Joseph Gordon-Levitt at a HitRECord show in September 2011. (Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images)
By DCist contributing writer Alexis Hauk.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt—let’s call him JGL—the biggest three-letter moniker to command our country’s hearts and mind since FDR, took to the Warner Stage on Tuesday night, the first stop of six on a much-hyped tour of the actor and singer’s “collaborative arts” organization HitRECord (pronounced re-CORD).
No one knew what to expect going in, but speculations of possible celebrity guest appearances or stunning local performing talent—as well as, let’s face it, confirmed knowledge of JGL’s angelic bone structure—were enough to pack the theater almost to capacity.
Unfortunately, the payoff for admission—tickets were as high as $52—really depended on what you were there for in the first place. If you were interested in getting your rocks off gazing at JGL’s youthful beauty, mission accomplished. But if you came for something resembling a substantial performance, you walked away flummoxed.
The eye rolls, for me, began during the pre-show entertainment. A movie screen onstage began flashing questions like, “What does ‘The Road’ mean to you?” “How are you different when you got to the end of your journey (sic)?” and, “What about roads not made of asphalt?”
Well gee, I’ve never thought that roads could be metaphors! LITERALLY NO ONE IN HISTORY HAS THOUGHT OF THAT.
Throughout the night, the audience was invited to post tweets pertaining to this “Road” theme. We were also subjected to obnoxious video interviews with 18-year-olds who spouted, “Like, the road to self-discovery is the hardest I’ve ever traveled.” Honey, honey, wait till your knees start to crackle when you squat and then get back to me.
People were also encouraged to record every moment of the show and post it to JGL’s HitRECord website. There were stations in the lobby where you could just upload all your photos and videos.
Striding onto the stage to a cacophony of high-pitched squeals from the 95 percent lady crowd, JGL, conducted himself admirably amid frequent cat-calling, like one fan who crowed seductively, “I’ll flash my lights at you!” when he asked people to wave their cell phones in the darkened auditorium (for a shimmer effect that was kinda neat but again, why?).
He explained that he and his brother formed HitRECord because they got tired of people “not wanting to hire” them for the projects they wanted to do. Which felt about as disingenuous as if Thom Yorke had explained that Radiohead released In Rainbows on their own because no one would let them record an album.
JGL expressed hope that they’d develop all the material they’ve collected from shows like this and make a TV show, “like Louie but shot by everyone in the fucking room.” Louis C.K., wherever he was last night, must have shuddered.
For a guy who broke out as a serious actor in Inception, this was all some pretty heavily meta stuff (which he acknowledged)—recordings of recordings of recordings (dream within dream within dream). But, you know, with plugs for tour sponsors like Levi’s and Sony.
Most of the evening entailed sitting there watching screenings of short videos, almost all of which we could have watched on the HitRECord website. These include a poem about a man with a turnip for a head, narrated by GARY MF OLDMAN. If Commissioner Gordon had been there in person, all would have been forgiven. He was not.
The whole night was peppered not only self-aggrandized but mundane exercises in “creativity” but also an annoyingly naïve idealism. A young anthropology student, bewildered and breathless to be standing next to Mr. Hottie, talked about a recent trip to an Amazonian village facing a life-destroying dam to its water supply. “We can totally do something about that!” JGL gushed.
“Eh, probably you can’t,” the cynical voice inside me replied. (I checked the Twitter feed this morning to find someone posted: “This is going to change the way we make art, truly truly.”)
More irritation later, a video short took the bitingly funny satire of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal, and turned it all into something about Jelly Belly people, thus removing the main thing that made Swift’s treatise awesome: Celtic infanticide and cannibalism.
Yet people around me giggled like they’d never heard the damn thing in their life. It felt a bit like being in a mediocre middle school English class taught by the cutest teacher ever.
Short “Iterations” were particularly unbearable, featuring some woman who has tea with a bear and sings stuff like, “Have you seen my second self?” GUFFFFFF. I mean, I like the music video for Bright Eyes’ “Bowl of Oranges,” but I do NOT want to watch it for two hours.
The other half of the show not populated with pale, sad-eyed, long-tressed animated women who resemble Sally the Rag Doll from A Nightmare Before Christmas, was audience participation.
People in the lower portion of the auditorium were invited onstage again and again (the balcony, where I was sitting, was righteously ignored). Thus, we got to see people with no acting chops attempt cold readings of tongue twisters and imitations of “grandmas.”
JGL’s big finale was a long sing-a-long to a cyclical tune by a Scandinavian singer calling herself “Ppeppina,” about how life was like a loop (or maybe Looper).
The one interesting, lively moment came at the start, when JGL selected several people from the audience to dance in front of a green screen while he filmed them. Their unabashed energy, particularly that exhibited by a burly, bearded dude in a red tie, was entertaining as hell.
The rest was a long, slow yawn.
Which is sad, because the interactive virtual studio idea that HitRECord offers is a pretty cool idea. And JGL, likable and charismatic, has proved throughout his career that he has the talent to ringmaster a variety show of some sort. His earnest and genuine commitment to the idea of an artistic community available to everyone is admirable, but this isn’t that show.
If you want to go up and down the cynical East Coast proselytizing your mission of inclusive arts, make sure to blow the audience’s minds, not bore them.
