Basil Twist's Symphonie Fantastique to Close Off-Broadway
Symphonie Fantastque combines the magic of puppetry with powerful suggestions of dance, film and art, set to the five movements of Hector Berlioz's hour-long 19th-century classic composition. Out of view of the audience, five puppeteers swirl fabrics and feathers, glitter and vinyl, plastic, dyes, bubbles, fishing lures and flashlights through the 1,000-gallon water tank to create an utterly original work.
Symphonie Fantastique premiered at Gotham's HERE Arts Center, where it ran from April 1998 to September 1999. During its run, the show won an Obie Award and was nominated for a Drama Desk Award for Unique Theatrical Experience. It has since been seen around the world and briefly returned to New York for a limited engagement at Lincoln Center in April of last year.
The show opened at the 199-seat Dodger Stages 5 on September 16. In his Broadway.com Review of the show, William Stevenson wrote: "Symphonie Fantastique initially looks like a movie. The tank is a rectangle, and various shapes begin to pass by… Like the symphony, the puppetry starts slowly and builds in excitement as the music crescendos. The swirling motions of the various objects, especially the sheet-like fabrics and Mylar that resembles overgrown Christmas-tree tinsel, perfectly matches the music. There's no story, however, and when Berlioz's music is less dynamic so is the puppetry. While some audience members will be entranced by the assortment of underwater objects and constantly changing lighting, others will find it tedious because it's all so abstract."