Review Rundown: The One With Music and Dancing and Exiles
NYC, LA, and Quest represent, plus a murder mystery in the London Dungeons. (FOUR REVIEWS)
This week the big four — London, NYC, LA, and Meta’s Quest — all offer something worth talking about. The prognosis: good! There’s not a stinker in the bunch, and the variety runs the gamut from murder mysteries to dance theatre back to solo shows and a concert in VR.
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Hidden Evidence: A Murder Mystery Experience — Fever Labs
Tickets from 28 GBP; Run Concluded
There are tourist traps, and then there’s the London Dungeons. A tourist trap’s tourist trap, on par with the massive Ripley’s Believe It Or Not at Niagara Falls, or the fountain show at the Las Vegas Bellagio. I’ve always had a certain affection for the place, with its log flume ride themed around escaping Henry VIII (yes, really), and its robe-wearing actors cheerfully wishing you “a terrible day!” So, when I heard they were playing host to a murder mystery, I couldn’t resist.
Now, “immersive murder mystery at the London Dungeons” is already a deeply silly, or perhaps, at this time of year, “spoopy” proposition, and “Hidden Evidence” gives everything one might expect. Upon arrival, guests are drafted as “constables” by a lead detective who describes our “deeply meta” task for the evening … solving the murder of the London Dungeons stage manager!
The next hour-and-a-half is spent meeting the cast of the London Dungeons, including a former child actor now posing as The Plague Doctor, a bartender at the Ten Bells who actually moonlights as a mechanic, and, the standout when I visited, the actor playing Mrs. Lovett, who has more than one secret up her semi-historically-accurate sleeve. Your party is led through the Dungeons full, and extensive, set, including a medieval courthouse and later a Georgian(?) one, a lavishly ghoulish pie shop, and a surprisingly convincing fake pub, with a new actor to interrogate at each location.
The actual mystery was easy enough to guess for fans of the genre, and attempts to divide us into teams felt like a perfunctory gesture at best. The real fun of the show comes from wandering through the Dungeons after hours, shouting questions at a cast who are merrily gnawing at the scenery, and scaring yourself ever-so-slightly when walking through the “tunnel of rats.” High art, it’s not, but for a silly, giggly, Halloween treat, Hidden Evidence serves up a smile.
–Ellery Weil, London Correspondent
KS6: Small Forward — Belarus Free Theatre
$35-$40; Manhattan; through Oct. 13
KS6: Small Forward tells the real life story of Belarusian basketball star Katsiaryna Snytsina who was recently exiled from the country after participating in protests against the government. For readers who are not world politics buffs, Belarus received it’s sovereignty from the USSR in 1990 and immediately became what is now the only remaining dictatorship in Europe with president Alexander Lukashenko maintaining leadership ever since. Known for his highly oppressive regime, Lukashenko is, for lack of better words, exile happy, resulting in an estimated 2.5–3.5 million Belarusians having either been exiled, in asylum, or otherwise displaced, and even more unaccounted for in this figure incarcerated as political prisoners since the start of his reign. Belarus Free Theatre, whose directors are also exiled from the country, have made it their mission to tell the unheard stories of their people, one story at a time.
In this production, La Mama’s Ellen Stewart theatre is transformed into a basketball court complete with a basketball hoop, live cameras, and a real DJ on stage who live scores the performance each night (major shoutout to Blanka Barbara who keeps the energy high and the party going throughout the night). The piece tells the story of Snytsina’s experience being a prop in the government’s regime and how she decided to leave both basketball and her home country in protest. KS6 is emblematic of the group’s work, of course in it’s telling of a true story, and having Katsiaryna Snytsina herself play the titular role, but also in it’s maximilist approach to staging: BFT usually does simply too much on stage, and it’s always glorious to watch. This time around the audience is treated to a basketball filled with blood that sputters all over the floor when stabbed, a tiny suitcase outfitted to be its own little world, and a massive amount of bubbles amongst other antics on stage.
What’s a bit new to BFT in KS6 are some small elements of audience participation. These range from classic sports tropes like the Kiss Cam and a shootout contest to the more touching moments, such as Snytsina sharing a candy with the audience that her colleagues passed out at protests. While the piece flickers between small participatory moments and more traditional one-person show structures, the experience holds its weight. We do lose a little in the stage presence department by putting a basketball star on stage in lieu of an actor, but Snytsina’s demeanor is genuine and charming, so it’s easy to look past. Overall, the piece is a brilliant musing on world events and how they affect the actual people experiencing them.
— Allie Marotta, NYC Curator
iHeart Radio Live with Beabadoodee
Free; Meta Quest; Run Concluded
She looked right at me.
