Neon Lights (Jeff Seal and Chris Manley) is a po-mo-vau (post-modern vaudeville) show that's a comedy of errors. Toward the end of the show the thought occurred to me “what a pair of lamebrains.” I arrived at that conclusion after they took us through several segments, blissfully unaware of the fact that the mix-ups and mis-steps were clearly a result of their own ineptitude. The difficulties were simple in nature and appeared to be small matters, but added up to a lot of failures. They sat in the wrong seats and had to switch. They botched jokes. They unwittingly revealed personal issues. Their problems mounted to such a degree in the "Historical Re-Enactment" sketch of the sinking of the Lusitania, that it brought the show to an utter standstill. They didn’t know how to proceed because they had completely gotten in their own way and painted themselves into a corner. Their accomplishments were not at all what they had set out to do in the first place (with a few exceptions noted), and we were perfectly happy to go with them wherever they wandered, because they were such appealing lamebrains.
The overture to this production of Carmen the Mopera (Julie Goell) immediately informs us that this Carmen will be of a different stripe than what you would see onstage at The Met or La Scala. After a brief and funny description of the libretto, our intrepid cleaning lady begins her performance. All her props, made up of cleaning equipment, such as mops and dusters, buckets and clothespins, are transformed into alternate objects for the purposes of telling the story. The entire opera unfolds as she portrays and sings all the parts. She even acts the House Manager and Usher of her backstage utility room turned Opera theater. Using her multi-lingual approach and comic ability, the performer conveys her love for the work with which she is having so much fun.
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