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One Arm and a Leg

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BOTTOM LINE: Created with text, sound, and movement, the collaborative One Arm and a Leg is the best of downtown theatre.

Conceived and directed by Calla Videt, One Arm and a Leg is a devised, interdisciplinary performance based on a Japanese story by Yasunari Kawabata.

The original story One Arm and a Leg involves a woman leaving her arm for a man at a bar. The performance it has inspired is an episodic journey riffing on this idea, and exploring different ways people can give of themselves (literally represented by their right arm), and what we then do with an "arm" we have been given. Text, motion, and stage images intertwine as these characters try to connect, or reconnect.

Mary E. Stebbins's lighting for One Arm and a Leg is vivid, and practical lights are shrewdly worked into the props in ingenious ways. The soundscape of the play is a continual through line hanging the disparate "scenes" together. It's rich and varied, but there are a few weak moments when contemporary songs are incorporated that don't meld with the rest of this show. The costumes are clean and simple, and the staging is inconspicuously meticulous and inspired. But the piece de resistance of this performance is the mesmerizing choreography by brothers Jeffrey and Rick Kuperman.

CLUBBED THUMB

"Clubbed Thumb commissions, develops, and produces funny, strange, and provocative new plays by living American writers." Next up: Sheila Callaghan's Roadkill Confidential, directed by Kip Fagan, playing September 7th through 26th at 3-Legged Dog.

Joseph Wright sat down with Clubbed Thumb's Artistic Director Maria Striar to learn more about this off-Broadway staple and their 90 minute ambitions (a brilliant concept).

Read the Theasy interview with Maria Striar here.

Come Fly Away will end its run on September 5th after six months on Broadway. This Twyla Tharp dance show is set to Frank Sinatra's music, accompanied by a live band and the vocals of Ol' Blue Eyes' himself. Although it is light on a plot, the choreography and performances are not to be missed - if you are in to that sort of theatrical experience. Lukewarm audience reactions and a snub at the Tony Awards are probably the cause of its early closing, but those who appreciate a dance show are still singing its praises.

Read the full Theasy review of Come Fly Away here.