Play/Date at Fat Baby

For a while, it looks like we’re in a regular pub with a regular crowd. Then a phone rings over the speakers, a light shines on a woman at the bar, and everyone goes quiet. She leaves a voicemail for Char, a date she’s expecting. Soft spotlights brighten in other parts of the pub — a couch, a booth in the back, the upstairs railing — and new characters emerge from within the crowd. Michael Counts’ Play/Date, conceived by Blake McCarty and styled as an “immersive and voyeuristic theatrical experience,” invites the audience to watch and listen in on a couple dozen one-act plays scattered throughout the Lower East Side bar, Fat Baby, each focused on some kind of relationship, from first dates to anniversaries, from hook-ups to breakups. It may take a few minutes to learn how to watch the show. With up to three plays and one or two side stories happening at the same time, it’s easy to get distracted by the urge to move around too much and try to see everything. Halfway through one story, I realized I hadn’t really taken in anything that was going on, because I was attempting simultaneously to watch two others stories happening nearby. It helps to pick one interaction, stick with it, and tune out whatever else is happening.