Peepolykus @ The Umbrella Revolution
7:00pm, Wed 18 Feb 2004
Score: 4
Short Review: Confused
Opening with a clever bit of mime, UK company Peepolykus promise much in the guise of psychic Michael Santos and his two off-siders. A bit of audience participation by Santos’ audience plant, Raymond, was well handled, with some light humour and neat sight gags.
The whole show takes a turn for the worse with the Python-wannabe death sequence. It seemed that Peepolykus decided to set sail for surrealism, but it all seemed horribly flat and uninspired. The appearance of a bear(!) as Santos tries to reconcile his past was puzzling; the musical finale just plain out-of-place.
There were some highlights with a little trickery after the death sequence; Santos gains “real” psychic powers, which left a few in the audience (me included) wondering how the tricks were performed.
In short, this is a confused production. A shame, really, because the first third of the show offered so much.