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If you feel like taking a trip to New Delhi or Mumbai this summer, skip the flight and hop on the 6 train to Astor Place. There, at the White Box Theater at 440 Studios, Malini Srinivasan accompanied by Kadhambari Sridhar and Umesh Venkatesan will transport you not only to the Indian subcontinent, but also back in time to the second century, B.C. with their mesmerizing Bharathanatyam performance, Being Becoming.

At first, she’ll hide from you behind the translucent magenta curtain, where she will skillfully put on her make-up so her already beautiful eyes will dazzle even brighter. Then she will wrap the jiggling bracelets around her ankles. Next, she will weave flowers in her hair – and the curtain will rise – lifted by the other two dancers as if  to invite the audience into a world none of us really know. For the next hour or so, the lithe and nimble trio clad in gold, blue and red iridescent costumes will tell us stories about a spiritual seeker, a woman in love and even about the Hindu gods Shiva and Parvati – all without a single word. The artists don’t need any sounds but the music and the changing staccato of its beat. The mastery of Bharathanatyam is being able to tell the story without speaking.

One of the oldest Indian classical dance forms, Bharathanatyam has a name as complex as the techniques it employs. In Tamil, a language spoken in South India, Bha- stands for Bhavam (expression), Ra- for Ragam (music) and Ta- for Talam (beat or rhythm) while Natyam means dance. So if Bharathanatyam looks unpronounceable, try Bharatha Natyam.

Having evolved from ancient Indian dancing, Bharatha Natyam is characterized by nrtta – the movement technique of complex rhythmic patterns and sharp and clear geometric shapes made by the dancers’ bodies. Another unique characteristic of this classic art form is abhinaya, the mastery of expression, and the dancers’ use of hand gestures and symbols to relate the story and their emotions to the audience.

There is a reason why the performance in called Being Becoming. It’s not just a beguiling title, made to catch your eye in the nearly 200 Fringe shows this year. The name takes its origin in the essential ideas of Hindu and Buddhist beliefs, presenting the concept that a person can become one with the object of his or her desire or devotion. This idea, also popular in Indian poetry and painting, weaves through the performance pieces of the show: the spiritual seeker wishes to unite with Lord Shiva and the lovesick maiden wants to be one with Lord Vishnu.

