Smash together an opera about a transformational love affair starring Queen Dido of Carthage, together with an unspeakably bad sci-fi flick about yet another race that wants to colonize earth because its own planet is dying, video jiggery-pokery, outlandish not to say obscene costuming, live musicians, wonderful singers and madcap direction, and what do you get?
An astonishing and fun evening with the Wooster Group doing "La Didone" at St. Anne's Warehouse in Dumbo. Even a Yoda-like troll makes a brief appearance.
The two plots interweave, having nothing and everything to do with one another, the characters sometimes talk to one another from one play to the next, there is rambunctious hilarity, there is impassioned singing, there is often absolute mayhem. And yet it all comes together in some kind of post-Carthaginian, post-Twentieth Century time warp where cupids and alien vampires are equally mythical and equally effective.
The audience finds itself drawn up in the action, hardly knowing where to look, usually knowing where to laugh, and knowing it is watching one of the best and most exciting acting troupes on the planet right now, at the top of its game.
Go see it if you can: Wooster Group presents La Didone at St. Anne's Warehouse.
-Renaissance
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
