Mummenschanz: Next (mostly)
Feb. 6th, 2003 11:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidLast night I went to see Mummenschanz: Next at the Wilbur Theater. I don't know how to categorize what they do; performance mime, perhaps? It's the only show I've been to where the program is a series of line drawings of the pieces, no words anywhere, and it's totally right.
The first half of the show focused more on things, while the second half had more traditional people. Everything had character, however, exploring, interacting, playing. Lots of careful use of light.
Our seats were in the front row center. This was bad, because we could see some of the people-wearing-black who faded into the background for people who were farther back, distracting from the magic of these animated things with personality. This was good, because there were a couple of times that inflated things almost fell over onto us; we were able to feel textures, be almost a bit of the show, which was cool. And there was plenty of legroom, definitely appreciated.
(Of course, in some ways it is absurd to try to describe a show with no words or music, even the program a picture, in words.)
The show started with a dark stage, a pinpoint light whirling around. I could hear whatever the cord was that attached to the light slicing through the air, louder as it got faster around the spinner. I could also hear the curtain raised behind the whirling light.
Then there was a large rectangle of white moving around stage, exploring its motion, crinkling itself in to interesting shapes, even faces, at times, waving a corner or two to the audience.
Two circles of rug were next. Actually, each piece seemed to be two huge circles of rug mostly sewn together, but with part of the circumferences left separate (not only an entrance for the performers, but mouths for the circle creatures). One rather liked the other, but the second one was shy...
A huge lightly-shaggy grey rectangular inflated balloon came next, drifting from the back of the stage, forward, forward, forward. Wait, it's at the edge of the stage... it almost fell onto the audience; got to touch that one.
(With all of these, it felt like the shape and the material were explored to see how they moved, how they could express emotion. Each came alive.)
There were two golden shimmering almost-cones next, the reflected light giving an impression of twirling.
A long streamer, intersecting a careful plane of light, making swoops and curves galore.
Next was a kind of big circle, made out of some interesting resilient stuff, moving rather like some kind of manta ray-like thing, more horizontal than not, bothered by a fly, then tempted by a flag of golden fishes. The fly returned, and a mouth (of frog?) ate it up.
A huge rounded Hershey's kiss shaped inflated plastic balloon, of a lig ht bluish color, drifted out, this one also almost coming off the stage. The sound of the plastic as it moved was interesting. And then it backed off, and became a glob of water, a tiny ship sailing on top, which lit a light when it got dark, and had a hard time as the water got choppier.
A corrugated triangle came out, very wide and short, followed by a trapezoid and an oval, also of corrugated cardboard, dancing around, folding and unfolding. And then a pair of corrugated cardboard legs came out, and it formed into a person, who stayed together for a bit, until the components came apart again.
This lead into the next scene, where there was one person of a single piece of corrugated cardboard, dancing around, having a suitcase, which he eventually takes with him.
Four stacked boxes on stage. One opens up, and the flaps of the box animate, start to encourage people to clap, to laugh, as it performs. The other three boxen unfold, a green chorus to the yellow director for a while.
Two long flat pieces of something, lit so only their front lateral edge is visible, bending up from flat, playing with all the different shapes they can make. At some point they get eyes velcroed on, and they play more.
A huge red circle, blue square, and yellow triangle com e onto stage, obviously with some thickness, made of another pliable material (I wish I knew how to describe them better). They played with their own shapes, squeezing into an oval, the triangle giving itself legs, the square balancing on a point. Then they started interacting, and moving on atop the others.
There were window shutters, uninterested in the windows that came along, despite all attempts at interaction by the windows, until they brought some flowers. Then the windows were allowed in, but th ey were too stupid (excited?) to be able to fit themselves into the frame without help from the shutters.
A translucent rectangle became a shower curtain for a woman cut out of yellow foam, who eventually made a man of yellow foam to flirt with.
More ci rcular manta rays came out, but this time they formed themselves differently, a face at the end.
