World premiere a beautiful piece of breathing, visual art
The best coming-of-age stories are at once universal and unique. Adolescents experience many of the same feelings in very different situations, and strong stories are adept at conveying both. Rough House Theater Company specializes in physical theater and puppetry, and their world premiere of Cicada Summer seamlessly fuses both with a sweet coming-of-age tale involving thirteen-year-old May and her unlikely first love. Cicada Summer is poignant, distinctive and memorable, a lovely way to close the summer
If you live in the Midwest, you know very well the chirp of cicadas and the crunchy feel of their shells and bodies on grass and concrete. According to Jeremy Kazan's dramaturgical notes, cicadas appear in broods that return after absences of either thirteen or seventeen years. "For cicadas and humans," Kazan writes, "it is ultimately the driving force of nature that spurs development, change, and maturity and not all will survive or successfully make the journey." May (Jessie Ellingsen) is longing to escape her urban home and live with her bohemian aunt, and her once-simple relationship with best friend Benjamin (Peter Anderson) is growing more complicated by the day. When May falls in love with a cicada, everything changes and her entire world spins on its axis.
The cicadas are played by a quartet of actors (Noah Appelbaum, Kat Christensen, Kathleen Hoil and Hannah Larson) who, through 's intuitive puppet direction, effortlessly blend movement and puppet work to give a haunting, eerie vibe. The theme of metamorphosis in the human and animal worlds is lovingly carried through the hour-long running time without beating the audience over the head, underscored by Corey Smith's weird and beautiful sound design. Claire Saxe's script feels like a long form, free verse poem - my only critique is that, at times, May and Benjamin seem much younger than thirteen.
Director Michael Brown runs the MFA in European Devised Performance program at Columbia College Chicago, and puppet and scenic designer Emily Breyerhas worked with both House Theatre and Chicago Children's Theatre. Both artist's impressive resumes are on full display in Cicada Summer , where the puppets (and the actors behind them) seamlessly interact with the human characters and create believable relationships. May wants to escape, whereas Benjamin wants to disappear, and the cicadas fulfill these wishes in their own ways, while cautioning the newly-minted teens to be careful what they wish for. Both scenic and puppet design are simple on the surface, with increasing complexities that can be seen as the story progresses. Even Maddy Low's costume design for the cicada actors at first appears monochromatic, but as the play goes on is revealed to be layered and complex. The actors portraying the cicadas give impressive and nuanced performances, moving well and maneuvering their puppets with ease, and both Ellingsen and Anderson, as the human characters, are believable as adolescents on the cusp of change.
Cicada Summer could have been a mess of heavy-handed storytelling and overdone puppet work. Instead, it's subtle and sweet: a love letter to the one summer everyone has as a young teen, with a nice parallel to glorious, destructive nature. Cicada Summer is a true team effort of movement and puppetry that results in a lovely piece of breathing visual art.
Cicada Summer continues through September 30th at Chopin Theatre, 1543 W. Division (map), with performances Thursdays-Saturdays at 8pm. General admission tickets are $20, and are available by phone (800-838-3006) or online through BrownPaperTickets.com (check for availability of ). More information at RoughHouseTheater.com. (Running time: 1 hour, no intermission. Recommended for mature audiences.)
behind the scenes
Michael Brown (director), (puppet direction), Emily Breyer (puppet design, scenic design), (stage manager), Corey Smith (sound design), Jeremy Kazan (dramaturg), (costume design), Michael Rathbun (lighting design), Jake Engram (asst. lighting design), Warren Wernick (scenic engineer), Niki Dreistadt, Odessa Glaza, Jackey Kelsey, Nicole Nienow, Kevin Wesson (puppet builders)
Tags: 17-0829, Chicago Theater, Chopin Theatre, Claire Saxe, Corey Smith, Emily Breyer, Hannah Larson, Jackey Kelsey, Jake Engram, Jay Epps, Jeremy Kazan, Jessie Ellingsen, Kat Christensen, Kathleen Hoil, Kevin Wesson, Lauren Whalen, Maddy Low, Michael Brown, Michael Rathbun, Mike Oleon, Nicole Nienow, Niki Dreistadt, Noah Appelbaum, Odessa Glaza, Peter Anderson, post, Rough House Theater, Warren Wernick
Category: 2017 Reviews, Chopin Theatre, Lawrence Bommer, New Work, Puppetry, Rough House Theater, Video, World Premier, YouTube
