Nina Metz

If you haven't heard of The House Theatre Company, you haven't been reading the newspapers. Last year, both dailies touted this company--composed primarily of alums from Southern Methodist University--as THE most cutting-edge bunch of theater sophisticates in town. And recent write-ups have only reinforced this notion. I agree-- these kids color outside the lines, quite beautifully at times. In my view, that doesn't necessarily make them geniuses, but the results are very interesting all the same. Rattling around in the larger of the two theaters at the Viaduct is Nathan Allen's meditation on the master escape artist, Harry Houdini. The show's style--vaudeville-meets-carnival-midway--is ingratiatingly chaotic and highly physical. Propelled by some weird family dynamics (Houdini "never strays far from his dearly loved mama") and a fascination with death itself, the vision of writer and director Allen could use a little clarification, but when it works, the experience is like a drug-induced nightmare full of gorgeously composed verse. And the business with the climatic water-tank escape is handled with a clever psychological sleight-of-hand.

"Death and Harry Houdini" plays at The Viaduct, 3111 North Western, (773)251-2195, through October 4.

(2003-09-04)

Also by Nina Metz

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