Dinner of our Discontent Aloft Circus Arts

8/15 - 8/24 - "Aloft takes risk a step further in 'The Dinner of Our Discontent,'. The payoff can be huge." -Laura Molzhan, Chicago Tribune

 

Preview Wed 8/13 8p; Reg run Thu-Sat 8p, Sun 7p until Aug 24th

 

Tickets - $25

buy tickets

8/15/14 - 8/24/14

Thu - Sat 8p; Sun 7p


 Aloft's restaging of "Dinner of Our Discontent" is intermittently satisfying – Laura Molzahn, Chicago Tribune, 8/14/14 - "Discontented" doesn't begin to describe the fraught relationships and violent discord of the family in Aloft Circus Arts' restaging of a 2008 show. Despite — or perhaps because of — being tailored to the talents of its entirely new cast, this "Dinner of Our Discontent," through Aug. 24 at the Chopin Theatre, is like a meatball insufficiently smushed together. The center cannot hold.

After their parents die suddenly, five sisters gather at their dark, high-ceilinged childhood home. Perfectly suited to make one another unhappy, they're quickly limned in mildly amusing ways. The uptight eldest, a banker type, is always taking selfies. She clashes with the punky, gender-conflicted second sister, who sports a giant Mohawk. The twins are thugs in pigtails, ancient combatants who look and act just the same, while the mousy youngest apparently lives under the dining room table.

 

The lugubrious maid — wearing a dress but unaccountably identified as "the butler" in the program — opens the show with a glacially paced walk, on a zigzag path, downstage. She's distraught that the parents are dead, though they're clearly visible, and alive, at the rear of the stage, each in a giant picture frame/square swing.

 

Under the direction of Shayna Swanson, the emotional tones of "Dinner" don't so much veer as fall into ambiguous disarray. With its caricatures and emotional violence, the story registers mostly as melodrama, but generally without the tinge of humor or irony that makes that form palatable in the 21st century. The maid's entrance reads as straightforwardly sad, but — lacking context at this early point — isn't emotionally convincing; meanwhile the ending of what's basically a Cinderella story borders on the tragic.

The acrobatic and aerial scenes do enliven the show. The best are saved for last: a tantrum en l'air for the twins, a virtuoso conciliatory duet for the banker and the punk as they hang from a "chandelier," the youngest sister's redemptive climb up a chain. That's choreographed and performed by the promising Zoe Sheppard, but otherwise Swanson devised most of the satisfying closing scenes. Early solos and duets created by their performers, however, can be lackluster, while uneven performances sometimes make you fear for the artists' lives.

The parents' affectionate final duet, choreographed and performed by Will Howard and Destiny Vinley, underlines the show's paradox: to perform discord or love requires cooperation. Their symbiotic acrobatics offer a glimpse of the tenderness otherwise missing from "Dinner." Vinley even manages to look blissfully at ease”.

 

 

Dinner of Our Discontent - Tony Adler, Chicago Reader 8/24/14 - "You've got to give them credit for pluck. Writer/director Shayna Swanson and her cast of eight display a go-for-it attitude  in this Aloft Circus Arts production featuring rowdy slapstick, a silks-style routine performed on a metal chain, and other  physical feats that suggest they just don't care how much they hurt in the morning. The basic conceit is fun, too.   A remount of a 2008 show, presented with a new batch of artists, Dinner of Our Discontent gives us five sisters who've gathered at their recently deceased parents' patrician manse to find out who gets what. When sibling rivalries kick in, they quite literally kick. Trouble is, going for it isn't enough. While there were some extraordinary moments—punky middle  sister Dana Dugan hanging, for instance, from the head of the yuppie eldest, Leah Leor—missed tricks and fouled-up rigs  proliferated on opening night. The only true refuge from sloppiness was a lovely, loving balancing act performed by  Destiny Vinley and Will Howard as the dead parents".

 

Dinner of Our Discontent - Tony Adler, Chicago Reader 8/24/14 - "You've got to give them credit for pluck. Writer/director Shayna Swanson and her cast of eight display a go-for-it attitude  in this Aloft Circus Arts production featuring rowdy slapstick, a silks-style routine performed on a metal chain, and other  physical feats that suggest they just don't care how much they hurt in the morning. The basic conceit is fun, too. A remount of a 2008 show, presented with a new batch of artists, Dinner of Our Discontent gives us five sisters who've
gathered at their recently deceased parents' patrician manse to find out who gets what. When sibling rivalries kick in, they quite literally kick. Trouble is, going for it isn't enough. While there were some extraordinary moments—punky middle  sister Dana Dugan hanging, for instance, from the head of the yuppie eldest, Leah Leor—missed tricks and fouled-up rigs
 proliferated on opening night. The only true refuge from sloppiness was a lovely, loving balancing act performed by  Destiny Vinley and Will Howard as the dead parents".

Director
Shayna Swanson

Performers
Zoe Sheppard; Will Howard, Destiny Vinley, Leah Leor, Dana Dugan

Tags: Theater, American, 2014