Granted or not, their desires and explorations are a way to disappear in your dreams, and a form of meditation, perhaps. And so the dance goes on with its sharp and precise hand movements, the seductive head rolls and the gentle flutter of eyelashes followed by fervent looks up above for an ultimate solution for all the mortal and immortal ills – leading us through the wonders of Indian mythology and thousands of years of history.

~~~

Being Becoming
Malini Srinivasan and Dancers
Choreographer: Malini Srinivasan
She puts on her make-up and becomes a classical Bharatanatyam dancer. With each dazzling gesture she transforms into a playful child, forlorn lover, or Ardhanariswara: half-man, half-woman. Join us on a journey where gestures create and each of us transforms.
1h 15m   Local   Queens, New York
Dance   Drama
Staycation: Overseas Adventure   Ride the Rollercoaster of Love
www.malinisrinivasan.com
VENUE #06: The White Box at 440 Studios
Sat 11 @ 2:30  Fri 17 @ 6:15  Sun 19 @ 9:15  Tue 21 @ 2  Thu 23 @ 9:15  Fri 24 @ 7

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In the vast emptiness of a dessert some place in the West, an ultra-wealthy corporate mogul Jonathan Hemminger (David Arrow) cunningly and carefully plans a weekend that will turn a cure for cancer into millions of skin cream jars. The catch? Hemminger gets richer. Plus, the world economy continues to chug along because, as he convincingly explains, eliminating cancer would put everyone out of businesses: doctors, pharmacies and healthcare companies.

Stranded on a remote ranch where Jonathan’s plan brought him, is Grayson Campbell, (Chris Stack) a talented scientist who discovered a way to turn tumors onto themselves, to make them devour their own cells until the lumps dissipate as if sucked into a Vacuum. With neither phone nor internet access, Grayson and his wife Amelia (Dana Brooke) believe he is here to give a speech at a convention. Except there are barely any people in the hotel apart from Jonathan and his three wives: past, present, (although separated) and perhaps a future one. Unwittingly or not, the catty trio of Patricia (Polly Adams), Ruth (Lynne Halliday) and Kathy (Katie Wren Huard) is a part of Jonathan’s thriving skin care company – and his plan.

Jonathan plays a generous host. He flew the couple in on a private jet. The resort’s their oyster: they can have a personal tour guide, luxury spa treatments and anything they wish. There, in a masterfully orchestrated social and emotional vacuum, Hemminger hopes to make Grayson give up his rights to his almost uncanny discovery.

But Grayson’s invention is not entirely his.

Grayson’s beautiful yet brain-damaged wife had once been a scientist who rivaled her husband. But, a devastating head injury she sustained when she had fallen down the stairs rendered her with an intellectual capacity of a ten-year old. She can’t remember simple words, can’t drive a car and can’t find her way back to the hotel room. A sad caricature of a perfect housewife, brilliantly brought to life by Dana Brooke’s performance, she spends her days watching TV shows, adores the skincare commercials (which are ironically done by Patricia, Jonathan’s first ex-wife), dreams of living in a big house and grows flowers in her garden albeit she has trouble remembering their names.

Akin to a thriller in its suspenseful pace well-crafted by Arlene Hutton, Vacuum moves along slowly as David Arrow creates a terribly believable corporate sleaze who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. And he will use anything he can, from money to promises of miraculous cures for Amelia’s condition to wooing the childish yet pretty Grayson’s wife – in front of his own three.

Will Grayson give in to the temptation of lavish lifestyle and leave Amelia behind? Or will Jonathan charm her into scribbling her name on the dotted line of the contract? Someone will lose in this game, someone will declare a victory. But no matter who wins, there’s no happy ending to it, the same way as there is no cure for cancer. At least not yet – not until someone finally figures out how to make the tumors eat themselves as if into a vacuum.

~~~

VACUUM
The Journey Company & Wild Card Productions
Writer: Arlene Hutton
Director: Chris Goutman
Which is more important — preserving the world economy or curing a fatal disease? At an exclusive desert resort an idealistic scientist squares off against a billionaire-industrialist in this daring new drama full of deception, sexual intrigue and corporate power-plays.
1h 30m   Local   Manhattan, New York
Drama
Staycation: Ripped from the Headlines   Spa Getaway (Mind & Body)
www.arlenehutton.com
VENUE #12: Cherry Lane Theatre
Thu 16 @ 2  Fri 17 @ 6:15  Sun 19 @ 12:30  Wed 22 @ 9:30  Fri 24 @ 9

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The Bible meets Occupy Wall Street in this philosophical excurse into our wireless world where the modern day descendants of Cain and Abel text message each other underneath the ominous shade of the 21st century Babel colossus – utterly connected and ultimately divided. Written by Brian LaPerche, who also stars in the show, The Connected: Bundle #1 was inspired by The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, as omnipresent as ever in this objective scrutiny of our cyber-connected era.

Reclusive and meek Henry Connor (Brian LaPerche) hides from the world in his apartment, lost in thought and computer code. If it wasn’t for his bubbly girlfriend Ruth White (Emily Kaplan,) an artist and a budding social activist, he’d barely set foot outside the door at all. Ruth, however, spends most of her time running around and organizing social movement against the mighty flow of handheld technology assembled in the sweatshops of China – by typing her fervent speeches on her own smartphone. Henry’s fond of Ruth but has secrets he’s not telling her about.

