"The Privateer" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

Introducing opening night of Transatlantic Love Affair's newest creation The Privateer, TLA company member and first-time director Derek Lee Miller humbly said, you don't want to hear me lecture about pirates for an hour and a half. As someone who quite enjoyed listening to him lecture about bananas for an hour this summer, I most certainly do want to listen to Derek Lee Miller lecture about pirates! Because it would be sure to be fascinating and educational and delightfully nerdy. But even better than a lecture, this excellent company tells a story about pirates through movement, words, and music. TLA fans are sure to love this new, exciting, dangerous tale. And if you haven't seen TLA before, what are you waiting for?!

Fringe Festival 2017: "Crash and Burn: An American Success Story"

Day: 6

Show: 24

Title: Crash and Burn: An American Success Story

Category: Drama

By: Middle Name Productions

Created by: Eric Marinus and the ensemble

Location: Jungle Theater

Summary: An original story about an Evel Knievel-like daredevil who returns home to the trailer park where he grew up.

Highlights: I love the narration and musical soundtrack provided by Tiny Gene Poole on steel guitar, it makes everything more melancholy and tragic. For this is a tragic story, despite the ironic title. Johnny Meteor (Trevor Keeth) has had some success in the daredevil jumping-over-things-on-a-motorcycle world, but after one too many crashes and burns, and the death of his mother, he decides to spend some time in the trailer park. He runs into old friend Ruth (Lauren Diesch) and her daughter Grace (Megan Rene Guidry), who wants to leave her books behind and enter the world of jumping, against her mother's wishes. Despite the plot twist obvious to anyone who's ever seen a soap opera and an inevitable conclusion, the show is worthwhile because of the winning and natural performances by the cast (particularly Lauren Diesch's impressive dual roles) and that plaintive steel guitar.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Promise Land" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Guthrie Theater

Twin Cities Theater Bloggers' favorite theater of 2016, the charmingly named Transatlantic Love Affair, is making their Guthrie Theater debut as part of the Guthrie's new Level Nine Series. This series makes theater more accessible (all tickets for shows in the Dowling Studio are just $9), and also endeavors to engage theater-goers with what they call "community engagement activities," which often include post-show discussions or displays in the golden lobby. Hopefully TLA's participation in this series will allow people who don't know that TCTB knows about them to get on board with this truly unique and special physical theater company.

"105 Proof; or, the Killing of Mack 'The Silencer' Klein" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

Since being mesmerized by Ash Land at the 2012 Minnesota Fringe Festival, I've been a loyal follower of Transatlantic Love Affair, the physical theater troupe that casts a spell and weaves a dream by using nothing but their bodies, voices, hearts, and souls to tell stories. Their subjects are typically very loose retellings of fairy or folk tales (Cinderella in Ash Land, Little Red Riding Hood in Red Resurrected, the legend of the Selkie in The Ballad of the Pale Fisherman), but recently they've developed original stories including the memory play These Old Shoes and the modern-day love story emilie/eurydice. Most of their shows premiere at the Fringe, but thanks to their partnership with Illusion Theater, they, and we the audience, often get a chance to revisit the stories in a slightly expanded version. Such is the case with 105 Proof; or, the Killing of Mack "The Silencer" Klein, which debuted at the 2015 Fringe. 105 Proof is another original story, but one with a decidedly different tone than their other work. The tale of a small town boy who becomes a Chicago mobster in the Prohibition era is darker, grittier, more suspenseful, and also funnier than their usual dreamy tales. But what's not different is the way the cast (most of whom were in the original production) and live musical soundtrack create an entire world of the imagination that feels real and all-encompassing.

"emilie/eurydice" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

I love Transatlantic Love Affair, the Fringe Festival darlings who often work with Illusion Theater to continue to develop a piece after the Fringe. What they do is so unique and special, telling a story with no set or props, using their bodies and voices to create everything in a very specific world. The result is often achingly beautiful. Their new piece, emilie/eurydice, did not appear in the Fringe (maybe because they didn't get in last year) and is instead premiering at the Illusion. This original story of a woman in a coma and those who love her is another example of the beautiful storytelling that TLA does.

Fringe Festival 2015: "105 Proof or The Killing Of Mack "The Silencer" Klein"

Day: 6

Show: 25 

Title: 105 Proof or The Killing Of Mack "The Silencer" Klein

Category: Drama

By: Transatlantic Love Affair

Created by: Diogo Lopes and the ensemble

Location: Ritz Theater Proscenium

Summary: A young man from a small town gets involved with a Chicago mob when he begins to sell his grandfather's moonshine during Prohibition.

Highlights: Transatlantic Love Affair applies their beautiful and evocative physical theater style to an original story that's a bit darker and more dangerous than their past shows. This story of how a small town boy becomes a Prohibition bootlegger still has plenty of lovely moments in the way this eight-person cast creates everything in this very specific world using just their bodies and voices, with no props or set. But there's also a sense of danger and suspense as the stakes keep getting higher for the ambitious Jonathan and his brother as they get deeper into the world of the Chicago mobsters. The human moonshine still is impressive, the car chases are playful, the creak of the door is consistant, and the gunfights are so fast and sudden and lifelike that I wanted to hit the rewind button and watch them again. 105 Proof has all of the playfulness and inventiveness we've come to expect from TLA, but applied to a story that's not so dreamy and more sinister, deepening the range of stories TLA can tell. The cast is, as always, beautifully specific in their creation of multiple characters and inanimate objects, and it's nice to see some new faces (Amber Bjork, George Dornbach, and Eric Marinus) alongside TLA veterans (Heather Bunch, Peyton McCandless, Derek Lee Miller, Allison Witham, and Nick Wolf). If you've never seen a TLA show before, what are you waiting for? And if you're a die hard fan like I am, 105 Proof will show you another side of them.