Comedy and Heart with Cahoot?!
Walking into the new location of In The Heart of The Beast on Hennepin Ave. sets a wonderfully creative stage for a night of theater. With creature heads and large puppets greeting you from the windows and beckoning you into the space, these faces do the work of beginning to pull you into a different world.
The scene that I was lucky to be brought into there last Friday night was one of silly reverie and thoughtful exploration with Cahoot?! Physical Theater’s original show Portraits of Curiosity. This show was a perfect example of creative clowning with heart. The five members of this theater troupe each developed an original solo vignette that was both hilarious and poignant. Through song, dance, movement, and a bit of monologue, they made us laugh while they explored concepts of family, finances, political “theater”, loneliness, and the challenges of being a woman under the often critical gaze of the world.
Some highlight moments included watching Emilia Björk Perkins convince us that she was flying through the night sky with her parasol, smiling at the moon and the stars; Kathryn Cesarz emerging from a frame as a Frankensteinian “wretch” of epic proportions to Strauss’ “Also Sprach Zarathustra” (the song eternally linked in my mind to the opening scene of 2001: A Space Odyssey); Chase Perkins defying gravity by stacking piles of books atop each other in a Sisyphean effort; and Jacob Snyder Timmons performing a hysterical one-man hand puppet act of four characters in the mayor’s office, including one external voice expertly depicted through the art of kazoo.
With minimal sets and props, these players brought us thoughtfully into a curiosity shop, a mayor’s office, a UN assembly, and a living room. The thread that set each scene for us was a nonspeaking guide - a tap dancer (Graham Casper Haught) whose comic and creative tone steered the movement of the night and invited us into back rooms or had us shift our chairs for new perspectives. By the end of the performance, the audience was even invited to join in a parade and dance through the space for a cathartic and fun conclusion of the show. I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of curios and can’t wait to see what this team comes up with next!
Cahoot?! is a company that believes theater should be accessible for all, so they offer all of their productions as free, donation-based shows. In April, they will also be offering a series of free theater workshops they are calling Open Studio. You can find more details on their website here: https://www.cahootphysicaltheatre.org/open-studio.
Photo credit: Eric William Jones
