NYC Critic’s Notebook (Dance Festival)

About 20 minutes into “Broken Theater,” at La MaMa’s Ellen Stewart Theater on Sunday afternoon, Bobbi Jene Smith shouted: “Thank you, everyone! Let’s take five.” The cast of about a dozen performers, who had been in the throes of an emotionally charged scene, relaxed as Smith, the show’s director, began to address the audience. “Welcome to La Ma—,” she said, then shook her head: “Let’s try that again.” The scene rewound and repeated, until she called “take five” again.

“We’re still working on some things,” she explained. “This piece is constantly in a state of change.”

This fourth-wall-breaking moment was characteristic of “Broken Theater,” which, over the course of a tumultuous hour and 40 minutes, repeatedly stops to comment on itself, blurring the boundaries between reality and performance, rehearsal and finished artwork.