Henry’s got a skeleton in his closet, or rather a brother – all the way up in the tower of Babel. His short-tempered older sibling Ken Janus (Jake Green) is the founder and CEO of Babel Technologies, a multibillion dollar computer-and-all-things-mobile giant, and Ruth’s number one enemy. Driven to find their father who had abandoned the family when they were kids, Ken had left home for good years ago, changed his name, constructed a supercomputer to conduct the search for the vanished patriarch and also built himself a wireless empire, sustained by the sweatshops on the other side of the earth. He has severed his ties with his kin, except for the occasional talks with Henry, which usually happen in a form of quick clandestine rendezvous in the park, to which Ken arrives in dark glasses and an oversized coat. Janus runs his kingdom much the same way as every other capitalist villain: sixteen-hour days are a norm and workers plunging off the factory’s roof to their deaths are a fact of life. In that world of conveyor belts and barracks, Chinese teenager Ming Chen (Ione Wang) polishes the newly assembled mobile toys to a high shine – day after day, with no clue of what they even do. She’s not allowed to turn them on.

Meanwhile, Ruth’s movement picks up momentum and she brings her cohorts to picket the Babel Tower. Problems bubble up in every corner of Ken’s empire – and beyond. Chen Ming suffers from nightmares and repetitive motion disorder, which is affecting her ability to work. She breaks the rule and not only turns on one of the slick black devices but takes her own pictures with it. Serendipitously, the phone and the pictures end up in Henry’s hands when he unwraps his new upgraded model – and becomes captivated with the sad-looking stranger worlds apart. Henry begs Ruth not to storm Babel Technologies, but she there’s no stopping her, which brings brothers to a dangerous brawl.

There are many ways this story may end, given its obvious parallels between the Occupy movement, Biblical legends and our obsession with having the web and its links in the palm of our hand – at any price. Yet, it’s not the ending that’s important. While the play’s multimedia effects transport us from the urban sprawl of the Babel metropolis to the concrete barracks of China faster than a tweet, the story forces us to slow down and contemplate our reality. The play’s coda is in the fact that our connected brains can still produce thoughts longer than 130 characters. And as long as that’s true, the mobile devices will remain what they are: vehicles for our views, opinions, and information, making us one hell of a connected bundle.

~~~

 The Connected: Bundle #1
Babel
Writer: Brian LaPerche
Director: Cody Holliday Haefner
Inspired by Mike Daisey’s “The Ecstasy and Agony of Steve Jobs”, The Connected: Bundle #1 explores the how technology binds us to one another worlds apart and separates us when we stand face to face. Are we rebuilding the Tower of Babel?
1h 15m   Local   Manhattan, New York
Drama   Multi-Media
Staycation: Ripped from the Headlines   Sci-Fi Tech SuperHero Camp
www.babelfringenyc.tumblr.com/
VENUE #18: HERE Mainstage Theater
Sun 12 @ 5  Thu 16 @ 7  Fri 17 @ 9:45  Sun 19 @ 7  Thu 23 @ 2  

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Dystopia Gardens: Soylent Green meets Sleeper.

Ladies, gentlemen and other fellow Fringe enthusiasts, Will Nunziata and Jerry Sean Miller do it again: with their hilarious multi-media one-act, they instantly drop us into One World, a place allegedly so polluted that people live inside humongous domes and savor food pills. “Allegedly,” by the way, is the keyword.

A cross between Soylent Green and Woody Allen’s Sleeper, Dystopia Gardens is a futuristic fantasy that bears a strange reflection of our own reality. One World is led by an almighty leader, who wears a diaper and gets cloned periodically, his brain transplanted into a younger body. The only problem is, he seems to grow more and more delusional with every iteration. The domes are collapsing, the food pipes get clogged, but he is happy as long as he gets his banana cream. Oh, and he’ll cheerfully sign anything into law for the treat.

Needless to say that requires a certain amount of toughness to keep the citizens in place. “You’re watching us, we’re watching you,” says the shiny TV screen on which two brain-dead anchors deliver what’s considered news in Domes society. Everyone must wear the same white robes, love the leader and reproduce by means of bodily fluids exchanged through plastic tubes attached to their genitals. If they produce a child who asks too many questions, the child gets electrocuted early enough for the parents to start over. “What are the food pills made of?” inquires one overcurious fledgling who just doesn’t want to be like everyone else. “People,” his dad replies, incapable of comprehending his offspring’s shock and dismay.

The coming of age doesn’t go well for Adam Applegate who gets zinged by his own father – but manages to survive the deadly volts. Moreover, he miraculously finds a way out of the dome and discovers that there is a beautiful world outside the dome where trees grow and flowers bloom. The question is, can his Song of Angry Men (in the key of Les Misérable) get the citizens of One World to follow him – and can he live to see the liberation?

Dystopia has come a long way since the duo first presented it at The PIT theater last year. It lost a bit of sarcasm, built up more drama and turned a series of mini stand-up comedy skits into a human story. Grant and Julienne bump into each other at the DMV – Department of Marital Vows – and the computerized matchmakers accidently pair them up. They turn out to be a match made in tyrannical heaven – they even agree to break the rules and ditch the fluid tubes in favor of the banned good ol’ sex. But their happiness doesn’t last long. Grant decides to join Applegate’s rebellion meeting and things go awry.

If you ever wanted to know what our global-warming, polluting, WTO-governed future may bring but were afraid to ask, visit Dystopia Gardens at Dixon Place (161A Chrystie Street NYC.) See for yourself whether two citizens of Our World can play about two hundred dystopian characters in under two hours. You may laugh harder than you ever have. After all, One World’s broadcast makes Fox News sound real.

