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Here is inventive actor Thaddeus Phillips, portraying a besieged doorman in the lobby of an apartment high-rise, somewhere in Latin America.
Here is a bedraggled woman, calling him with constant requests to nip the noisy party next door. Here's the oily host of the noisy party, who peppers him with requests to muzzle the woman next door. Here's the nefarious tenant who demands personal delivery of a mysterious package - for mucho dinero if no report appears on the building's mail log.
And here is ¡El Conquistador!, which will become one of the big hits of this year's Fringe Festival: funny, clever and fast-paced and polished, with Phillips and his Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental. It's totally in Spanish, with subtitles.
The versatile Phillips performs the live action in, around and under a horizontal frame with lighting that represents many places. He walks in and out of video action on a large screen at midstage; all the other actors are prerecorded, except when Phillips plays their roles, too.
After a few minutes, what's not live becomes inextricable from what is. Cheers not just to Phillips, but to Victor Mallarino and the other prerecorded actors, all Latin TV soap-opera stars. Mallarino wrote the script; his niece, Tatiana Mallarino, directed. The whole thing's ingenious.
By Howard Shapiro, Philadelphia Inquirer
When: Tue., Sept. 7 at 9:30 p.m.; Thu., Sept. 9 at 9 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 11 and Sun., Sept. 12 at 4 and 9 p.m.
Where: Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St.
Tickets: $15.
Here is a bedraggled woman, calling him with constant requests to nip the noisy party next door. Here's the oily host of the noisy party, who peppers him with requests to muzzle the woman next door. Here's the nefarious tenant who demands personal delivery of a mysterious package - for mucho dinero if no report appears on the building's mail log.
And here is ¡El Conquistador!, which will become one of the big hits of this year's Fringe Festival: funny, clever and fast-paced and polished, with Phillips and his Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental. It's totally in Spanish, with subtitles.
The versatile Phillips performs the live action in, around and under a horizontal frame with lighting that represents many places. He walks in and out of video action on a large screen at midstage; all the other actors are prerecorded, except when Phillips plays their roles, too.
After a few minutes, what's not live becomes inextricable from what is. Cheers not just to Phillips, but to Victor Mallarino and the other prerecorded actors, all Latin TV soap-opera stars. Mallarino wrote the script; his niece, Tatiana Mallarino, directed. The whole thing's ingenious.
By Howard Shapiro, Philadelphia Inquirer
When: Tue., Sept. 7 at 9:30 p.m.; Thu., Sept. 9 at 9 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 11 and Sun., Sept. 12 at 4 and 9 p.m.
Where: Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St.
Tickets: $15.
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