The play is gritty, bare, edge of your seat anticipation, and simple in the sense that it is free of frilly fashions, because its all about the performance in this play. I feel as though I cannot call them actors in a play because I felt so close to them on a emotional level..from the beginning they opened up about themselves and you could see that their personalities they described in themselves were apart of who they are.
So excuse me for no calling them actors they just played the parts all to well so I must call them by their names:
7 Fingers-Phil :Analytical, Val Flirtatious, Brad :Reliable, Daqi :Cool,Mal: Humble, Florran:Romantic, Mason :Clumsy. Please excuse if I misspelled a name or two there was no programs made yet as the play does not officially start until next week.
Each person wears white t-shirts and pants throughout most of the play.
The play starts off with a humorous disclaimer about the usual no phone, no cameras, etc...except this one said please use your phone..you never know who you may be trying to reach you in a creepy voice..Then bam it jumps right into movement and with the mic from the ceiling each person tells their actual birthday, name, birthplace,and three qualities they possess...
Then it flows into different acrobatic movements. There are so many movements and distractions from each person being onstage doing their own movement monologue if you will.
Oh and ladies the hottest guy with long hair:Florren, a guitar player..he is a splitting image of "Sawyer" from Lost..gosh I miss that show but love how the producers choose to end it as well. Florren was standing on chairs while balancing his head atop all the the chairs. He sung a romantic song while playing the guitar also.
My favorite character was Daqi- he was so funny and entertaining throughout the performance. He was the smallest guy out of all of them and he did an awe inspiring balancing act with strings on a cup: where he would flip the cup in the air in different unexplainable ways..while head bobbing music played in the background.
There was so much movement in this play, and running and flipping ,and ball throwing through the audience. And being that this theatre which was recently renovated is so intimate any seat in the house is a good seat.My camera died earlier that day so I will have to post pictures later of the actual theatre as I frequent the Watertower.
In one of the scenes they all whore jackets and did fun skate boarding and roller skating tricks that are seemingly impossible to achieve especially on a stage. They had funny music in the background and the where all smiling ridiculously to add to the funny music. This scene was absolutely the most entertaining.
There was a theme tied throughout the play: TRACES. In this play the actors do a lot of drawing, spreading sand along the floor as they recall traces of memories:some painful, some sweet. They do drawings on each other and two of the guys where playing tic-tac-toe on another t-shirts.
Then there is the theme of time being tied to traces and Mason -the clumsy one talks about all the different ways to say time in a meaningful order: Time, big time, hard times,Time magazine, on time, take your time, and later it ends with him asking what time is it and someone says 9:10. At the time it wasn't 9:10 so I am not sure if this was a mistake being that it was a dress rehearsal, or if 9:10 has some meaning I am not sure on this one.
Then there are images from each persons childhood from birth, then to young child, grade school, then to middle school, then to high school, and present. In the background there is a clock ticking sound starting from slower in the begging to faster and faster as the pictures reach adulthood.
Then there is a see saw like jumping scene that follows, except this see saw is 10 times bigger than normal and they jump of a tall Cliff edge to make the person flip off the see saw and onto a big target. Its so awesome!
There was a moment where the woman Val does a performance with a rope that resembles a swing and she wears a bright red stunning dress...her performance is spectacular!
As you can see they are reverting to childhood in a way with the resemblance of the See-Saw and swing set.
There was a scene where one of the guys was walking along poles, and sliding down the poles in various ways until nearly touching the
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My absolute Favorite scene was done with a spinning hoop and flexible guy with a hip hop song that had me wanting to dance called: Make you feel that Way. And the way I feel every Chicagoan should experience this its something different and the experience you have is unexplainable. This performance will make you laugh, dance,question, reminisce, and most of all leave you breathless with their acrobatics.
you can get tickets to TRACES @
http://www.ticketmaster.com/Traces-tickets/artist/1409446