~~~

Dystopia Gardens
Writer: Jerry Miller & Will Nunziata
Director: Paul Stancato

1h 15m
dystopiagardens.tumblr.com
VENUE #5: Dixon Place
Thu 25 @ 7 Sat 27 @ 2

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So What Really Is Salamander Stew?

Shakespeare meets The Nightmare Before Christmas in Salamander Stew, a Romeo and Juliet musical powered by love and a mighty joint, currently playing at The 4th Street Theater as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. There aren’t too many international productions in Fringe this year, but a lost-in-time enchanted forest does the trick to make this one feel far removed from New York. The only verse-play in the festival, Salamander Stew takes you into a phantasmagorical world of slithering creatures, hungry spirits, and deceptive rather than deciduous trees. Everything we always read about the deep dark woods but were afraid to experience unfolds before our eyes in its native wickedness. If you are a Harry Potter fan, a Tolkien geek or if Beetlejuice was one of your favorite movies, Salamander Stew is a must.

‘Tis the premise – classically simple: Young, naïve and lovesick Steven stumbles upon beautiful woodlands. It’s hard to tell whether the spell descends on him from the evil powers of the trees or the sinful potency of the grass he smokes, but once he takes a respite in the welcoming shade, the thicket takes him. His inflamed mind takes him on a psychedelic trip: he meets his love, he loses her, he wakes up in the lizards’ lair exhausted and hungry, but all he is offered to eat is a nauseating salamander stew.

A sprig of spinach.
A slice of radish.
Whiff of ginger.
Paw of rabbit.

Orange claw.
Forest thatch.
Lizard’s lungs.
Down the hatch.

There aren’t many props on the stage: a leaf-covered layer and a couple of beautifully authentic stumps adorned with fuzzy yarns is all the magic. The treacherous forest as well as the evil inhabitants it harbors, are acted by the energetic cast of seventeen. They spend hours on their make-up, transforming themselves from human into sprawling plants, slithering serpents and ghastly gnomes. On the way to the theater, they practice jungle sounds, chirping like birds and rustling like leaves. Their efforts pay-off: the moment we set foot in the door we feel that instead of a theater, we have wandered into the endless woods.

A lot happens in this one-act musical: dancing, drumming, singing — all in a quick aggressive pace that never slows down, moves the story forward and keeps our attention. So do the lighting effects, transporting us from the pitch black to the vampirish white to the soft shade of the love scenes. The cast works well together, especially when performing the Red-Eye dance in complete darkness, creating a believable illusion of dozens of hungry red eyes glowing in the infinite wilderness. A charmingly poetic old English script executed in the best traditions of Stomp, has a lot to offer, but there is only one thing is doesn’t do.

