The message of "The Dancing Handkerchief" goes something like this: "Most of us never leave the ground, but with a little music, we can fly beyond the moon."
That's one of only a few lines of spoken dialogue in the show, a co-production between Atlanta's Theatrical Outfit and Flying Carpet Theatre (based here and in New York), which instead emphasizes a lot of music, puppetry arts and theatrical trickery to tell a fanciful story about Mysterioso the Magician and his daughter, Bastienne.
Written and directed by Flying Carpet artistic director Adam Koplan, and starring Outfit artistic director Tom Key as the magician, “Handkerchief” also boasts a few “early” songs by Robert Lopez (of later “The Book of Mormon” and “Frozen” fame). Although it isn’t being promoted as “children’s theater,” per se, it might as well be. Running about an hour in length, it’s fairly rudimentary, but innocuous enough.
Lopez’s simplistic score features such ditties as “Up,” “Down,” “Weird” and “Water,” which poses the musical question: “What is water?/What is water?/What is water?/Water’s wet.” Still, under the music direction of the estimable S. Renee Clark, the songs are nicely vocalized by Deborah Bowman and ably accompanied by a four-piece band (including Clark on keyboards).
Bowman plays the adult Bastienne, who opens the show as some kind of a rock star, before flashing back to her childhood, where she watches from the sidelines as Devon Hales (and a puppet) perform the younger version of herself. Despite her musical aspirations, she's recruited by her father to be an assistant in his magic act, until "creative differences" between them lead to an estrangement.
Like Alice venturing through the looking glass, Bastienne is soon magically transported into Mysterioso’s bag of tricks, which leads to fantastical encounters with some of the props he uses in his act: His deck of cards becomes a snake of sorts; his interlocking metal rings materialize as a winged insect; even the proverbial rabbit he pulls from his top hat makes an appearance (also played by Key).
Rounding out the cast are a couple of welcome sights — Spencer Stephens, a resident puppeteer with the Center for Puppetry Arts, and Jeremy Aggers, who plays a fine guitar in the band, and later impersonates the role of Mysterioso’s dancing handkerchief.
Grown-ups in the crowd who remember Aggers from his wonderful performances in Aurora's "Singles in Agriculture" or the Alliance's "Edward Foote" may be slightly embarrassed for him during this cameo — but, as with the rest of the show, the kiddies could get a kick out of it.
THEATER REVIEW
“The Dancing Handkerchief”
Grade: B-
Through June 18. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday (June 7 only); 11 a.m. Thursdays; 7:30 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays; 2:30 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays; 11 a.m. Wednesday (June 14 only). $20-$48. The Balzer Theater at Herren's, 84 Luckie St. NW, Atlanta. 678-528-1500, www.theatricaloutfit.org.
Bottom line: More innocuous than magical.
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