Rude Mechs&#8217; &quot;The Method Gun&quot; (Courtesy of Walker Art Center)
Rude Mechs' "The Method Gun" (Courtesy of Walker Art Center)

Have you ever seen the website "Garfield Minus Garfield"? It takes the comic strip about the cool, sarcastic cat, but subtracts the cat and his thoughts, leaving you with scenes in which little happens, where snatches of dialogue become curious non sequiturs.

There's something of that tone to "The Method Gun," the production from Austin, Texas', Rude Mechs that opened Walker Art Center's 25th annual "Out There" experimental theater series on Thursday, Jan. 10. It's a play built around absences, in which the ideas and characters that seem most important to the story are removed. While that makes for an intriguing premise, "The Method Gun" doesn't take it very far, so the show never gets as absurd, audacious or funny as it has the potential to be.

So what are these absences upon which the show is built? Well, it's about a small theater company of the early 1970s left leaderless when their revered acting guru flees. Yet they carry on with her objective of completing a nine-year rehearsal process for a one-performance production of Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire" that cuts out the four principal characters, Blanche, Stella, Stanley and Mitch.

It seems like it could turn into a delicious spoof, especially when an actor hilariously holds forth with some of the teacher's bon mots that blend psychobabble and academic gobbledygook. And watching minor "Streetcar" characters react to unspoken dialogue from unseen characters makes for some deadpan silliness.


But playwright Kirk Lynn and the six actors of Rude Mechs are too cautious to make this a satisfying satire. It never gets particularly outrageous, unless you count two actors dancing naked with bunches of balloons tied to their penises. But that's so apropos of nothing that it seems just one more idea tossed at the wall that doesn't stick.

So namby-pamby are the insecure quintet of characters at the center of the story that interludes with a tough-talking tiger bring a welcome brazenness and bite to the proceedings. Such scenes give a sense of what "The Method Gun" could have been if Rude Mechs hadn't pulled so many punches. As it is, this opener of the "Out There" series isn't nearly out there enough.

Rob Hubbard can be reached at

What: Walker Art Center's "Out There" series, featuring Rude Mechs' "The Method Gun" (through Jan. 12); She She Pop's "Testament" (Jan. 17-19); Bengolea, Chaignaud, Freitas and Harrell's "(M)imosa/Twenty Looks or Paris Is Burning at the Judson Church (M)" (Jan. 24-26); and Back to Back Theatre's "Ganesh Versus the Third Reich" (Jan. 31-Feb. 2)

When: 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays

Where: McGuire Theater, Walker Art Center, 1750 Hennepin Ave. S., Minneapolis

Tickets: $20-$15, available at 612-375-7600 or

Capsule: "Out There" opens with a satire more than a tad too tame.