It never explains what really is Salamander Stew.

When it doubt, Google it. According to Urban Dictionary, “Salamander Stew” is a code name for sex.

~~~

Salamander Stew

Writer: Michael Fixel
Director: Juliet Fixel and Ron Shreve

1h 0m
www.facebook.com/salamanderstew
VENUE #12: 4th Street Theatre
Thu 25 @ 6:15 Fri 26 @ 2 Sat 27 @ 10 Sun 28 @ 4:30

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“Ladies and gents, girls and boys, scalawags and scurvy dogs! Tis time fer Three By the Sea!” – this is how the new children’s play by Donna Latham begins as the eager audience settles down – some in chairs, others on the floor. The Looking Glass Theatre has a long history of children’s productions, going back to at least 1998. As many off-off Broadway venues, it won’t startle its patrons with extravagant décor, but will impress them with the unlimited creativity of its teams. Blue fabric stretched across the stage becomes the ocean, white and blue balloons deliver the impression of dangerous surf, whirling umbrellas help to master the waves that toss around a coyote – as a modest cast of seven actors brings the sea stories to life, creating over a dozen characters – some human, others animal, and even mystical.

The first two rows of seats are essentially pillows on which the little theatergoers can practice their show-viewing skills, and at times even partake in the performance or share their own thoughts and advices. Among other things they will learn why coyotes howl at the moon, what a foghorn is and why mermaids wear red caps. Without further ado, Buccaneer Bocephus Q. Fizziwater tosses us into the “wondrous trio of tales about watery worlds.”

Fisherman Paddy throws his fish bait into the harbor, but the sea greets him with an unusual catch. Emerging from the waves, a mermaid comes to rest on a rock. Smitten with her long green hair, Paddy snatches her red cap – which means the mermaid will forget her previous sea life. He convinces her to marry him (which proves to be not that difficult.) Then he convinces the local judge to marry them (which proves to be slightly more difficult as the judge is spooked by the bride’s long beautiful tail – but finally agrees, seduced by Paddy’s gold coins from his bride’s sea treasures.) Paddy’s new wife loses her tail and comes to live with him in his hut – but surprise, surprise – has difficulties fitting in. She doesn’t like to cook and clean, but prefers to swim in the sea all day long, until she finally gets the attention of the local gossip queens who decide to get to the bottom of the problem.

The next story introduces  a cute smiley she-rabbit who get accosted by a hungry coyote while resting at the river. “Don’t eat me,” she pleads with the predator who keeps drooling at the “tasty little morsel.” “I’m all bones,” the rabbit objects, proposing a much tastier dinner to the hungry creature – a huge round piece of “river cheese which floats in the waves as soon as the moon comes up.” The only problem, she says, is that the cheese is too big for her grab – but it would be just the perfect catch for the coyote.

The last fable washes Foghorn Franny, an eighteenth century sea lass, onto a modern day beach run by the local clique of hot chicks who rule the shore (or at least think they do). Franny starts building a ship to go back to “Pops” ignoring the snotty prima donnas who make fun of her weird clothing and speech. But then something happens and Sydney, the top diva, loses her cool – and needs Franny’s help.

In a funny entertaining way, the show teaches about fitting in and being nice to the people around you – the simple life lessons that kids could use as well as their grown-up chaperones. Adults may prefer chairs to the pillows, but just like their offspring, they can’t help their reactions – the stories bring out the inner child in everyone no matter their age. “No, not the riches,” a father growls with disappointment when Paddy throws a treasure trunk back in the waves realizing things from the sea belong to the sea, his wife including. “Dude, that you should’ve kept!”

