R. Kelly’s “Trapped in the Closet” is one of the strangest and compelling pieces added to music’s art exhibit in the last decade. Try to explain the concept to your grandmother. This shit is crazy. Or it’s just R. Kelly. With 33 chapters that have been released in sections since 2005, (We were too young in middle school to appreciate it when it began.) “Trapped in the Closet” is an anomaly, as well as an inspiration for two University of Oregon theatre students.
Directing the “Hip-Hopera” are Rachel Faught and Liv Burns and “Trapped in the Closet” is their directorial debut.
“My friend Liv and I were hanging out one day last fall term and started watching ‘Trapped in the Closet’ … just because. And we got this idea as we were watching it that it would be really funny to do as a live performance,” Faught said. “And at that time we were thinking we could get people to sing it, but it slowly started developing more and more into this lip-synched production.”
The 45-minute production is riot-filled with spot-on impersonations of the hyper-dramatic story that follows R. Kelly’s Sylvester as he enters a rigamarole of infidelity, love, passion and a little person. Basically, R. Kelly rewrote Jean-Luc Godard’s “All you need for a movie is a girl and a gun” and took it to the max. “Trapped in the Closet” has more than one of each.
The actors give it their all and their expressions are impossible not to laugh along with. Even with a few bloopers, the show flowed smoothly. If this is the first time you’ve moved away from your rock, (or you’re not an R. Kelly fan) it shouldn’t hold you back from enjoying a lip-synched version of “Trapped in the Closet.” And Faught wants this to be the case.
“I think it’s going to be great to have people in the audience who have no idea about ‘Trapped in the Closet,’ and who’ve never seen the YouTube series,” she says. “So that would be my biggest piece of advice: If you haven’t seen it, don’t watch it and just come in with a fresh set of eyes and be prepared to witness something very, uh, outrageous and possibly, very likely offensive.”
“Trapped in the Closet” will be preformed one more time on Saturday, Nov. 2 at 5 p.m. in Villard 102. It’s a free show courtesy of the Pocket Playhouse.
Additional reporting done by Molly Gunther.