THE REEL LESS TRAVELED

We know how annoying it can be when someone in the audience -- usually seated directly behind you -- talks their way through a movie. But you may want to check out the oral interpretive stylings going on at REDCAT next week.

“The Cinema Cabaret: Neo-Benshi Live Film Narration” at 8 p.m. Monday revives a Japanese tradition originated in the silent-film era, wherein performers known as benshi provided the audio, reading the interstitials, giving voice to the characters and even commenting on the films.

The benshi were often as big a draw as the actors who appeared in the films, and the practice persisted long after the advent of sound. As with other transmutable, recycled art, neo-benshi takes existing works -- in this case, well-known movies and TV shows -- and reinterprets them.

Here, the artists mute the soundtrack and add live commentary and sound to clips from “Rebel Without a Cause,” “Kiss Me Deadly,” “Poison,” “Vive L’Amour” (Ai qing wan sui), “Uzumaki,” “Minority Report” and more, creating an iconoclastic form that shares the more subversive qualities of the mashup.

Using a wide range of techniques, the possibilities for interpretation include “Mystery Science Theater 3000”-style parody, dramatic narrative re-imaginations and close, near academic re-readings of the originals. The performers include poets from L.A., San Francisco and New York.

-- Kevin.C[email protected]