~~~

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Three Sisters, Olga, Masha and Irina lead a quiet but not content life in a small garrison town of Russia, much longing for Moscow they had left elven years ago. The oldest, Olga, is only twenty-eight, yet she is already considered an old spinster; at some point admits that she would marry “any man, even an old man if he had asked.” Masha, having been wed to a kind-hearted but much older high school teacher Kulygin, is very obviously unhappy with her life. Irina is twenty, beautiful, cheerful and wooed by Baron, an army lieutenant prone to political philosophizing, Solony, an army captain who incessantly tries to put Baron down to make himself look better, and Fedotik, a sub-lieutenant and an amateur photographer. The three sisters have a highly educated and promising brother Andrei, who with his level of education could have been a professor in Moscow, but instead marries a seemingly gentle vulnerable Natalya, who turns into a shrew. The Moscow nostalgia is an ever-present and almost palpable entity like Russian snow in winters – everyone believes that if they could only return to Moscow, life would be so different. They may be right, although we never find out what exactly is holding them up.

The play (By Anton Chekov) takes us through several years of the family’s life and its slow deterioration. Andrei’s wife Natalia takes control over the house and pushes everyone around while exceedingly doting on her children. Masha falls in love and has an affair with Lieutenant-Colonel Vershinin, a complex man whose mentally unstable wife tries to kill herself periodically; yet Masha and he can never be together because they are both married. Baron and Solony challenge each other to a superfluous duel and Andrei mortgages the house to pay for his gambling debts. Even the town suffers, consumed by fire. As it always is with Chekhov’s plays, there are neither clearly defined protagonists nor villains, and while no one is at fault, there are no clear solutions. Many Chekhov classics can be best summarized as “the best laid plans of mice and men”, and Three Sisters is no exception. No one’s dreams seem to be ever taking flight, in fact, those who are unable to dream cope the best.

Three Sisters is not a big budget production, yet a well-staged and emotional work of director Alberto Bonilla and producer Richard Mazda, currently playing at the Secret Theater (Long Island City, Queens). Alberto Bonilla says that what attracted him to the characters was “their fallible natures, the fact that Chekhov has written such vulnerable and hopeful yet flawed people against a background of change.” What is truly amazing is that a story which is over a hundred years old never loses its actuality. A century later we face the analogues problems and challenges, lose similar hopes and mourn the same never-fulfilled aspirations.

