Honorable Mention, 2002 Garland Awards: Choreography - Tina Kronis |
"A delightful theater piece...A
whimsical dance... surreal...a blistering idea!"
RECOMMENDED!
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LA WEEKLY
"Become hypnotized by its glistening patterns...extraordinarily
focused!"
CRITICS PICK!
- BACKSTAGE WEST
"Surreal...Bizarre...Eerie...And so it goes, urgently, playfully, mysteriously!"
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LA TIMES
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Non-linear, non-narrative, physical theater of surreal comedy. |
Text Drawn from Dostoyevsky,
Gogol & others
Created and Directed by
Tina Kronis & Richard Alger
Featuring: |
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In the Dark Night Series...
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BUY
THE SCRIPT! 3 plays by Theatre Movement Bazaar text & images from dumbshOw, Cirque Picnique & Strange Beliefs. |
LA Weekly (Recommended!)
-- Steven Leigh Morris |
Backstage West (CRITICS PICK!)
-- Dany Margolies |
LA TIMES This Surreal 'Dumbshow'
Probes Our Primal Impulses That quote is taken directly from the press notes. However, feel free to interpolate your own meaning onto this bizarre but finely rendered show, which consists of a series of brief and tightly choreographed scenes set to eclectic music. In the opening scene, the men and women of the large ensemble move hectically about the stage, coalescing into a large circle. They begin a playground clapping game, which evolves into a ring-around-the-rosy dance, which ends with them dashing around in a long line, crack-the-whip style. Through it all, the actors maintain a joyless deadpan, an eerie juxtaposition to their childlike activities. The performers ambulate as if they are on tracks, rushing about the stage but never colliding. The ensemble quickly separates into recognizable groups. Two male antagonists jockey continually for supremacy, brandishing their suit coats in a bantam-like plumage display. Four men sit in a formal tableau, stirring their tea, then blowing bubbles through their "spoons." Three women move like synchronized wind-up dolls, offering such comments as "Men are still men, not piano keys." Two other women cower in apparent terror, at one point donning white masks and gesticulating from behind a black curtain. A sole woman moves with dreamlike fluidity, inquiring, "Who do you think you are? The king of Spain?" And so it goes, urgently, playfully, mysteriously. Creators Tina Kronis and Richard Alger (Kronis directs, with Alger assisting) are longtime collaborators who have recently worked with the famed performance/puppetry collective Mummenschanz. And indeed, a keen sense of whimsy underlies their rigorous, purposeful staging. So, too, does a sense of collective paranoia, the disturbing feeling that something dire awaits these participants at the end of their random, not-so-senseless rounds. -- F. Kathleen Foley |