And then the more obviously human parts of the show. The next piece had people (in black throughout the show) in white head-shapes, each with a knob in the middle. It was a romantic triangle, and one woman was left out at the end.
A man and a woman had different colors of wire?/tubing? that came out of the back of their shirts, came over their heads, connected in front. They formed different faces, teasing e ach other, as they tried one-upsmanship, giving an eye, a mouth ever widening... She finally won when she turned the lips the other way to stick out her tongue.
A guy with an interesting headdress of facial features, whistling to call his radio controlled pet sphere-with-foam-side-appendages. Followed by a girl, who used one of those little noisemakers to call her own sphere, which seemed to be better trained. And then the guy and the girl end up playing with all the different changes they could do with their features, moving a fringe of hair to be a beard, a mohawk, a mustache; moving braids all sorts of ways (Pippi Longstocking, anyone?), using the sound of it, too; eyes on stalks moved, and mouths changed shape, too. Very cool.
Next were the wheel-barrow people, each one a different wheel-barrow. One was full-sized, running across stage, the rest were little toy ones forming faces, trying to attract the attention of the one they liked best, making music with the removable parts.
The performers showed their faces, then did the last pice, which formed another face.
And then it was over, and the four performers were applauded. None of them are young anymore; grey was the predominant hair color.
It was a wonderful show.
A good friend of mine had a story published in a literary journal, her first real publication :-). I was excited to hear about it, and suprised when I got a copy of the journal in the mail. Whetstone obviously has good taste :-). I read her story, and liked it (I'm not sure, but might read it at a story reading. Lots of unexplained Jewish stuff, though, so I'm not sure how well it would go over in a less than Jewishly-literate crowd.). And there were some other nice pieces (so far) as well. Very cool.
"wee-ud." I couldn't help but notice when some woman was commenting to her friend as they walked up the street about how "wee-ud" some friends were. Mass accent at its best.
There was some wonderful puddle ice to crack last night on my walk home, just the right thickness for it to be satisfying.
The headache is still with me, but it seems to be abating, some, and I was able to sleep without pain waking me up. :-)
Snack of the morning: mixing TJ's chocolate chips and unsalted roasted almonds with baker's cut crystallized ginger. The flavors and textures balance so well; just what I wanted.
The first half of the show focused more on things, while the second half had more traditional people. Everything had character, however, exploring, interacting, playing. Lots of careful use of light.
Our seats were in the front row center. This was bad, because we could see some of the people-wearing-black who faded into the background for people who were farther back, distracting from the magic of these animated things with personality. This was good, because there were a couple of times that inflated things almost fell over onto us; we were able to feel textures, be almost a bit of the show, which was cool. And there was plenty of legroom, definitely appreciated.
(Of course, in some ways it is absurd to try to describe a show with no words or music, even the program a picture, in words.)
The show started with a dark stage, a pinpoint light whirling around. I could hear whatever the cord was that attached to the light slicing through the air, louder as it got faster around the spinner. I could also hear the curtain raised behind the whirling light.
Then there was a large rectangle of white moving around stage, exploring its motion, crinkling itself in to interesting shapes, even faces, at times, waving a corner or two to the audience.
Two circles of rug were next. Actually, each piece seemed to be two huge circles of rug mostly sewn together, but with part of the circumferences left separate (not only an entrance for the performers, but mouths for the circle creatures). One rather liked the other, but the second one was shy...
A huge lightly-shaggy grey rectangular inflated balloon came next, drifting from the back of the stage, forward, forward, forward. Wait, it's at the edge of the stage... it almost fell onto the audience; got to touch that one.
(With all of these, it felt like the shape and the material were explored to see how they moved, how they could express emotion. Each came alive.)
There were two golden shimmering almost-cones next, the reflected light giving an impression of twirling.
A long streamer, intersecting a careful plane of light, making swoops and curves galore.
Next was a kind of big circle, made out of some interesting resilient stuff, moving rather like some kind of manta ray-like thing, more horizontal than not, bothered by a fly, then tempted by a flag of golden fishes. The fly returned, and a mouth (of frog?) ate it up.
