City Rhapsody

<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0><tr> <td valign="top" colspan=2 height=80 BGCOLOR="#999933" TEXT="#080000" bgproperties="fixed" background="04000700ddwnfv.png"> <div> <FONT SIZE="4" COLOR="#FFFFFF" FACE="Arial" ><B>Andrew Kim </B></FONT><B>     |     </B><A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Andrew Kim "><U><B>home</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id17.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Gallery"><U><B>gallery</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id25.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Bio"><U><B>bio</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id46.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Press"><U><B>pres</B></U></A><B>s     </B><A HREF="id26.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Links"><U><B>links</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="id27.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Contact Me"><U><B>contact me</B></U></A><B>     </B><A HREF="http://www.thingumajig.info/" TARGET="_top" TITLE="http://www.thingumajig.info/"><U><B>thingumajig</B></U></A></div> </td> </tr><tr> <td valign="top" width=190 BGCOLOR="#CCCC99" TEXT="#080000" background="041bec00esnpes.png"> <bR> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="City Rhapsody"><U><B><IMG SRC="1b296a50.jpg" border=0 width="150" height="165" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="City Rhapsody"><U><B>CITY RHAPSODY </B></U></A><A HREF="id54.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="City Rhapsody"><U><B>Gallery</B></U></A></div> </td> <td valign="top" height=400 BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> City Rhapsody</div> <bR> <div> <B>Star Tribune, 11/7/00</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>'City Rhapsody' will charm, </B></div> <div> <B>humor those with the urban blues</B></div> <bR> <div> By Graydon Royce</div> <div> Star Tribune Staff Writer</div> <bR> <div> Some folks wax poetic on the vibrancy and passion of the city. Others will gripe about a relentless grind of traffic, stress and noise. Whatever your interpretation, "City Rhapsody," which opened Friday at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre in Minneapolis, will give you an appreciation for the other side. It's a charming, funny look, but one that doesn't stint on the cranky riff of sounds and life in our urban landscapes. </div> <bR> <div> Right off the bat, raging automobiles take the stage like combatants in a bumper-car rally, revving up at red lights and ready to pop the clutch for that rush-hour advantage. The buzz stays jagged as residents shiver in their homes, while a giant TV talking head drones through headlines about the violent street.</div> <bR> <div> The action quiets with three engaging stories set up from suitcase puppet shows--vignettes on city residents who talk about what they bring to the city and what they get from it. In the second act, urban squirrels run down the aisles with a nervous animation and chattering cacophony. Later, the actors use cutouts to give us a clever silhouette glimpses of a high-rise apartment building. </div> <bR> <div> "City Rhapsody" draws its energies from the sketchbook of designer Duane Tougas. Moody, edgy and decidedly stacked with buildings out of a "West Side Story" backdrop, these sketches inspired director Andrew Kim, music leader Marky Baby Rossow and six actor/puppeteers to cobble together episodes that express urban ironies. </div> <bR> <div> Echoing recent real-life protests, bicyclists take to the streets in an aggressive move to exert their rights while motorist scurry in terror and frustration. Then, in a nice extrapolation of the theme, pedestrians with no vehicle other than their feet come to push the bikes out of the way, indicating that humanity trumps even the simplest expression of technology. </div> <bR> <div> Tougas' set, which envelopes the entire auditorium with window dramas along the side walls, uses bright colors and exaggerated images. Rossow, Crystalline and Kari Kjome musically capture the essence of each scene with a driving beat and just the right sensibility. </div> <bR> <div> All this alone would make an enjoyable, interesting evening. So when spoken-word artist Thien-bao Phi takes the stage several times, the production soars even higher. Phi packs his rap with clear images and emotion, painting his city through your mind with a palette of words that tumble effortlessly out of his mouth--close to the street, breathing with the anxious verve of kids surviving the alley and tender with love stolen in an abandoned store. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>City Pages, 11/8/00</B></div> <bR> <div> <B>City Rhapsody</B></div> <bR> <div> By Max Sparber</div> <bR> <div> Andrew Kim, who directed this production, says that he wanted the show to call to mind the sort of half-seen images that flicker in the corners of urban dwellers' eyes: little vignettes, mostly unseen and unheard, that combine to form the great, overwhelming din of the city. In one scene, for example, a young poet (played by Thien-Bao Phi, whose tough, unsentimental poetry has been a hit at local slams) watches a building as a shadow-puppet couple fights, their angry words represented by cartoonlike collections of symbols that float above their heads. Above them, a couple makes love, their shadowy hands moving tenderly across blackened bodies. But being a Heart of the Beast production, this collectively created vision of the city is often whimsical: In a small diorama to one side of the stage, a UFO hovers above a dozen buildings as their satellite dishes bob in time to Pink Floyd's "Money"; squirrels descend en masse upon the audience before taking to the stage and screaming inarticulate abuse; and bicyclists take their revenge on a growing army of automobiles. Certainly much of this atmosphere of strange reverie can be credited to designer Duane Tougas, who can create soaring birds out of crumpled newspapers. But in a broader sense, the play is a further conversation in the theater's ongoing dialogue between their deep love for their community and their fundamental ambivalence about the urban experience--a sort of ambivalence that defies simple storytelling in favor of complex meditations. This in turn leads to a play such as <I>C</I><I>ity Rhapsody</I>, in which brutal words about shattered inner-city  lives can co-mingle on the stage with an elegiac dance between two adoring office buildings.</div> <bR> <div> Thursdays-Sundays through November 26 at In the Heart of the Beast Puppet and Mask Theatre, 1500 E. Lake St., Mpls, (612) 721-2535. </div> </td> </tr></table></body>