Fabrizio O. Almeida

Chicago Tap Theatre’s latest, "The Hourglass in The Stop-Time Chronicles," could quite possibly be Chicago’s first full-length, alternative music, all-movement, no dialogue, superhero tap-dance opera based on an imaginary sci-fi comic strip ("The Hourglass"). This time around, director and choreographer Mark Yonally, also CTT’s artistic head, has teamed up with Chicagoan Andrew Pepoy, an illustrator and artist with impressive credentials at Marvel, DC and other comic-book publishers. The result of this unorthodox yet inspired artistic union is Chicago Tap Theatre’s best and most fully realized story show to date, a deliciously camp, choreographically satisfying and sometimes moving dance dramedy with a killer soundtrack. The story, even by comic-book standards, is thin: when mild-mannered housewife Elizabeth Marston discovers that her fancy footwork can amazingly alter time, she creates a super-heroine alter ego, The Hourglass, in order to stomp out a trio of sexy villainesses. The characters have silly names like Danse Macabre and Killjoy, the mise en scène is appropriately comic-booky, with wild stage tableaus soaked in vibrant splashes of colors and boasting inventive costumes. The narrative is propelled—as it is in a comic book—by thought balloons and captions, here projected onto a screen above the dancers’ heads. The cumulative effect is that of a comic-book page sprung to vibrant theatrical life. Yonnally’s choreographic trademark of stamping on the downbeat and thumping as often as it is tapping avoids monotony because it doubly serves the storyline’s superhero histrionics as well as recognizable human emotions like yearning and frustration, not to mention a subtle hint of spousal abuse. Amidst the whizbangery the dancer-actors make endearing impressions, and an eclectic soundtrack featuring everything from post punk to new age to electronica, is worthy of burning onto a disc for repeated listening. (2007-07-17)

Also by Fabrizio O. Almeida

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There are three things you can expect from any Naomi Wallace play: poetry, politics and, dramatically speaking, plodding action. "The Trestle at Pope Lick Creek," the playwright’s somber examination of emerging love between two teenagers in 1936 rural Appalachia, is no different
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Last year, MCA audiences were Hop-Fu fighting right along with turntable rival DJs Excess and IKL, dazzled by rhythmic raconteur Will Power and his solo show "Flow" and floored by the breakdance-ballet fusion techniques of Montreal's Rubberbanddance Group. Is it any surprise that Chicago's first ever Hip-Hop Theater Festival set record-breaking attendance numbers at the Museum of Contemporary Art?
(2007-05-01)

Tip of the Week
"A bit difficult to appreciate at first. It's so...primitive, so crude and barbaric. I like it!" That's one Chinese character's notion of Western Opera--"La Traviata" to be exact--in playwright David Henry Hwang's "Golden Child," a sumptuous Midwest premiere production courtesy of Silk Road Theatre Project
(2007-04-24)

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