Squonk’s Mayhem and Majesty – Location, Tickets, Reviews
Before Squonk’s Mayhem and Majesty begins a representative from 59E59 admonishes the audience to silence their phones and, he adds, “don’t look for a story in the performance.” Indeed, Mayhem and Majesty, a multi-media, multi-sensory concert, combines music, lights, video projections, and various visual effects to create an abstract, dream-like experience that has a theme rather than a concrete plot. The New York Times aptly summed up their mission as “asking New Yorkers to see with their ears. Or is it to hear with their eyes?”
At its core, Squonk Opera is a group of musicians. There is a pianist, drummer, guitarist, winds player, and vocalist – all top notch musicians. The arrangements and compositions are very good. The music is an amalgam of heavy metal and classical music, some with lyrics and others only instrumental, and it is enchanting. One of the best pieces is a piano-and-drums duet, visually enhanced with shadow play and smart use of a video camera.
Squonk is overflowing with ideas about how to translate their music to a multi-sensory level. The problem with Mayhem and Majesty is that while the music is beautiful, the overall execution is variable. Their use of projections, live video cameras, white screens, and umbrellas is inspired but the total potential “wow factor” is limited by awkward staging of band members, a space that is too small, and cheap-looking materials.
LOCATION
59E59 Theaters
59 East 59th Street
New York City
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RUNNING TIME
1 hour 35 minutes, including 1 intermission
TICKETS
$50 regular tickets, $35 for 59E59 members (click here for tickets)
DATES
Performances through December 29, 2013
NEWS & REVIEWS
Reviews
New York Times
In a Variety of Music, Seeing is Hearing
Theatre Is Easy
Squonk Opera’s return to New York wows aurally more than visually.
New York Theatre Review
It’s tempting to cast Squonk as a low-tech, vaguely steampunk Cirque du Soleil… In the best of that bigger, slicker outfit’s shows, although there isn’t precisely a narrative, there is a through-line that leaves us someplace different than our arrival point.Mayhem and Majesty didn’t achieve that, but each part is still entertaining on its own.
Stagetology
If it’s about music, it doesn’t really matter whether or not Squonk captured “what music looks like.” The music was so dynamic and compelling that I, for one, didn’t feel the need to understand it in any other way, lyrical, visual or even theatrical.
News
New York Times
What’s that Noise? Well, Think Again
CAST & CREW
(partial list)
Created by Jackie Dempsey and Steve O’Hearn
Featuring Jackie Dempsey, Anna Eldar, Kevin Kornicki, Steve O’Hearn, David Wallace