Building on the wonderful world of a play within a play, Stage Kiss takes the audience behind the scenes with as much surprise and fun as Noises Off. There are the actors (two of whom were lovers 20 years ago), there are the characters they play (two of whom were lovers 20 years ago), and then – in additional layers — there is the impact of the role on the one who must perform it.
The story focuses on the destruction of Hazel (Paul S. Holmquest) and his brother Fiver’s (Scott T. Barsotti)’s birthplace warren that necessitates them to lead a band of misfit rabbit survivors toward a new safe home. This quest turns into an adventure filled with terror, insurmountable dangers, strange alliances that is brisk and entertaining.
The story is sort of like a film-noir version of Comedy of Errors – instead of ever Plautus play rolled into one, it’s every noir hit rolled into one. The Maltese Falcon, Casablanca, various early Hitchcock . . . .
Initially, the three clowns – who had red ears rather than bulbous red noses – appeared anything but confined as they bounced around, over seats, down the aisles, warming up the audience with action packed improv before they gathered drums and cymbals for a cacophony of sound.
The film diva, Liv, is in a medical induced coma to prevent further injury. Kemp is a frustrated poor nurse desperate to make both money and gain self-respect, devises a plan to fulfill is needs. When he realizes that a spiritual bestseller (Lattes With God) sold 12 million copies and that his girl’s daughter Leah claims to see angels, he concocts a plan to create another spiritual book…
Chicago Opera Theater offers us, with this concert, a chance to see two stunning chamber pieces, one composed by Romantic Robert Schumann, the other composed by the more modern, Czech composer Leo Janáček. The only accompaniment is a piano, and the only set is a screen with projections. And they are intimate and beautiful – even when the overall production asks the audience to draw comparisons between the pieces that seem a stretch.
As the tension rises and the emotions erupt, the party devolves into a painfully raucous night of revelations as several family members struggle to reckon with the accusations. The play manically moves between celebration and pathos, from exploding repressed emotions to acknowledgment of long held secrets.
According to co-producer Mat Churchill, “Total theater means an immersion into a variety of staging techniques, from traditional to the heretofore unseen.” That was present in threesixty production’s amazingly thrilling production of Peter Pan. This show will blow you away with its inventive story telling and eye-popping video that complimented and enhanced the visual experience of flying over London in 1904.
The costumes, makeup, and set all create this bizarre world, within which characters refuse to look at each other, staring straight at the audience, or start trembling and convulsing, throwing tables and chairs, and behaving in generally outlandish and weird manners. It’s sort of like Priscilla, Queen of the Desert on a very heavy Ibogaine trip. And it works so well.
This material could be really vital, really brutal, heart wrenching stuff. But instead it’s just entertainment. It doesn’t really grapple with the issues, you don’t leave the theater thinking about how our school systems need to be changed, updated, for the times.