No question. The Tom Waits/Robert Wilson musical Black Rider at the Ahmanson in Los Angeles in 2006. At the time, local restaurants had shuttle vans that ran from the restaurants to the theater. Before the show, the shuttle driver made a point of telling us that, not only would he be at the theater at intermission, but we might have to wait for a ride because the shuttles filled up quickly. AT INTERMISSION.
This is part of what I wrote here shortly after seeing it: "[I]magine a production in which every character appears like the Joel Grey emcee from Cabaret, but even more grotesque and exaggerated. Wilhelm, the character who makes the pact with the devil, does not walk, but steps sideways into a crouch as he moves across the stage. The father, who bears a strong resemblance to Beetlejuice, stutters half his lines. Some characters seem to exist only to cackle and shriek. The music is deliberately dissonant (and headache-inducing). The plot, a Faustian tale, is so thin that, at one point, they tell the story of Georg -- who went insane because of the Magic Bullets -- twice. The first time is recited by one character and then, as if you didn't catch it that time, they have another character play Georg while repeating the exact same lines. And then there is a number where characters dance on the stage with the corpses of deer, with their entrails exposed."
Honorable mention to Passion and Aspects of Love.
Updated On: 4/14/20 at 02:15 AM
