Sometimes when you think you’ve seen it all at the theater, a sweet roll, perfectly aimed like a stealth missile, knocks you senseless. Thank goodness, I didn’t mean this literally, because the buns that the actors of Teatro de Ciertos Habitantantes‘ Monsters and Prodigies: The History of the Castrati were pelting the audience with during a wacky, whacked-out foodfight at the performance on Friday night at the MCA Stage, hit my shoe instead of my forehead. But I might as well have been clobbered over the head by this heady, outrageously eccentric, undeniably informative, trainstopping hybrid of theater, opera, and an MFA lecture, the latest entry in an unforgettable Museum of Contemporary Art performance season. It is that good, and that memorable. And I am so thrilled that between the Goodman’s Eugene O’Neill Festival, the Chicago Shakespeare Theatre’s World Stage season, and the MCA Stage line-up, Chicago audiences have, since the fall of last year, had the opportunity to sample some of the best of the world’s theatrical offerings. This production, though, from the Mexico-City based theater company is quite a unique, one-of-a-kind experience – inventive and riveting, each artistic decision an essential contributor to communicating its themes and advancing its narrative structure.
Mar 21
Recent Comments