Gotham City: ChicagoNow.com
I’ve seen Gotham City through the eyes of Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney, and Christian Bale. Each of these batmen saw their crime-infested hometown differently, but never like this…
From lights down, this show crushes it! Lighting Designers Mike Goebel and Joshua Paul Weckesser deliver drama in shadows and spotlights. The heart-pounding score is an eclectic (Ludacris to Danny Kaye) collection edited and compiled by DJ Johnny Romano, DanQwan Gibson, Dopples 3000, and DJ Ganger. It’s the perfect soundtrack for this dangerous war zone. Costumes, makeup and even tattoos (designed by Laura Maceika) are a cross between ordinary street clothes, gangster garb and circus attire. This futuristic look is casual demented chic. The whole vibe is comic book graphic. The design team definitely get us into the city limits and the dancers hold us captive for the duration.
Choreographer Jessica Deahr takes Mark Hackman’s clever plot and gives it legs. The thirty dancers tell the story in an amazing mingling of visceral and whimsical. Anger dominates the stage as the ensemble attacks each other in stylized athleticism. People are bashing into other people, the floor and the sideboards. It looks painful and real! The dancers have ferocious physicality! Deahr mixes genres for a Black-Swan-meets-Thriller-at-Barnum-Bailey entertainment. Led by Brian Humpherys, the clowns inject this playful, yet sinister, energy. A wickedly-smiling Humpherys taps, pirouettes, and dominates Gotham. Other standouts are dance partners Mary Tarpley and Charlie Cutler. This tourist couple seem to be dysfunctional but that’s an illusion. Tarpley and Cutler’s dancing is a beautiful union of timing precision. Wow! But my favorite is Chantelle Mrowka, street urchin turned warrior princess. The captivating Mrowka leaps, dives, backflips across the stage at a frightening velocity.