Sunday, April 1, 2012

Ahhh Ha!- Review

As stated in the previous post, we went to go see Ahhhh Ha! at the New Victory. 

DISCLAIMER: If you are an avid reader of this blog, you know I do a lot of reviews of the New Victory because A) We love going there and B) They give us free tickets to see the shows, in hopes that we'll write about them.  Rest assured that my review has not been influenced by the free-ness of the tickets, and that if I didn't like the show, I probably wouldn't write about it.  Life is too short to write about things that aren't good.


The Dog and one of the street performers.
 Photo by Jeffrey Freeman
The show was very good.  It's about 90 minutes long, (billed as 75 minutes without intermission) but the show starts almost as soon as the doors open.  For the pre-show, projected on the screen is the outside of the theatre.  In front of the theatre (on the "street" a jazz saxophonist plays (along with a little help from his bandmates in the side orchestra pit)  And a number of street performers start to take their turn.  Meanwhile in the audience a delivery lady is trying to deliver a package, and there are a couple of other things that happen (a great slide down a pole) a "dog" (two people in a dog costume) come out and do some tricks, a tap dancer, a juggler, etc.

Once the pre-show ends and the show begins-- this idea of being in front of the theatre kind of goes away, and it moves into more of a circus/spectacle show.  All in all there were about 25 diferent acts performed by a cast of 12 (along with 3 Klezmer musicians.) Some acts last a minute or two, some last 5 minutes or more.  The pace of the acts was quite good, and nothing ever felt too long (in fact, a couple of them I wish we'd seen more of.  A woman came out and did a contortion piece, and then while upside down, picked up a bow and arrow and shot it one time with her feet.  I would have liked to see her shoot some more stuff (the arrow went offstage)

The Ring Juggler.
Photo by Jeffrey Freeman
The performers are all very talented, and do some amazing tricks (the jugglers were particular standouts-- the main juggler's ring juggling in the pre-show was great, but he later does a Diablo Duet with another guy that also really rocked.)  An aerial piece involving 5 people doing what amounts to synchornized swimming in the air was wonderful, as was the ending piece, which used an illusion screen to make it seem as if the top part and bottom part of a person could separate.  They did some really inventive choreography with this, and at some points people's torsos and the legs started to not match up in very amusing ways.

My 3.5 year old son really loved the show, although I have to confess that he fell asleep with about 20 minutes left to go.  He'd had a hard day (he's in the process of giving up his nap, so he gets really sleepy in the afternoons, we had a surprise brunch with my aunt and my cousin/her grand-daughter who were in from Florida, and we've had houseguests for the weekend, so he'd been run pretty ragged.)  When he woke up, he couldn't wait to tell his mom all about the lady who shot the arrow with her feet.  I'm sure he would have really liked the parts of the show he was sleeping during.  I know I did!

Do Jump's Ahhhh Ha!  continues through April 14 at the New Victory Theatre

The show will be at the New Victory from March 30- April 14. On April 15, a special gala performance benefiting the New Victory Education Program and New Vic/New 42 Youth Corps.  That will be followed by a party on every level of the theatre.

To see the promo video of Do Jump!, see below.

  To find out more, and purchase tickets, visit the New Victory website.
  You can also visit the Do Jump! website:  http://www.dojump.org

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