Las Vegas Weekly

October 3, 2008 · 6:31 PM

On being a corpse: 15 minutes of blood, guns and fame at Point Break Live!

By Aaron Thompson

Guns, surf boards and dead presidents. Now, that's a play!

I have no idea why I volunteered to do this, but for some reason there’s a fake gun and a blood pack under me now.

“I’ll come back and get you when it’s time,” says the director to me as she scurries off to whatever place she came from.

I should have know that at Point Break Live!, the intensely absurd, interactive re-telling of the Hollywood blockbuster Point Break, I’d get myself involved in something stupid as hell. And here I am, a last minute cast member. When the robbery scene finally arrives, I raise my gun at one of the president-masked surfer-dude-ish bank robbers hassling the audience for money, and I know I’ve crossed the line.

I pause to check my surroundings and take aim. I pull the trigger to a “pop!” and my target goes down in a puddle of blood. But there’s confusion, I hear more pops and I’m hit (apparently.) I squeeze my blood pack and a steady stream of crimson spurts from my chest, onto my face and into the crowd to the sound of “ews!” and “Oh Gods!” I collapse, chuckling, and pretend to be dead. Suddenly there’s a commotion on stage and someone is moaning with faux pleasure. The audience utters another collective “Ew!” and out of the corner of my eye I watch a steady stream of faux ejaculate fly into my hair. I want to react, but I can’t. I’m friggin’ dead.

Fifteen minutes later and the scene of my death is over.

Blackness washes over the audience and I move from my death spot back to my seat. My rain poncho (given out to all members of the audience at the beginning of the show) is soaked with fake blood. It literally looks like I’ve been murdered. In less than 20 minutes, the show will be over. I imagine being pulled over on my way home and having to describe to the officer that I was a murder victim in a play inspired by Keanu Reeves. But hey, what the hell does it matter? I’m still friggin’ dead, right?

Oh yeah, and Point Break Live! was funny, too.

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