‘Fight Night’ Review: The Election’s a Stage, The Candidates, Actors (Literally)

Any American presidential election brings a period of great consternation about one’s fellow voting constituency and their inscrutable political choices. “Fight Night,” an interactive theatrical election experience by Belgian theater group Ontroerend Goed, arrived in the U.S. at the perfect time to poke and prod at the psyches of soon-to-be voters. The show ran at Boston’s Emerson Paramount Center on Sept. 20 to 21 and is now headed to Ann Arbor, MI as the next stop on a seven-state tour.

“Fight Night” interrogated numerous aspects of the democratic system, leaving audiences thinking more deeply about the power of their fellow voters and their own decision-making processes. Yet its 75-minute runtime was not enough to develop rigorous nuance: Vague characterization and plot engineering undermined the show’s message of voter empowerment, and perhaps the biggest takeaway was a greater distrust of one’s fellow voters than ever before.

During the show, five candidates faced off in rounds of voting and elimination, interspersed with questions from the host — a debate moderator-esque figure — and host-led tricks like vote pooling. The plot details were sparse; audiences did not vote for a new president or representative, but simply voted for the sake of voting.

With the help of small remotes that collected live multiple-choice votes, “Fight Night” periodically displayed vote breakdowns that kept the audience on its toes as it predicted and reacted. With quick pacing coupled with interesting questions for both the candidates and the voters, no moment of the 75-minute run time felt stagnant.

The questions posed to candidates tended towards the abstract. In the program, “Fight Night” promised to leave political statements (for instance, stances on issues like abortion or the economy) out, and for good reason — it’s hard to believe that Bostonian theatergoers make up a very politically diverse group, threatening a predictable show. “Fight Night” also addressed this concern by collecting demographic data from the outset (numbers on opening night included a plurality percentage of upper-class and atheist attendees), which instilled awareness of voter background when interpreting answers.

However, the candidates’ murky political stances meant that a detachment between the audience and the competition existed throughout the show. “Fight Night” wanted to keep its candidates complex and its election full of surprises, but this inadvertently exposed the engineering underneath the supposedly audience-controlled plot. While one candidate’s switch from least popular to frontrunner played thoughtfully on the emotional appeal of an underdog, another’s rise hinged on people voting for his anonymized personal values, which his character had, thus far, completely failed to embody. As a result, a commentary on deceptive appearances came off as a gimmicky twist.

For a production akin to a social experiment, several statistical validity issues were inevitable. “Fight Night” fended off expectations of rigorous science by highlighting some aspects of theater, including dramatic monologues. But since none of the actors were as charismatic or compelling as the biggest actors on the American political scene, “Fight Night” carried more of the emotional suspense of a local election than a presidential one. It might have benefited from naturalistic improv acting, particularly as one of its best assets was the comedic host, played by Angelo Tijssens.

Most of the voting results allowed for multiple conclusions: Were voters easily deceived by authoritarianism or complicit in a meaningless system? Were they stuck to the status quo or steadfast in their principles? For more satisfying takeaways, statistics from studies on biases and heuristics could have added an eye-opening educational element to the show.

Regardless of its shortcomings, “Fight Night” was heart-pounding by the time it reached its dramatic conclusion, leaving the audience doubting both the integrity of the candidates and the judgment of their fellow voters. With a final message on the power of the majority — for better or for worse — “Fight Night” offered theatergoers much to chew on and worry about leading up to the presidential election.

“Fight Night” ran at the Emerson Paramount Center from Sept. 20 to 21.

—Staff writer Isabelle Lu can be reached at isabelle.lu@thecrimson.com.