One of my favorite parts of the World Horror Convention—and the final thing I want to tell you about that weekend—doesn’t really have anything to do with World Horror Con at all. Liz Gorinsky invited a bunch of us along with her on what she termed an “illicit cultural outing,” which really meant we were sneaking away from the con Friday night for a performance of the play “I’ve Never Been So Happy” by the theater company Rude Mechanicals.

I knew nothing about the troupe other than the fact that Liz called them “reasonably experimental,” and nothing about the play other than what I could glean from this poster.

Which wasn’t much.

It was definitely not a poster designed to have independently induced me to want to see the play, and as I was to learn, it wasn’t at all an accurate indicator of what we were to see once we got there. Later, after being blown away by the amazing evening, I realized I could have come up with a dozen posters better designed to draw people to the theater, but … that was still in the future.

After dinner with Liz, Nick Mamatas, Eugene Fischer, Meghan McCarron and Jen Volant at Casa Columbia, we walked to the theater, where we immediately learned there was a lot more than just a play planned for that night. We were met by cast members in western gear who convinced us to dress up to get the total experience.

So we were led through a “transmedia shindig” (a carnival-like set-up out front about which more later) to a room filled with clothes which we all tried on until we found something suitable. Since I’m tall, I despaired of running across anything that would fit, but luckily I discovered a long circus ringmaster’s jacket with tails. And since my head’s large, and none of the cowboy hats would fit, I took a scarf and rather than wearing it around my neck, well, take a look at me and Eugene below to check out my ensemble.

Now suitably garbed, we entered the theater, found some seats (since it was general admission, we didn’t all end up together), and I opened the program to discover what the play was about. Or perhaps I should say, discovered that there was no way I would understand what the play was really about without actually seeing it. Because here’s the description of Act 1, Scene 1:

“Annabellee’s Dream” — Annabellee dreams of a mountain lion and plans her escape from her father, Brutus, with help from her dachshund, Sigmunda.

At that point I realized that reading the program was pointless. I’d just have to let the performance wash over me. Which it did, going something like this …

Annabellee and her father, Brutus, run something called Brutus and Annabellee’s Country Western Family Comedy Variety Hour. Then there’s a brother and sister pair of dachshunds, Sigfried (owned by Brutus) and Sigmunda (owned by Annabellee). Annabellee dreams of getting the heck out of there, sings a duet with her dachshund about it, and then she and her father race those dachshunds to determine whether she can strike off on her own. And then there’s Julie, who lives on a wymyn’s commune, and when her son, Jeremy, turns 18 and can no longer live there because he’s now a man, she ties him to the last mountain lion in Texas so he can learn all the things she wasn’t able to teach him. And then …

And then …

Well, this is pretty pointless. Because telling you the bare outlines of the plot tells you very little. So how about giving a look and listen to that first scene I described above?

That’s right. The dachshunds sing. As does the mountain lion who eventually appears.

Keep in mind that’s what’s up on YouTube is a workshop performance from 2009, and doesn’t represent the fully staged experience we saw last month, with full costumes, a light show, extensive choreography, and the final lyrics. If you do want to see more of the workshopped version, though, you can check out more clips here.

The plot was entertainingly surreal, the songs were surprisingly fun, and the singing and dancing were both excellent, but there was more to the Rude Mechs magic than the play itself. There was that “transmedia shindig” I mentioned, remember? We stepped out of the theater during intermission into a brightly lit carnival where members of the troupe called for us to take part in various attractions such as the “I Didn’t Know the First Thing About Love” obstacle course, which Liz and I were immediately scooped up for and encouraged to navigate.

First, we were each made to sit on individual wheeled carts and pushed down an incline. Once we came to a stop, we were urged to race to the top of a highchair taller than me. The winner (which turned out to be Liz) had to be fed baby food via a six-foot-long spoon. Then we were rushed to a bed underneath a bridge. We were handed spoons, a sheet was tossed over us, and the Sandman walked back and forth over the bridge sprinkling sand which we tried to catch in our spoons without getting covered with sand ourselves. The winner (this time me) was the one who ended up with the most sand. Then, we raced to a bathtub filled with all sorts of strange objects, and were told to quickly find the package of condoms hidden in the midst of all the other junk. I found them, which meant I then took the role of the kid who had to be lectured about sex (which Liz had 30 seconds to explain).

Then the final and most athletic part of the challenge: We were each given a baby doll which we were to hold tightly between our knees. Then we were to hold onto ropes as we swung across shallow wading pools, and we were to open our legs at exactly the right moment to drop those dolls into the pools. And at the end of all this we were given prizes which we were meant to offer to an extremely sarcastic God as part of yet another game!

The intermission attractions also included “Quick Draw,” a photo booth that actually had a person hidden inside who would sketch out three different pics of you, the “Piney Bluff Social Hour,” in which you sat down in a small room to be regaled by Willa as she plied you with gossip and corn bread and tea (which turned out to be whiskey!), and a dozen more.

Based on a review of an earlier workshopped production of the play, this is the sort of thing the Rude Mechs are known for. Here’s the fun as described in 2009:

After the performance, the audience went to “a Western trans-media interactive performance party” with margaritas, beer, dancing, karaoke, rope-making, fried food in the shape of famous Texans, a country cage-match competition, the chance to touch a real gun with a stranger in a pickup truck, the opportunity to get a haircut from a real Texan barber or styled by the world’s best country stylist, the chance to prank call a Yankee, and to use the outhouse for “good ole fashioned dirty jokes.” In so doing, Rude Mechs created a space in which audience members could be both consumers and creators while experiencing I’ve Never Been So Happy.

The intermission ended far too soon, and quite giddy, I stumbled back into the theater to find out whether true love would prevail, to hear a song sung by a mountain lion, and to witness an incredibly moving dachshund apotheosis.

When it was all over, I picked up a copy of the cast recording, which I transferred to my iPhone later that night. I wanted to know whether the songs would work individually as songs, or only in context of a theatrical performance. Would any of them be worth listening to outside of those four walls?

I’ve since listened to the soundtrack straight through three or four times, and while some of the songs are more helpful to propel the plot (however wonderfully!) than something a person encountering them as audio only for the first time might find worth returning to again and again, and may only work for those who’ve already seen the play in person and can access the memories of the full performance, there are many which seem much more than that, and which I’ve listened to repeatedly, such as “Electric Signals” (and not just because of the Star Trek reference), “Everything’s Tied,” “Things I Loved About That Dog,” and the concluding track, “I’ve Never Been So Happy.”

I’m very grateful to Liz for organizing this outing, because—although I wouldn’t say I’ve never been so happy—”I’ve Never Been So Happy” left me very happy. The last performance was May 7, but if you ever hear that the Rude Mechs are having another go at it (which after all the years they’ve put into creating it, I have to believe they’ll do), do your best to catch it. It’s funny, surreal, life-affirming … and left me with a big, goofy grin on my face. (Which some of you may think is always there … but still.) I wish I could see it again.

On a personal note … watching “I’ve Never Been So Happy” made me wistful for when I was able to spare time in my life for acting. Back when I lived in New York, I was part of the Greenpoint Repertory Company, and performed in many plays there, including as Lenny in Of Mice and Men, as Frankenstein (the one who philosophized, and didn’t just grunt), and as Boris Kolenkhov in You Can’t Take It With You. There’s something electric about the ephemerality of theater (when done well, as in this case it was), and I hope to someday find time be part of it again.