Here’s a great way to enjoy yourself at this hilarious stage play. Mummenschanz is being performed at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts though January in NYC. You’ll be amazed and wonder just how so many of the stunts are handled, from huge boxing androids to an enormous rolling rock and dazzling streaks of light that make themselves onto the stage. This is a wonderfully delightful way to spend an evening with family, or alone.
Mummenschanz is in it’s fourth decade of existence and remains one of the most successful theatre groups in the world. Swiss artists Bernie Schurch and Andres Bossard with Swiss-American artist Floriana Frassetto pioneered the troupe in 1972 and the production exceptional in using non-verbal theatrical language to transcend racial, cultural and nationality barriers. Performances have been seen worldwide at theatres and renowned festivals.
The entertainers are comprised of a Swiss performance troupe and they expertly convey themselves, in a non-verbal way, using everyday objects that transform you to another level of creativity. Each of many individual scenes will excite your intelligence and it will be difficult to contain yourself in belting out a laugh, two or three—while others around you try their best to do the same. Soon, everyone gives up, and roars of laughter abound throughout the production.
Imaginations run wild during the show that has no intermission and runs approximately 60 minutes. One audience favorite are two neon wire heads that move about and change appearances.
Another is a sheet of oversized white paper that elegantly floats across the stage then transforms itself rapidly into a “smiley” face, then “frowns” and seems to actually comes alive, producing a variety of human facial expressions.
Kids (and the kid in you) will absolutely love the interaction that happens as a huge tube deploys a humongous red bouncing ball from the front of the stage, out into the audience.
You’ll be compelled to join in and participate with the audience in several group hits that move the ball up-and-around the theatre, and back onto the stage where the tube pops it back onto it’s top.
The performance trope are all dressed in black, so they become invisible to the audience and make good use of their skills.
In another great scene they bring to the stage lights that dance around and appear to be fish in a tank, with the smaller fish getting eaten up before lights suddenly darken the theatre. Another humorous scene brings out two ‘putty-faced’ actors, who transform the clay faces into shapes of animal heads and expressions that get the audience bent over with laughter.
There is also one scene where a smaller tube twists and turns itself marvelously into a variety of shapes, imitates being a large wiggly worm then coils itself together to form a large circle full of accomplishment and pride!
Since 2000, Mummenshanz has grown to a company of five, with original cast members Schurch and Frassetto now joined by featured performers Pietro Montandon and Farraella Mattioli and technical director Jan Maria Lukas.
For more information on Mummenschanz, visit the troupe’s official website, available at www.mummenschanznyc.com also on Facebook and you can see parts of the exciting performance on youtube.
