What I liked
The cushions on the seats
What I didn't like
No free alcohol was served.
My overall impression
I can’t help but feel protective about Theatre like this… Work that takes actual chances and is shimmering with the embryonic devotion of its parents writer Daniel Sliwa and director Carly Jibson – their passion for this piece was profoundly evident long before they emerged on the stage after the curtain call to deliver their tearful final speeches. Dan’s writing does a fine job at keeping the audience in a state of intended intellectual disarray toward the beginning, not allowing the audience to find our bearings or feel safe – only little by little does it all come clear as he plots his protagonist (played beautifully by the ever-melodious Lana McKissack) through an obstacle course of dream encounters – until I found my footing and could also allow myself to really enjoy Dan’s true-to-life abstract dream logic. Characters disappear, and reappear like doorways in a maze, shifting like a teaspoon of oil in a glass of water, but yet somehow remain the same. While our protagonist navigates the dreamscape, it’s not all glorified escapism however. It’s not all show tunes and fairy wings, in fact, the overall message is quite the opposite, instead Sliwa gives focus to the stark desolation a person might experience locked in a coma, where no matter what exit they think they can find, it’s just another cavern in their own mind. Haunting stuff indeed. But it’s also the sort of isolation that every artist experiences to some degree, and to which I suspect a lot of Fringe audience/artists will relate to.
Luckily, amidst all this you have director Carly Jibson, not only creating gorgeous stage images, but urging her actors to use their hearts as the connective tissue between these episodes, proving Maya Angelou‘s theory, “At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” Carly was 100% the right person to direct the show. Absolutely no fucking doubt. She’s all over that stage without being on it. Her heart… her humor… Without spoiling it, the emotions these characters arrive at in STARLIGHT STAGE are 100% authentic and cathartic. The actors are doing magnificent work here… you’ll fall in love with each of them a little bit, as they sing is beautifully as Broadway legends (in this non-musical) while driving home the message of this piece which provides a musical heartfelt reconciliation in the face of our own ever-threatening isolation.
A disorienting metaphysical high wire act while also being a musical/poetic, soulful and cathartic hour of fringe magic.
