The phrase “review-proof” usually denotes some property so universally recognizable and demonstrably saleable that no amount of critical huffing and puffing can possibly derail its commercial invincibility.
Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind is something else. Yeah, it’s an established property, at least in Chicago, homebase of its creators, the Neo-Futurists. (Think the Groundlings, except less obsessed with getting on Saturday Night Live.) The hometown show has been up and running for at least three shows a week, 50 weeks a year, for 19 years. In 2003, the great public radio show This American Life devoted an entire episode to them, sort of. All this success may beg, for some, the question of whether the Neo-Futurists belong in the Fringe Festival. Based on their unconventional approach to pretty much every aspect of live performance, we’ll just answer with an emphatic “Hells, yeah!” and leave the hand-wringing to others.
But where were we? Ah, yes: “review-proof.” It is. Because if you attend any of the seven remaining performances in the run — which you absofreakingtively should — the show you see will be at least mostly, and possibly completely, different from the one I saw Wednesday night. That’s how these pioneering meta-nerds roll.