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Let’s roll it back. I can’t quite remember when I got into Beabadoobee. It was 2020 when Fake It Flowers came out, after all, and that whole year is this slurry blur of endless sameness. But Bea was a blast from the past: a Gen Zer whose sound and look was pure 90’s. I would excitedly describe the album to anyone who’d listen as one that would have seamlessly fit into the Gen X cannon right after Jagged Little Pill as if it was a lost artifact.
But the glory is that her career is unfolding right now, and I got to see her at the Greek here in LA last year.
Only this year I missed her. I’m housebound on weekends these days, and even though I live walking distance to the Greek a concert is out of the picture.
Which is where the Quest and iHeartRadio come in.
Meta and the radio conglomerate have been staging intimate concerts in the Horizon Venues corner of the Quest ecosystem for some time now, but until now I haven’t been lured in to catch a show. Occasionally there’s been a big act, but I usually hear about those AFTER the fact since for all its boasting Meta’s algorithm is actually pretty bad at serving up what I’m actually interested in. Somehow the notice Bea was having a show, right after the wrap of her North American tour, made it through.
The “Music Valley” venue is fairly simplistic as virtual worlds go, with a desert theme and a few sideshow like attractions around the edge of the space for when nothing is happening in it. The primary feature is just a big video feed that puts the concert going avatars at about stage height, allowing them to dance. You’re actually encouraged to dance, some do. At least that was the camera set up for this show, which was clearly set up on a soundstage somewhere in LA.
Popping my head into some of the other venues later I saw slightly different camera setups, but the three camera rig they had for this show did a really good job of capturing the vibe of being at an intimate venue catching a bigger act. One time I was lucky enough to go to one of these radio sponsored shows in real life and caught the two principles of Metric as they did an acoustic set from about twenty feet away.
This felt like that, and Bea is sharp enough of a performer to know how to keep both the live audience engaged and to make eye contact with the camera. The image was crisp enough that at times it was more like watching someone at a coffee house, as I zeroed in on guitar fretwork and started lamenting my clumsy fucking fingers that prevent me from learning three chords, let alone the truth.
I got there late, but stuck around for the whole set — which sounded great and was sometimes literally mesmerizing thanks to the light show — and was intrigued enough to go kick around the other venues. The worldbuilding in Meta Horizon is more “county fair” than “theme park,” let alone “simulation,” these days but now I’m going to keep an eye on who is having shows.
Luckily it doesn’t take more than a few taps to shut down all the audio from the world’s sound effects or other guests, so you can just tune out the space and zero in on the performance. Although I do want to try going to a show with some friends at some point. If you’re on the Discord keep an eye out, I’ll post when I’m hitting something up.
— Noah Nelson, Publisher & Podcast Host
Little Women Ballet: Autumn — Little Women Ballet
$60; Los Angeles, CA; Run concluded
Little Women Ballet: Autumn offers a fresh new take on dance-based site-specific performance through excellent use of its space (the Heritage Square Museum in Los Angeles, which doubles for Concord, Massachusetts here) and a variety of smart design choices, culminating in a most pleasant way to spend a weekend afternoon for all ages.
Autumn is the second in a three show season meant to encapsulate multiple key scenes from Louisa May Alcott’s beloved novel, with the other seasons being Spring and Winter. In Autumn, we find a variety of memorable moments pulled from the book: Amy getting in trouble at school, Beth coming to terms with her inevitable passing post-illness, three of the four sisters finding suitable (and less than suitable) husbands, the girls rebelling against their mother Marmee and refusing to do chores, their beloved mother struggling while their father is away, and more. We even get to spend some time with the author Louisa May Alcott and learn trivia about her life.
After breaking up into groups in this tracked show, I find that my chaperone for the afternoon is the funny, outspoken Aunt Jo, who leads us from house to house. She is the type of woman who was born into wealth and knows a lot about everyone and everyone else’s business and isn’t afraid to tell you her opinions; luckily for us, she quickly sets up every scene with the relevant plot points from Little Women, placing all the dance action in context, and identifies which characters live in each Victorian house, proudly pointing out the one she lives in, which just so happens to be the nicest. Her narration is particularly helpful for audience members like myself whose memories of the book (or films) may be on the foggy side. And do pay attention, as Aunt Jo may quiz an unsuspecting attendee or two later on about her four nieces!
Through choreography, music, and costume choices, the company does a lot with a modest amount of resources. After a while, it seems like Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy have simply always lived in these Victorian homes and these hallways and parlors have simply always been alive with the goings on of the March family. I also appreciated the production’s thoughtful touches such as setting up a few folding chairs in each room for those who may not be able to stand the entire time, a designated water break in the middle of the show, a live cellist and pianist, and themed desserts and beverages waiting for us at the grand finale, plus the ability to participate in a Victorian dance or two yourself.
Little Women Ballet’s delightful take on applying an immersive format to ballet makes this a very approachable experience, suitable for the whole family; I look forward to seeing what they do next with Winter.
— Kathryn Yu, Senior LA Reviewer & Exec. Editor Emeritus
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