To a list that also includes Broadway in Chicago shows of "The Wizard of Oz" and "Beauty and the Beast" and Joffrey Ballet's "Cinderella" now can be added Lookingglass Theatre's "Lookingglass Alice" - an original interpretation of Lewis Carroll's stories.She and Dad attended the afternoon show today, and it was extraordinary. Levynn was yawning in her seat before it started, but she was wide-eyed or laughing throughout the performance - which is as much circus acrobatics and physical humor as it is traditional drama. So physical, in fact, that the extensive interaction with the audience included the White Knight perching on top of a man's shoulders just a few seats down our row.
A few official photos are here. The set is minimalist - to say the least - and there is little effort made to disguise the actors, with the exception of the Red Queen. The burden is on the actors' very physical performances, and they were great. It couldn't have hurt that we saw the five primary actors (one plays Alice only, the other four play all the other characters), no understudies.
The theater, which none of us had seen until today, is nestled within a signigicant Chicago landmark that we frequent regularly, the Water Tower Water Works building on Michigan Ave. (We go there because it also has a miniature library branch that we've made our pick-up point for books on hold.)
Here's the water works part.Anyway, the theater seems really small, seating barely 200 people, for such a significant Chicago company (founded by ex-"Friends" star David Schwimmer and others at Northwestern University in 1988). But that also means there is not a bad seat in the house. There are just five rows of stadium-style seating on each side of the "stage," which is at floor-level. And we were right in the middle of the third row.
Oh, did we mention where we got the tickets, valued at $60 apiece? Facebook has its uses, folks! We won the tickets there.
No comments:
Post a Comment