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A day in the death
What happens when "The Fab Four Reach the Pearly Gates"? The same as what happened on earth, only taken to extremes.
By ROBIN EISGRAU
Offoffoff.com
This production by the Philadelphia-based company New Paradise
Laboratories explores what happens to the Beatles in the afterlife. It's
not an easy arrival for the famous Liverpudlians as they are set upon by a
trio of mischevious and violent angels who alternate between fighting with
the moptops and kissing them, taking breaks here and there to conduct
interviews.
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| THE FAB 4 REACH THE PEARLY GATES |
Company: New Paradise Laboratories.
Written and directed by: Whit McLaughlin.
Cast: Lee Ann Etzold, McKenna Kerrigan, Mary McCool, Jeb Kreager, Aaron Mumaw, Matthew Saunders, Rene Ligon Hartl.
Set design: Matthew Saunders.
Lighting and sound design: Whit McLaughlin.
Costumes: Ana Hartl.
Production stage manager: Trey Faison.
Fight consultant: Chuck Martin.
Related links:
Official site
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P.S. 122
150 First Ave. at 9th St.
March 29 - April 14, 2002
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Heavily physical and full of action, this show is like a stage
combat ballet and the fight sequences are rather breathtaking to behold. The
girls punch and kick and flip the guys over, displaying quite a bit of
strength and a lot more grace than anything you may have seen from the WWF.
The angels wear mod little costumes with matching knee-high socks and
undershorts designed by Ana Hartl, who is chief assistant to '60s-phile
designer Anna Sui.
When the angels aren't whacking the guys with long
styrofoam tubes or slapping them, their movements are for the most part
abstract yet flecked with sexuality and giddiness, imitating the way girl
fans reacted to the Beatles in real life. The guys are for the most part
befuddled as they get slapped around, but they slide back into their cheeky
personas as they sit at a long table for their interviews. Loops of parts
of Beatles songs play in the background and register tape with lyrics to
Beatles songs hang from the ceiling.
As the angels treat the Beatles like
playthings, one wonders if that wasn't how fate dealt with John, Paul, George
and Ringo anyway — granting them fame and wealth yet exacting various prices for it.
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APRIL 1, 2002
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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