Be warned: there is no fourth wall in burlesque theater. The heart of TBBR is the show, which show rockets to life when emcee LuLu LaToosh, the self-styled society chanteuse, takes the stage. In past years, they owned a club in Maplewood, they took their burlesque show on the road when that club closed, and when the right opportunity to open a club came along, they jumped at the 14 th Street space. In real life, Callahan and Dunn are engaged. Callahan used his talents and knowledge of lighting to enhance the bar and liven up the room. They hand-made the sparkling black fiber optic curtain and shared their method on You Tube. They found an old parrot cage to dress up a chandelier, and hung champagne glasses and beads on the other to give it more glitz. They did much of the work themselves, searching Craigslist and thrift stores for everything imaginable from floor to ceiling that could be transformed into a nightclub inexpensively. It is playing at American Theatre of Actors, 314 West 54 Street (between Eighth & Ninth Ave.Callahan and Dunn (right) transformed the space formerly occupied by Lola throughout the summer and fall into an over-the-top nightclub. Tickets are $18 and are available through or by calling 86. Thus, Cicchino shows that In The Boom Boom Room, is, ultimately, a story/ proof that a young woman filled with love to give can live a whole life without receiving it. Performances of IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM are Wednesday through Saturday evenings at 8 PM, with matinees Saturday & Sunday at 2 PM through May 6th. From her parents to her husband, Chrissy never achieves a safe space or person to confide in and rest her heart with. In a world that loves to label people, the labels and layers we give ourselves can seem especially burdensome and burrowing if your whole life has been one of mistreatment.
Boom boom room show full#
Not one character feels in full ownership of their being and body, of which Chrissy, whose under-currents of optimism, feels like a tiny light that the audience cannot seem to protect.įrom Chrissy’s sexual to her racial identity, In The Boom Boom Room is constantly approaching the confusion of being human, especially after so much trauma. Whether they are kind or cruel, the point is they are lost. As Chrissy meets characters like Guy (Deven Anderson), Eric (Kyle Kirkpatrick), Melissa (Alexandra Tabas), Vicki (Tina Marie Tanzer), Al (Kirk Gostkowsk) and Sally (Cori Stolbun), it just feels like a whirlwind of combusting personas. Both actors do well to elaborate how cruelly they DO NOT care for Chrissy, and further the old notion that “Some people should not be parents”. This could be why Chrissy makes so many bad, self-destructive decisions she is inheriting/ responding to the bad decisions of her cold parents: Harold played by Pete Mattaliano and Helen played by Malikha Mallette.
From the beginning, the dim lighting and set are made to emanate a constant murkiness, as if joy is too muddled an endeavor to ever accomplish. Thankfully, Director Greg Cicchino feels the same, and has set up the play to never lose a sense of eeriness and inner lostness, just like Chrissy. While Rabe wrote this once “controversial” play in the 1970’s, it still feels like revolutionary material and one of the few plays to approach and grasp this dark subject.
This is not an easy discussion, which is why the nuances of its effects and how it can define that child’s adulthood are not always captured. Probably one of the only, if not one of the best, off-Broadway plays, currently, approaching the topics of child sex abuse. Kassa carries the show that is a sheer exploration of how a person uses their body as weapon, whim, and a warped sense of empowerment because their soul has been crushed. Nina Kassa’s Chrissy is a giant highlight of how girls lost to abandonment and abuse can become women who are lost to the same. In its compassionate look at Chrissy’s living nightmare, David Rabe’s IN THE BOOM BOOM ROOM is a piercing look at a society dangerously close to our own lives. In a desperate search, Chrissy careens from the seductive mistress of ceremonies at The Boom Boom Room to the earnestly friendly gay man next door to a brutally passionate lover. Instead, she must fight to defend her dream and keep her anger in check amid the sex and stimulation that surround her, the psychological residue of her parents’ betrayals and the bizarre pack of suitors who follow her. She finds herself in The Boom Boom Room, a Philadelphia disco/bar meant to be her first step on the road to a better life. Chrissy, a bright young woman with a background of harshness that has robbed her of her innocence long ago, has visions of a career as a dancer.
0 kommentar(er)
