Mummenschanz
Saturday, October 26, 2024 8 PM
Cal Performances: UC Berkeley
Without Words! Delightful!
Mummenschanz celebrated it’s 50th anniversary of performances with three events at the Zellerbach Auditorium on the UC Campus. In this day and age of endless talk (often useless and repetitious), Mummenschanz offers 90 minutes of movement, mime, stage design and wonders..and best of all continual silence, except for our laughter. But the performers skill speaks loudly through their various acts.
We, the audience, are greeted by performers who (variously) roll balls into the ‘house’ for the audience to give back; transform their faces by the use of ‘clay’ masks which they change continually, offering one expression succeeded by another and (sometimes using unusual props or none at all) delight our eyes with transformation.
The director, Floriana Frassetto (the poet of silence) offers the current audience on a 50 year celebration through the “fascinating world of Mummenschanz, a fantastic journey, full of affection and brimming with imagination.”
And so it is. This viewer was delighted with the ease of ensemble playing, yet awed by individual skills in tumbling, gesture, acrobatic challenges, mask changes and surprises of all sorts. Let us hope that Mumenschanz will continue another 50 years!
The performers are: Christa Barrett, Tess Burla, Samuel Muller, Eric Sauge and Manuel Schunter. Bravo to them all and, of course, to Ms. Fressetto, superb director.