The House Theatre: The Hammer Trinity at the Chopin Theatre.
Sun, Mar 22, 2015./noise/theatre | LinkGoldstar ticket: $32.50 + $7.00 = $39.50. I walked over in the early-Spring cold, wind, and snow, figuring it was only going to get worse. Had lunch at Pot Pan Thai, fuelling up for nine hours of dragons and swords and all the stuff that real people stay home to watch on cable on days like this. It was a lot shorter on nudity than those, however. Zac Thompson swung it with his lengthy review at the Reader, and my fond memory of Season on the Line, from the same company at the same venue a few months back. I regret not attending the other things in their current season.
What can I say. The puppetry is uniformly excellent. The two dragons are awe inspiring, and I spent too much time looking at the foxes that accompanied Kay Kron (last seen in Hot Georgia Sunday at the Den Theatre), who had to thread a very fine narrative needle. John Henry Roberts (writer of The Sweeter Option) had a very funny scene involving a submarine, though my favourite was perhaps between (who I thought were) the strongest actors (Ben Hertel and Christopher Walsh), about imaginary property. Joey Steakley played a foppish statesman quite well, evoking Gary Oldman's aspect and winsome desperation at times. I'm not totally sure I can get on board with the faith placed in chess grandmasters despite Kara Davidson's valliant efforts. Miniature models, excellent anchoring by William Dick for the first two-thirds, ... — what's not to like?
I had two coffees ($1.50 each) and a Żywiec ($4) as the thing unfolded, and a chicken kebab from the Mediterranean on Milwaukee at the one hour dinner break. The breaks were a little too frequent and a little too long, but I guess it did give the cast time to recuperate. I was a little disappointed that this session was only perhaps a third full, and moreover most people seemed connected to the cast, which does not bode well for future sessions. I later read that Lee Kuan Yew carked it, which caused me to reflect on his "white trash of Asia" prediction for Australia, and his alternative to the politics of this piece. "The story will save him whether he wants it to or not."