I just finished reading Staircase, a play by Charles Dyer. Written in 1966, the play is a bit of a mystery. Part of the mystery is that the protagonist's name is Charles Dyer – the author's name. However, the play reads as fiction about one or two aging men, not as autobiography, struggling with their dwindling sex appeal and the legislation against homosexuality. The dialogue switched between camp, rapid-fire repartee and poetic, heartfelt musings. Adding to the mystery, the only other character to appear on stage, and several of the other characters' names, are anagrams of Charles Dyer. Buying the script second hand at J. W. Doull for a mere $2.- was an impulsive, and inexpensive gamble. Fascinating and moving, the play tuned out to be an unexpected delight.

As my colleagues and I look at kick-starting Café DaPoPo again, we have been working on figuring out how can we write the inherently unpredictable performance elements of Café DaPoPo more profoundly into the event? Unlike a traditional performance, there is no illusion of a repeatable Café performance. Every time a certain scene or song is ordered, the set – tables, chairs, bars, corners of the room –necessarily changes. Who ordered this? Table 3? But it's so crowded over there! Often the costumes change. Oh no! I forgot the blonde wig. Can I borrow your hat? Props reveal themselves in performance: a beer glass; a patron's hat; a butter knife. Often the parameters shift: add a sock puppet; make it 'saucy', make it 'queer'; sing your Hamlet. By donning a pair of sun-glasses last-minute, the performer experiences a total transformation.

How can we devise more original material for Café performances without the monthly task becoming an overwhelming one? Each performer becomes a writer, a director and a dramaturge, if they choose. How do you use a picture frame, a shower cap and a rubber ducky effectively, in what is essentially an open rehearsal, performing a two-person song? In fact, the audience, who is at times almost indistinguishable from the actors, influences the performance, unknowingly. They laugh. They turn their heads away. The lean forward in their chair. These immediate cues bring about another total transformation in the performer. The entire theatrical moment disrobes and becomes naked, intimate dialogue.

What do you do with a theatrical form like Café DaPoPo, which relies heavily on audience interaction, non-traditional locations and an ever-changing cast (and the "available" performances in our collective repertoire); a form that doesn't fit into the conventional theatre model in terms of finding audiences, choosing venues and generating revenue? Again, the performer can find Café transformative. The reason for performing in Café DaPoPo is to experience the performance, the audience and the impulse for art with an immediacy that is too often lost in the big theatres. In a time of banal programming and an increasingly marketing oriented world, art for art's sake – even art for audience's sake – is becoming increasingly rare.

Reading daring, poetic, political plays like Staircase, and taking artistic risks rather than settling for less, remain genuinely exciting and worthwhile endeavours.