Fantasia for Urban Hipsters

Hyperbole:epiphany. Son of Semele Ensemble and Rogue Artists Ensemble. 9/2/05.

This is a high-concept experimental theater kind of show; in it, there is no live dialogue and the audience doesn't see the actors' faces. It is all masks and puppets set to music, which makes it an extremely interesting experience. With five directors and myriad designers and musicians, the result is a little inconsistent. There were some extremely strong pieces, but also some weaknesses. The good news was that no selection lasted more than the length of a song, so they went quickly and if you didn't like something, it was pretty sure not to last too long.

One thing I found interesting about these performances was that the vast majority of the pieces involved human masks and puppets, which can be both a good and a bad thing. It shows the range of human-like expressions that one can create with a mask, but in a way I feel like it misses an opportunity to be really outlandish and non-human. And some of the people masks (especially those in the "Johnny Crumb" piece) were kinda scary. I really enjoyed pieces such as "The Trap" in which the performers used the maks to create alternative physicalities - in this piece, the actors (or at least one of them) wore small masks on the top of their heads, which made them look like cartoon characters and worked wonderfully with some creative body language. I also loved the remote control hampsters of "Disruptions" and the talking sandwich in "Sammitch." "Too Much Love" was hilarous, especially because a boy was playing the girl and a girl was playing the boy so it came across as a depiction of what each thinks of the opposite sex.

My least favorite pieces were the framing stories of "Epiphany" and "The Senseless" which seemed too slow and too vague to set the tone for the rest of the show. Overall, though, it was a fun and interesting show, if a bit more concept than consistency. I think I would feel a bit better about it if I knew that it was a building piece, if these people would continue to learn from the experience and perform more with masks and puppets. The skills that were developed in this production seem prodigious; it's a shame to know that the same people won't necessarily be continuing to collaborate and improve together. The show seems better as a means rather than an end.