The Cold Record by Kirk Lynn

Reviewed by: The Cold Record by Kirk Lynn Sarah Kozinn THE COLD RECORD. By Kirk Lynn. Directed by Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw. Under the Radar Festival, Public Theater, New York City. January 9, 2019. On January 9, 2019, I attended The Cold Record, one of the plays in the Public Theater’s annual Under the Radar Festival. The Cold Record was written and performed by Kirk Lynn, a member of Austin, Texas’s ensemble-based theatre collective Rude Mechs and directed by Alexandra Bassiakou Shaw. About halfway through the performance Lynn asked the audience to promise to keep what we witnessed a secret or leave. I stayed, and yet, I am going to write about this show without breaking any promises. The show took place in the “Classroom,” a makeshift performance space on an upstairs floor of the Public that had been converted into what resembled a basement romper room equipped with stocked beer fridge, string lights, and mismatched upholstered furniture. As I entered, Lynn, dressed in un-assuming jeans and a white T-shirt, a nod to punk fashion, greeted my friend with a warm, “Are you Emily? And would you like a beer?” Her name is Sarah, and she took the beer. He milled around the space with the rest of us, and the mood was subdued for a party atmosphere, like a weekday gathering at a friend’s house when their parents are out of town. I found my way to an empty seat while Lynn walked to the front of the performance area and sat next to a table that held a tape recorder, a flashlight, and headphones. The audience took their cue and quieted as Lynn randomly called out audience members to name their favorite punk song. I sank down in my chair hoping to avoid being picked like a kid who forgot to do their homework. Then the mood suddenly shifted. He told us he was going to do a monologue, but before he started, we needed to promise to keep what we witnessed a secret. If not, we could leave. This part was not a surprise. The advertising for the show billed it like this: “A secret performance. A one-man show. The story of a 12-year-old boy who tries to set the record for leaving school the most days with a fever and in the process falls in love with the school nurse and breaks his heart on the punk rock. You must promise never to speak about what you witnessed or else you’ll get kicked out.” The promise of making (or breaking) a “promise” during an experience bracketed as a performance was what drew me to the show in the first place. The suggestion that real and theatrical worlds would collide enticed me. (For the promise to be valid, that collision would be necessary.) The promise would have to resist what speech act theorist J. L. Austin [End Page 92] called the “special” circumstances of the theatre, which make promises “void” or “hollow.” These special circumstances cue us to interpret the events as imaginary, fictional, and temporary. Click for larger view View full resolution Kirk Lynn recounts a 12-year-old boy’s heartbreak while speaking in time with a tape recording in The Cold Record. (Photo: Christopher Shea.) In many ways, Lynn’s piece worked against these circumstances. He performed as himself, casually improvised with the audience, and sat surrounded by us as if we were at a campfire. These tactics enlisted us into his performance; treating us like childhood friends he called late night from the safety of under his comforter. When he asked us to promise, we were thrust back in time to when the rejoinder “I’ll tell you if you swear not to tell anybody” was the precursor to most shared adolescent secrets. But this was where the air of intimacy ended. My feelings toward the nature of Lynn’s request and the promise the audience made come from the ways the theatrical devices Lynn used to tell the story framed our reception. Once the story began, Lynn donned a pair of headphones and spoke in time to the recording. His impetus to speak

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