Trap Door Theatre injects Caryl Churchill’s LOVE AND INFORMATION with whimsy in a tight, highly creative play exploring love and existence in the digital age
As with most (all?) Trap Door Theatre productions, LOVE AND INFORMATION begins in the pre-show. As arrivals are trickling into the itsy theater hoping to find seats together, a half-dozen or so actors are moving on solo tracks, interspersed with freeze frames before blocks or in cubbies at the stage corners. This is a set design you too will likely later come to marvel at (Scenic Design: Nicholas James Schwartz). The actors stare ahead as they walk to internal slow metronomes. At times each walks in place or retreats in robotic like gestures. A low background hum fills the room—a subliminal message of electronics (Sound Design: Jake Sorgen). It’s as though a troupe of Roombas are combing the stage with periodic breakdowns in the sensors that guide their path. Then the action begins and we meet the 100+ characters in Caryl Churchill’s LOVE AND INFORMATION.
The next 90 or so minutes fly by as this cast tells many dozens of tales of what love and human connection looks like in the digital age. Scientific facts and factoids are weaved into the patter at times—as pairs of friends or lovers or spouses try to parse an internal life in the age of Facebook, raves and climate change. Are human emotions or even souls anything more than DNA information pre-programmed through haphazard coupling of units of pre-programmed genetics aka humans? Is there free will or is it all pre-ordained by our chemical predispositions? Is any emotion particularly real? What’s a soul, anyway??
Trap Door Theatre Packs the Performance with Whimsy
If this Churchill script sounds like heady stuff, in other hands it very well might be. Not so with Trap Door, who knows how to package tickles into every second of a performance and in every inch of the stage. These are physical actors who bring to each part the expressive bodies of mimes even when they are speaking. It means that no matter what the script line is the affect is always one of whimsy. (SPOILER ALERT!) For this writer, the way in which the floppy dummy is able to precisely flap a slap on her ventriloquist handler is perhaps a metaphor of the entire performance. It is as tight a performance as could be, but you feel that more than see it.
This reviewer is hard-pressed to imagine any theater group in the world who would be on par with Trap Door to give Churchill’s script the ever-so-tight touch of burlesque and whimsy that is this theater group’s trademark.
If you love more traditional narrative scripts that move from A-Z to tell a story this is not your show. If you can live with—or better, love—a script that insists strongly on being open to interpretations this would be a top pick. And, if you especially treasure the marvel of theater creativity this is not-to-be-missed.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
Note: This is now added to the Picture this Post round up of BEST PLAYS IN CHICAGO, where it will remain until the end of the run. Click here to read – Top Picks for Theater in Chicago NOW – Chicago Plays PICTURE THIS POST Loves.
Love and Information
Written by: Caryl Churchill
Directed by: Kim McKean
Cast:
Whitney Dottery, Jake Flum, Brian Huther, Emily Lotspeich, Michael Mejia, Emily Nichelson, Keith Surney, Lilly Tukur, Carl Wisniewski
Creative Team:
Set Designer Nicholas Schwartz / Costume Designer Rachel Sypniewski / Lighting Designer Richard Norwood / Violence Design Bill Gordon / Makeup Design Zsofia Otvos / Sound Designer Sam Clapp / Assistant Sound Designer Jake Sorgen / Incidental Music Matt Clapp / Graphic Designer Michal Janicki / Projections/Video Design / David Holcombe / Props Designer Amelia Mroczowski / Dramaturg Milan Pribisic / Assistant Director Claire Allegra Taylor / Stage Manager Gary Damico
When:
Thru October 19
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays at 8PM
Where:
TRAP DOOR THEATRE
1655 West Cortland Ave.
Chicago, IL 60622
Tickets:
20+ (2 for 1 tickets on Thursdays)
For full-priced tickets and ticket availability information visit the Trap Door Theater website or call - 773-384-0494
Check for Half-Price Deals from Hot Tix:
Photos: Chris Popio
Note: Picture This Post reviews are excerpted by Theatre in Chicago
About the Author: Amy Munice
Amy Munice is Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher of Picture This Post. She covers books, dance, film, theater, music, museums and travel. Prior to founding Picture This Post, Amy was a freelance writer and global PR specialist for decades—writing and ghostwriting thousands of articles and promotional communications on a wide range of technical and not-so-technical topics.
