 |
| Lady Rizo as the Red Queen (Alan Alabastro) |
Welcome to Wonderland
Teatro Zinzanni
Through February 26, 2017
An inventive new storyline is now playing at Teatro
Zinzanni. They’ve chosen an Alice in
Wonderland theme for their newest dinner/show and in a Zinzanni kind of
way, they keep the magical and mystical flavor of that story, as well.
Economics has clearly put some pressure on the speigeltent
folks. They’ve apparently realized that it’s enormously expensive to change all
the characters and themes every three months and have decided to elongate the
run of a show. That is simply smart, and it also allows for more thinking and
planning and a smarter execution of a concept.
In this adorable show, Lewis and Carol (get it?), a sweet
couple of innocence, get lost in Wonderland and find themselves separated while
the Red Queen Rizo tries to cut off their heads. Of course there is the
ubiquitous “just missing them” routine, and this Queen is not so hard-hearted that
she won’t stop to let people eat soup or supper.
The costuming, as usual, is a wonderful representation of
Beauty-and-the-Beast similarities of over-sized spoons and teacups and includes
a smoky Caterpillar and giant playing cards. Kevin Kent, an audience favorite who will definitely interrupt your
dinner if he can, becomes an odd combination of White Rabbit and Mad Hatter
character who is actually involved in some revolution against the Queen. You
might be recruited for the opposition.
Lady Rizo (aka Amelia Zirin-Brown) gets a lot more
attention than the usual Madam-host, and her powerhouse vocals are put to great
use. Whether it’s intentional or not, her wig and persona feel very much like
Zinzanni imported Lady Gaga to the tent. If she’s not careful, in one of her
fits of rage, she might pull the tent down around your ears!
They are aided by juggler/funnyman Joel Salom, aerial and contortionist Lea Hinz, acrobats and balancers Alya Titarenko and Gael
Ouisse, and Duo Madrona featuring Rachel
Nehmer and Ben Wendel, who
continue to add versatile talent (singing, acting, trapeze acrobatics) to their
10th show at Zinzanni.
They all have the Zinzanni formula down pat and continue to
give every guest the best time. The servers/ensemble can adjust an order on the
fly, find substitutions for picky eaters, and still perform choreography before
serving.
I continue to wish the food were hotter and more
interesting, mourning just a bit the higher quality of years past. But the
steak is quite melty. For such a high quality professional variety show, with a
filling meal, it’s really a great value for the price.
No comments:
Post a Comment
This is a moderated comment section. Any comment can be deleted if the moderator feels that basic civility standards are not being met. Disagreements, however, if respectfully stated, are certainly welcome. Just keep the discussion intelligent and relatively kind.