By Jackie Demaline
The Cincinnati Enquirer

BlueForms Theatre Group puts on A Lonely Crowd Friday and Saturday at the Performance Gallery. (BlueForms Theatre Group)

Next weekend, Performance Gallery hosts Columbus alternative theater company BlueForms in A Lonely Crowd: The Isolations Cycle.

"Put most succinctly, it's the story of a young woman trying to decide if she should go to a party," says artistic director Matt Slaybaugh, who is a co-creator of and performer in Crowd.

It is, of course, much bigger than that.

Performance Gallery member Aretta Baumgartner suggests Crowd is about being personally overwhelmed by the Information Age. "Our community used to be a block, a village. Now it's become a huge Internet chat room, even the world community we see on TV. When it's too much, just to cope we back away.

The question is, Slaybaugh suggests, "What resources are left for preserving our communities and taking care of each other?

"This piece explores how and why this has happened and how it's affecting us. We explore the scientific and sociological aspects of the problem."

To get at this big stuff, Slaybaugh promises a piece that "relies a lot on music, metaphor and movement.... We rarely approach anything in the usual way. You won't simply see a story told front to back.

"It will be interrupted, re-arranged, and we'll comment on the action."

Basically, he says, "We're looking for different ways to experience stories and new ways to share ideas in the theater.

"In the theater, a person can discover new ideas that change the way they think about their life. Maybe they change one small thing. Thousands of people making thousands of small but important adjustments - doing one thing better every day. That's how we change the world."

A Lonely Crowd plays at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday at The Performance Gallery (3900 Eastern Ave.) Tickets $10. For reservations and information, call (513) 333-8482 or visit online at www.performancegallery.org.