September 20, 2006
Goodnight
Goodnight, Fringe
Goodnight, Live Arts...
Posted by willa at 10:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 16, 2006
Hot Hot Heat
Hell
Sat., Sept. 16, 8pm. $20. Perelman Theatre, Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts. 260 S. Broad St. Not recommended for epileptics or asthmatics.
Woah. I went into this not knowing what to expect, and I still have no idea what was going on up there, but it was gorgeous and wrenching and strange, as bewildering as a trip to the underworld should be.
A collaboration between Emio Greco and Pieter C. Scholten, the dance re-imagines traditional representations of hell such as Dante's Inferno. I could write pages and pages about the spatial and sonic dimensions of the piece, but I'll spare you for now, reader. On stage was a tree (hello, dark wood), a gate, and an R2D2-looking creature (Virgil?!). Periods of quiet restraint suddenly exploded into frenzied cacophony... and jiggling breasts and penises.
Gosh, I almost forgot to mention that part. My bad. About midway through, the dancers (including Greco) got totally naked, much to the humiliation of the teenage girl next to me. She buried her face in her mother's shoulder, as if afraid that she would actually go to h-e-double-hockey-sticks if she looked at the penises swaying just a few feet away from her face. At least she stopped yawning. Judging by the applause afterward, most people were not offended or bored.
Posted by willa at 04:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Let's Do the Time Warp
The Rocky Horror PUPPET Show
Sat., Sept. 16, 2pm, 8pm. $15. The Theatre at 2111 Sansom St.
Do you ever sit up at night worrying that Richard O'Brien's 1975 cult musical The Rocky Horror Picture Show just isn't campy enough? Fear no more. The Little Fish Theatre Collaborative has come up with a solution: puppets.
Maybe my expectations were too high. I thought that the spectacle of grown people playing with puppets while belting out songs from one of the defining films of my youth would be wildly entertaining, but I was underwhelmed for the most part. Don't get me wrong; There were some good moments, and the performers sang their hearts out. The scene where sweet transvestite/mad scientist Dr. Frankenfurter seduces Brad and Janet (played by humans) and they TURN INTO PUPPETS is pure genius. But once I got over the novelty of watching small hollow people grope each other, I found myself daydreaming about Tim Curry, wondering what he's been up to since Home Alone 2 and Voltron: The Third Dimension. Good thing there was the sound of rabid Rocky Horror fans hooting and hollering to bring me back to... well, not Earth, exactly, but whatever strange realm we had wandered into.
Posted by willa at 04:00 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Playa Play
CONTEST
Sat., Sept. 16, 11pm.
$10. Painted Bride Art Center, 230 Vine St.
I've noticed that some of the shows have a nasty little habit of starting on time, and since I left myself ten minutes to make it to CONTEST from the other side of the city, I had to employ the services of one of my more embarassing multiple personalities - the Personal Trainer. I raced northward on my bike, hissing little slogans to myself like, "C'mon, push it! You're a young, this should be easy! You're pathetic, let's MOVE!" and so forth, not knowing that the show I was racing to would mock, cleverly and wordlessly, this very mentality. The show is short and sweet, never wasting a movement or moment, to make that big OBSESSION WITH COMPETITION SORTA SUCKS statement. BrownSquad is agile and in tune with one another, even to the point of creating a perfect metronome beat with their feet, and is also skilled at bringing inanimate objects to life. Special props to the one or two heavier guys in the company, who were just as limber as their rail-thin compatriots. Way to move out there guys. Nice work, keep pushing it.
Posted by jlussen at 01:52 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
