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posted 10/10/09 12:31 PM | updated 10/10/09 12:31 PM
Featured Post! | Views: 147 | Comments : 0 | Theatre

Last Chance for Missoula Oblongata and The Nonsense Company

By Jeremy M. Barker
Arts Editor
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The Missoula Oblongata in "The Moon, The Raccoon, The Hot Air Balloon"


Tonight's the closing night of the Suitcase Festival at Annex, which sadly I didn't get to see any of. Infinity Live Productions arranged a killer five-week festival of great international touring theatre talent (liberally featuring the recent Stranger Genius Award-winning creators of The Cody Rivers Show). That said, this weekend was the weekend not to miss, because the two most exciting companies in the festival are performing back-to-back. The show's at 8 p.m. at Annex Theatre, 1100 E. Pike St., tickets $15 advance. However, the Missoula Oblongata (see below) has a rider that no one is turned away for inability to pay, so at the door it's a de facto pay-what-you-can.

The second act on the double-bill is Madison, Wisconsin's The Nonsense Company, with Storm Still. Set in a post-apocalyptic world, a bunch of school children trapped in the tattered remains of their school find themselves in an endless production of King Lear. I've heard great things about this company, and am sad to be missing them.

But up first is Baltimore's Missoula Oblongata. They were here at Theatre off Jackson just a couple months ago with The 50 Greatest Ladies and Gentlemen, and they kind of blew my mind. Missoula Oblongata embraces their own version of Poor Theatre: Everything they use in a show, from the lighting to the costumes to the set, is hand-made by the company and operated by the performers from the stage. This allows them to take their shows virtually anywhere, from traditional theatres to someone's backyard (which they do, in fact, do).

Their shows are a tender mix of the charmingly fantastical and painful, raw emotion. In The 50 Greatest, an entire city succumbs to tarantism, while a cowardly hero of the First World War searches for his brother. It's cute and wacky at the same time it's exploring the painful ways in which war and ideas of self-worth affect the average person. I have no idea what The Moon, The Raccoon, The Hot Air Balloon is about, but based on my last experience with Missoula Oblongata, I'm willing to wholeheartedly recommend sight-unseen.

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Tags: annex theatre, the nonsense company, storm still, the missoula oblongata, suitcase festival, infinity live productions, the cody rivers show, the missoula obongata, nonsense company + add tags
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