A huge rounded Hershey's kiss shaped inflated plastic balloon, of a lig ht bluish color, drifted out, this one also almost coming off the stage. The sound of the plastic as it moved was interesting. And then it backed off, and became a glob of water, a tiny ship sailing on top, which lit a light when it got dark, and had a hard time as the water got choppier.
A corrugated triangle came out, very wide and short, followed by a trapezoid and an oval, also of corrugated cardboard, dancing around, folding and unfolding. And then a pair of corrugated cardboard legs came out, and it formed into a person, who stayed together for a bit, until the components came apart again.
This lead into the next scene, where there was one person of a single piece of corrugated cardboard, dancing around, having a suitcase, which he eventually takes with him.
Four stacked boxes on stage. One opens up, and the flaps of the box animate, start to encourage people to clap, to laugh, as it performs. The other three boxen unfold, a green chorus to the yellow director for a while.
Two long flat pieces of something, lit so only their front lateral edge is visible, bending up from flat, playing with all the different shapes they can make. At some point they get eyes velcroed on, and they play more.
A huge red circle, blue square, and yellow triangle com e onto stage, obviously with some thickness, made of another pliable material (I wish I knew how to describe them better). They played with their own shapes, squeezing into an oval, the triangle giving itself legs, the square balancing on a point. Then they started interacting, and moving on atop the others.
There were window shutters, uninterested in the windows that came along, despite all attempts at interaction by the windows, until they brought some flowers. Then the windows were allowed in, but th ey were too stupid (excited?) to be able to fit themselves into the frame without help from the shutters.
A translucent rectangle became a shower curtain for a woman cut out of yellow foam, who eventually made a man of yellow foam to flirt with.
More ci rcular manta rays came out, but this time they formed themselves differently, a face at the end.
And then the more obviously human parts of the show. The next piece had people (in black throughout the show) in white head-shapes, each with a knob in the middle. It was a romantic triangle, and one woman was left out at the end.
A man and a woman had different colors of wire?/tubing? that came out of the back of their shirts, came over their heads, connected in front. They formed different faces, teasing e ach other, as they tried one-upsmanship, giving an eye, a mouth ever widening... She finally won when she turned the lips the other way to stick out her tongue.
A guy with an interesting headdress of facial features, whistling to call his radio controlled pet sphere-with-foam-side-appendages. Followed by a girl, who used one of those little noisemakers to call her own sphere, which seemed to be better trained. And then the guy and the girl end up playing with all the different changes they could do with their features, moving a fringe of hair to be a beard, a mohawk, a mustache; moving braids all sorts of ways (Pippi Longstocking, anyone?), using the sound of it, too; eyes on stalks moved, and mouths changed shape, too. Very cool.
Next were the wheel-barrow people, each one a different wheel-barrow. One was full-sized, running across stage, the rest were little toy ones forming faces, trying to attract the attention of the one they liked best, making music with the removable parts.
The performers showed their faces, then did the last pice, which formed another face.
And then it was over, and the four performers were applauded. None of them are young anymore; grey was the predominant hair color.
It was a wonderful show.
A good friend of mine had a story published in a literary journal, her first real publication :-). I was excited to hear about it, and suprised when I got a copy of the journal in the mail. Whetstone obviously has good taste :-). I read her story, and liked it (I'm not sure, but might read it at a story reading. Lots of unexplained Jewish stuff, though, so I'm not sure how well it would go over in a less than Jewishly-literate crowd.). And there were some other nice pieces (so far) as well. Very cool.
"wee-ud." I couldn't help but notice when some woman was commenting to her friend as they walked up the street about how "wee-ud" some friends were. Mass accent at its best.
There was some wonderful puddle ice to crack last night on my walk home, just the right thickness for it to be satisfying.
The headache is still with me, but it seems to be abating, some, and I was able to sleep without pain waking me up. :-)
Snack of the morning: mixing TJ's chocolate chips and unsalted roasted almonds with baker's cut crystallized ginger. The flavors and textures balance so well; just what I wanted.