s weekly, ever-changing performance of 30 plays in 60 minutes, Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind. It was a success. He submitted the piece to the company’s annual main stage show, of which only two are performed per season. Loar’s piece was not accepted. However, after working on it for some time he again submitted it this year and, clearly, it was selected.
As to how he came up with such a creative performance-piece, Loar admits he “just thought it up one day. “It was a whim.” He also refuses to compare Eugene O’Neill with classic theatrical performances and Broadway. “I wouldn’t want to compare the two. That’s up to the audience.” A Neo-Futurist for three years now, Loar does, however, have an opinion on the ideal type of audience. “I like a mix,” he says, adding that at a typical Neo-Futurist performance “there’s always the staple crowd of young people, but also some older, uptown regulars”. Diversity, he feels, is great for appreciating the Neo-Futurists’ work. While for Loar no particular age group or demographic necessarily better reacts or appreciates the company’s work, the audience for the company does tend to be younger, although that means a range from teenagers to couples in their late-30s, with some elderly outliers.

Regarding New York City, Loar finds it a “very busy, utilitarian place, where survival means making a lot out of a little bit. It’s great to be here as a young person.” When asked how he would want to influence every member of the audience with a message from his shows, Loar quoted O’Neill, saying that he’d “like the audience to have fun,” and emphasizing that “rhythm alone can tell a story.” He further explained that O’Neill believed that rhythm was vital to telling stories, and Loar tries to do this with his own work.

A big supporter of theatrical companies such as The Wooster Group (where he interned prior to the Neo-Futurists) and the Nature Theater of Oklahoma, Loar also loves and is influenced by Japanese theater and performance as well as the Eastern realm. While he has a love for film, Loar does prefer the theater, emphasizing that “there’s nothing like performing for a live audience. It’s the live event of theater that makes it so great.” He went on to clarify that while theater is his preferred art, it is far more difficult to find good theater than good film.

Concerning the fact that Eugene O’Neill does satirize the work of the respected playwright (if only the stage directions), Loar rejected the notion that he was showing any disrespect to O’Neill, describing how, “O’Neill himself always said that he’d prefer the plays were never actually produced. He dismissed his work and never attended performances of his own plays. If we as the Neo-Futurists can make shows he hated entertaining, we can only hope he would have approved.”

Now that Eugene O’Neill is complete, Loar is back to performing with the Neo-Futurists in Too Much Light. What’s next in Loar’s future? The Complete & Condensed Stage Directions of Eugene O’Neill Volume II!

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