When you enter the
Duke on 42nd street theater, a warning sign greets you: “This
performance contains Raptors, Wormholes, The 80’s… And Strobe lighting”. And the
creators of LUDO’s Broken Bride were
not kidding. Prepare to experience the
effect of an exploding piñata stuffed with intense rock music, puppet
dinosaurs, dancing zombies and other awesome things. If you missed LUDO’s Broken Bride during New York
Musical Festival you sure missed a lot, but hopefully this rock opera will be
picked up and will have an extended run, as it deserves it like nobody else.
Photo by Jeremy Daniel
With concept,
music and lyrics by LUDO, direction by Stacey Weingarten and Donna Drake, the
show ties the band’s rock songs into a coherent narrative about a time traveler,
Tom, on his journey to prevent the death of his wife. We are witnessing his
journey from prehistoric dinosaurs to an apocalyptic future mixed with a flashback
parallel story of how he met and married Oriel.
The songs by LUDO
are rich in narration by themselves. Unfortunately, it was difficult to hear
the lyrics over the music sometimes, but the imagery created by puppets
(designed by Sierra
Schoening) and video projections (Pauline Lu) helped to fill in the gaps. The promised dinosaurs, zombies and
dragons were delivered galore. One night in the theater turned out to be a rock
concert, a haunted house and a fashion show. Credit to the last one goes to the
designer, Bree Perry, with special applause for her
work on King Simius’ costume (devilishly charismatic Brian Charles Rooney).
LUDO’s Broken Bride’s flashbacks are set in the 80s and namely the costumes and
meticulous styling creates its unique visuals. The production design by Justin
and Christopher Swader is minimalistic and virtually non-existing. The elements
of it are very few: trunks (to give a stage some relief), a draped stand-alone
wall and a vertical bed on the other side. But even this modest set design
could be minimalized even further taking into the account the abundant puppetry
and dancing.
Choreography by
Steven Paul Blandino utilizes available space fully. Most notable are the duets
of Tomas’ and Oriel’s dancing doubles (Spenser Clark and Melissa Hunter McCann).
Or should I say “dancing souls” as they express the overwhelming emotions of
Oriel (Gabrielle McClinton) and Thomas, from the flashbacks (Michael Jayne
Walker), through dance. McClinton and Walker were very sincere and sweet as
young lovers. McClinton doubles as a kick-ass single mother, Uchefuna, from an
apocalyptic future where Thomas, the time traveler (Carson Higgins), arrives
accidentally.
Brendan Malafronte as the puppet captain was incredible! Even with his great puppeteer skills it was hard not to watch his lively acting, his face and body working as one with a puppet. I wish we could see more of Larry Hamilton singing the part of the Archangel, Reguel, with his magical voice. He spends the entire show on the catwalk and doesn’t come down even for a curtain call. I guess, even with the whole dinosaurs and dragons fantasy, this sci-fi gloomy fairytale is true to life: you can’t bring people back to life and ask an archangel for a curtain call.
Brendan Malafronte as the puppet captain was incredible! Even with his great puppeteer skills it was hard not to watch his lively acting, his face and body working as one with a puppet. I wish we could see more of Larry Hamilton singing the part of the Archangel, Reguel, with his magical voice. He spends the entire show on the catwalk and doesn’t come down even for a curtain call. I guess, even with the whole dinosaurs and dragons fantasy, this sci-fi gloomy fairytale is true to life: you can’t bring people back to life and ask an archangel for a curtain call.
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