Should you vote your feelings? A traveling play helps audiences think that through

Fight Night begins with a sinister host emerging from the shadows of a set resembling a boxing ring. “Friends, voters, audience, lend me your ear,” he intones, evoking a much older play about the perils of picking leaders.

Five actors materialize. Or rather, candidates. One is a young Black woman with stylish, scarlet hair that matches her turtleneck sweater. One is a middle-aged white man, short and grumpy. Another white man is Kennedy-handsome, tailored and lean. A white woman wears a surprisingly short skirt and a semi-transparent blouse. A Black man with long dreads smiles cheerfully. Over the course of the next 90 minutes, they appeal to audience members to choose them.

Each audience member is given a small device that allows them to anonymously vote for the candidates in different rounds and answer questions that range from age, to income, to qualities most valued in a leader.

Fight Night premiered to great acclaim at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in 2013. It’s toured the world since then, with performances in the Netherlands, Switzerland, Russia, Australia and Hong Kong. The current U.S. tour includes upcoming stops in Durham, N.C., Minneapolis and Santa Barbara, Calif.

Angelo Tijssens plays the sinister emcee and is part of the Belgian theater group Ontroerend Goed. The group created this show, under the direction of Alexander Devriendt, after a real-life political crisis that paralyzed the country.

“We spent 541 days without a federal government in Belgium,” Tijssens told NPR. In 2007, a right-wing Flemish politician named Bart De Wever won a popular TV quiz show called The Smartest Person in the World and became unexpectedly powerful. Forming coalitions turned out to be nearly impossible for a period during De Wever’s rise.

Tijssens and Devriendt became fascinated by entertainment’s influence on democracy. “And as humans always do, thinking that this was very specific to this point in history, we started reading and found out it wasn't,” Tijssens said. “The Greeks had already written about the dangers of politicians being too popular.”

They decided to create an ambitious show about democracy in general, rather than about specific issues, such as housing, or social reform, “or climate, or abortion rights, or everything else I’d really like to talk or even shout about,” Tijssens said. “But just about – how does the system work, and how easy it is to be influenced.”

Like theater, he pointed out, democracy needs people to show up in person.

In Fight Night, there’s a frisson to being manipulated by the actors, whose speeches are purposefully vague. “I certainly hope daredevils vote for me,” says one earnestly. “Those who dare to dream big. Because that’s what we need in this society.”

“I think of all voters equally,” announces another. “You may disagree with me but that’s okay, because I want to talk to all of you. Tonight, it’s the majority that determines how this evening goes.”

At one recent performance in Ann Arbor, Mich., the rowdy crowd was primarily made up of students (61% between the ages of 18 and 24, according to the data supplied by the devices.) The audience cheered and groaned and whistled as candidates gave their speeches.

Outside the theater, tables were set up, encouraging people to register to vote in the upcoming, real-life election. The program noted that the performance had been updated “to correspond to the changing political climate,” but Tijssens said the themes of the show are as old as western theater traditions and democracy, dating back to the ancient Greeks.

“It’s been there all the time,” he noted. “So it didn't really have to change a lot. I think the show can still go on for another – but I'm being very modest now – 20 centuries.”

Edited for radio and the web by Jennifer Vanasco. Produced for the web by Beth Novey. Produced for radio by Chloee Weiner.