The talented Queens Players cast does an excellent job of creating believable characters that pull us into the story. We root for them, often for their mutually exclusive desires, we feel their discontent and desperation, and relate it to our own every day struggles. This old classic makes us re-evaluate our own existence and stays with us long after the curtain is drawn. Which is what a good play is supposed to do.

~~~

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(photo Alia Thabit)

In the revival of Clarinda Karpov’s play, Ankhst, Dr. Alexandra Philips (played by Karpov), a once renowned archeologist comes to an Egyptian dig to resume her career interrupted by a nervous breakdown, hoping to immerse herself in her work and find peace. Together with her co-workers she uncovers a previously unknown tomb, in which she finds an urn full of ashes – a very unusual burial form for Egyptian people who believed in mummifying their dead. As she documents and records her findings inside the burial chamber, Philips is visited by an apparition that both scares and interests her. The only thing Philips is not sure of is whether she indeed had seen a spirit if it was a product of her inflamed imagination that had lead her to a nervous breakdown in the first place.

However, the creature returns the next day, confirming that he is an imprisoned spirit of the ancient Egyptian pharaoh Akhnaton, who had once been the husband of Queen Nefertiti and the father of King Tut-Ankh-Amun. The restless spirit and the recovering archeologist form an unlikely friendship, sharing their life stories as the days go by. Philips confides that her family never took her work seriously. Akhnaton “shows” Philips his childhood and his path to the becoming a pharaoh. “I wasn’t born to rule,” he tells Philips, revealing that he was, in fact, a younger sibling, but then his older brother died. He reveals that he was the first man who believed in the existence of only one god, a concept rejected by the high priests of his kingdom, who did not want to give up the power.

Lost in her conversations with the dead Egyptian king, Philips starts to fall behind on her work, yet she fiercely refuses help, insisting to be in the tomb alone. Her strange behavior causes concerns amongst her co-workers, diminishing her chances to secure an academic position. Having been held captive in his tomb for centuries, Akhnaton wants to finally be at peace, but what he’s asking Phillips to do for his freedom would jeopardize her career and her duty as a scientist. Will she give it all up to set the dead spirit free and rise from the ashes like the phoenix admired by her ghostly friend, who, after all, may only exist in her imagination? The choice is hers to make.

Straddling between the past and the present, this transcendent story educates us about ancient Egypt as well as archeology and even theology. Music and dance intermixed with the story line help to recreate the authenticity of the old civilization, and so do the embellished costumes and coin-sewn sashes. Since modern day political situation makes it hard to travel to the Pyramids on a whim, you may want to skip the flight and listen to the story first hand. And meet a ruler of ancient Egypt in person.

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Mark Twain’s short story A Fable gets a dazzling rebirth in A Wonderfully Flat Thing, when Manju Shandler (the artistic director who had previously designed masks and puppetry for The Lion King on Broadway) brings her creative talent to this small but charming production which appeals to everyone from age three and up.  The script has been adapted for the stage by Valerie Work, Manju Shandler, & Basmat Hazan.

In this reinterpretation, Mark Twain (Jake Goodman) is working on a new story that has to do with a big mirror in his room. When he falls asleep, his Cat (Emily Hartford) discovers a beautiful cat in “the wonderfully flat thing” and runs into the forest to tell her friends about it. Skeptical at first, the menagerie decides to investigate and convinces Donkey (Jake Goodman) to go into the house. Donkey, of course, sees a donkey in “the wonderfully flat thing,” contradicting Cat’s story. The controversy is brought up to King Elephant (Shawn Shafner), who sends out Snake (Sarah Painter) followed by Ostrich (Sarae Garcia) to settle the matter. Snake reports witnessing a snake. Ostrich comes back in tears, telling a sad story of a big clumsy bird who wanted to soar with the seagulls, but couldn’t fly. Finally, King Elephant embarks on the adventure himself, discovering his own reflection in “the wonderfully flat thing.”

The tale is deceptively simple, but there’s a lot to read between the lines, as well as in the characters’  costumes – so brilliantly designed by Shandler - and even in their self-reflections and mental images that are brought to us via multi-media effects (designed by David Tirosh) and additional background puppetry.

Donkey, an old gent with strong opinions, is elegantly clad in an old-fashioned cardigan with a red-white-and-blue trim and a button that proclaims “No, you can’t!” Snake’s self-reflection brings out a familiar scene of a snake snatching apples off a tree; we definitely had been exposed to that one before. And, trumping and trampling, Elephant is a picture of a monarch, who had long ago outlived his use.

Flamboyant, picturesque costumes, alluring puppets and colorful stage décor instantly transform the LABA Theater into an enchanted forest where the fascinating animals live. What’s more, the children can sit on the front row red carpet if they want to fluff Ostrich’s lacey skirt, pet Snake, or “Hee-haw” back at Donkey. Unlike the more formal shows that require enough discipline to remain seated in thy chair and stay quiet, AWonderfully Flat Thing, pays as much respect to the stiff societal rules of proper etiquette as did its creator. The little audience is free to shout, giggle, crawl, jump and interact with the characters. “The house is there,” they shout to the seemingly lost Donkey. “Wake up!” – to the sleeping Mark Twain. “Ooh,” they sigh at the sight of a sobbing Ostrich, “Don’t cry!”

After the show the puppets come out to mingle. Ostrich lets the little fans fuzzy up her feathery tutu, the cat draws a feline-loving crowd and if you never high-fived an elephant, well now’s your chance to slap that big round paw. And, if you want to bring home a souvenir, you can buy a few tiny, colorful, rubbery finger puppets from the concession stand.

“For kids, it’s an entertaining riddle, a romp on stage with surprising puppets,” says Manju Shandle. “For adults it’s a piece about self-reflection.” But, perhaps the best moral of the story is expressed by Mark Twain’s own words: “You can find in a text whatever you bring, if you stand between it and the mirror of your imagination.”

~~~

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