The show, set to '80s tunes, has a shock factor, as dancers run in and out of confessionals; sway with religious fervor on an apparatus that serves both as both choral risers - with rays of Terry Smith's lighting shot through - and a carnival-like ride; and baptize each other before performing a sensual dance.
It's 45 minutes of nonstop, exhilarating, wondering-what's-next action that often had dancers swinging from the rafters on twirling straps or balancing on hanging metal cubes.
Friday's opening-night performance was dotted with small balance errors and problems with the sets. But it set the bar very high for Live Arts/Fringe shows yet to come.
See it!
- Ellen Dunkel
$25-$30. 7 p.m. Sunday and Sept. 17, 9 p.m. Friday and Sept. 16 and 18, 4 p.m. Saturday and next Sunday. Theater East at the Hub, Fifth Street and Fairmount Avenue.
Chicken. For those of us who've always wondered just what they do for diversion in those confining submarines, theater artist Charlotte Ford offers a possibility: They spend their days one-upping each other, which organically leads to games of chicken.
And so she offers - on a confined stage with a goofy mixture of '50s-style furnishings; geegaws and radios and gauges; underwatery blue-lit walls (Thom Weaver's lighting ) and thumping and whirring (James Sugg's sound) - the interior of a submarine, plus three characters with their own strange interiors.
Chicken is fun and often absurdly funny, laced with little plot surprises and tension that gives it a buzz, as if it's about to explode any second. It's also gross, in a strangely scintillating way; I'm not sharing any plot detail, because it would spoil the 70-minute ride. But think squid play. Pee jokes. Sexual angst.
