Elyse’s blindness gets her bloody

Point Break Live!

Due to my love for all things Gary Busey (see monkey above), I went to see “Point Break Live!” a theatrical parody of the epic 1991 surfer thriller, “Point Break,” in which he co-stars as a FBI agent. It was being performed at Littlefield, a small but well-stocked (with booze, that is) venue in Gowanus, a few blocks from my apartment. So my strange-event-loving friend and I decided to get there early, so that my blind ass could have the pick of the theater in regards to plastic, folding seats. I chose the aisle seats in the front row and we patiently waited for the show to begin, three feet from the stage. I thought that I totally scored.

Once the show started, it began with a bang to the brain, being that a girl got up on stage and started screeching at the audience through a bullhorn. She screamed through the mouthpiece like she didn’t understand that her voice would be amplified and that we were in a relatively small venue (it could seat about 50, though there were 100 people there). After I regained a little bit of my hearing, it seemed as if she was playing the role of casting director, or director, or something that involved rupturing eardrums and wearing tiny shorts and a loose fitting tank top that revealed her mid-drift. She made the throaty announcement that Keanu Reeves did not show up to casting that day and they needed a member of the audience to play Johnny Utah, the ex-football star turned FBI agent turned undercover surfer bank robber. A gaggle of graduates from the Keanu Reeves School of Acting jumped on stage, emptied their minds, and delivered lines like “You gonna jump or jerk off?” with all the head-jerky, monotone, male bimbo swagger they could muster. # Selection of Johnny Utah was based on applause and the Keanu replacement that was chosen for my show ended up being a cute meaty guy who barely fit into the wet suit the cast made him sport the entire show. Beefy had won the coveted role not because of his Keanu Reeves impersonation, but because his large group of friends that had most likely coaxed him on stage were really loud.

The show began and the cast literally acted out the whole movie, scene by scene, with the aid of really bad bleach blonde synthetic wigs and surf boards. When the characters would surf, cast members would run around the audience squirting people with Super Soakers for pure surfing authenticity. Thankfully they provided the audience with hooded ponchos that covered everything but your shoes.

Fake Keanu in his awkward shyness was entertaining enough, especially during the skydiving scene where the cast forced him into a harness so he could be hung from the rafters like he was actually free-falling and all the poor guy could mutter was “Don’t make me do this, I have a weight problem,” over and over again. But the true stars of the show were – of course – the actor who played Gary Busey who did a flawless impersonation and a tiny girl who played Reeves’ stunt double.

The stunt double whose function was showing fake Keanu cue cards with his lines on it throughout the performance and then jumping in during action scenes to kung-fu battle shirtless surfers in plastic US President masks was adorably funny.

Then there was the scene where everyone dies at the end in a bloody shoot out and the cast felt it necessary to pop a ton of balloons filled with fake blood and splatter is all over the audience. Sure, we were wearing ponchos, but we were also wearing shoes and hair. I didn’t have the hood of my poncho up, thinking the worse I would get was sprayed with some water, and had corn syrup in my hair for days.

And since I was sitting in the front, my friend and I got it bad.

I apologized to my roommate for being blind after the show was over, and we immediately went home. I stayed in on a Friday night when I originally had intentions of going out. Much like a lady’s holiday, the blood put a damper on our nights.

So, if you plan to go to this show, don’t be blind, and sit far back. And if you plan on being Keanu, don’t have a weight problem.