Mummenschanz, the celebrated visual theatre trio entertained both young and old last night at the Moore Theater in the Hopkins Center with a combination of mime, dance, puppetry and visual trickery.
Founded in the early 1970's, Mummenschanz has appeared throughout the Americas, Europe, the former Soviet Union, Japan and Israel. They also appeared on Broadway for three years and enjoyed guest billing with the Big Apple Circus in its show "Grandma meets Mummenschanz."
Mummenschanz performed to a sold-out audience filled with young children and those young at heart. The first half of the performance featured such unusual creatures as a briefcase man and toilet paper people.
While many of these acts delighted the children, for many adults they seemed to drag on, simply repeating sequences from prior acts. In fact, the filled theater lost approximately thirty audience members after intermission.
The second half of the performance picked up dramatically. Each act was much shorter which gave the audience a quick snapshot rather than a full length character sketch of each creature. Highlights of the performance were the giant four legged slinky spider which snaked across the stage and three colored slinkies which bounced balls into the audience during the finale.
Overall, the performance was interesting and innovative although at times extremely repetitious.
