A prodigy named Max, the Secret Service, parallel universes, car chases, apologia, J.D. Salinger and Sen. Larry Craig. This is the fantastic stuff of It’s Hell In Here , a play written and directed by Tricklock (when Tricklock was still Riverside Ensemble) alum Abigail Browde, who developed the work during her present residency at Brooklyn Art Exchange in New York. Fusing elements of dance and theater to invent a curiously potent, seemingly allegorical reality, It’s Hell In Here provides an examination of modern uncertainty and, says Browde, a “meditation” on the blur between public and private. Talk about timely.
Catgut Strung Violin
Created by Kevin R. Elder, Alex Knight and Elsa Menéndez, Catgut Strung Violin tells the wartime story of protagonist Anton, his violin and his sole compadre, Miller. Tricklock calls it a “hilarious ambush on what we’ve come to expect from camaraderie and combat.” After a successful Albuquerque premier, Catgut went to Canada, played to sold-out houses across the country, and picked up honors like Outstanding Original Work from the Ottawa Fringe Festival and Critics’ Pick from the Ottawa Citizen. Why, you wonder? I’d wager that the accolades have something to do with the players and architects’ truly revolutionary creativity, stunning showmanship and collaborative brilliance. But you should go see for yourself.
One
Loosely inspired by the tale of Orpheus, dramatist Jason Carnew crafted One. It’s the story of a bibliophile named Philistine who goes in search of a lost astronomer, her beloved George. But Philistine’s rescue mission moves her progressively further from reality, and she drifts into an underworld lorded over by a brusque DJ-archivist. Red to Blue Productions integrates the artistry of theater, dance, sound and film into its works with an eye toward enveloping the audience into the scene and the story; for One, it aims to cloak us in Philistine’s dreamlike existence by narrating what Revolutions’ organizers call a “sonically and visually stunning story.”
