shadow puppets

Even though the subtitle is actually, “A dark and twisted folktale about a mildly farfetched, highly illegal immigration across metaphysical borders,” I hereby proclaim it as: “Endearingly charming. Mostly magically sweet.” Once Once Producciones based in Mexico City have put together this world premiere and it's one to catch if you can. An aside: “once” in Spanish means eleven.

If you forget the dark and twisted part for a moment, it really is still a story of boy meets girl and the extents that young people will go to in order to be with the one they have fallen...

I have a lot of sympathy for the first show of the first day, especially since there are only 3 hours of technical rehearsal for fringe artists, but the performers of Spookeasy on September 10th did not make it easy. Starting a show expecting applause will get you off on the wrong foot with me every time. As will breaking character to apologize/complain about your own show multiple times, insulting the audience and hideously missing your light (as in leaning OUT of the spotlight).

That said, in spite of all the disastrous technical issues, the troupe kept their energy up throughout the...