Chronicle Staff May 3, 2021Updated: May 3, 2021, 7:20 am
Mugwumpin’s Black Baba struts down a scenic path in Cutting Ball Theater’s “Phantasmagoria.” Photo: Julie Schuchard, Cutting Ball Theater
The Chronicle’s guide to notable arts and entertainment happenings in the Bay Area.
Cutting Ball, Mugwumpin and Bay Area Theatre Cypher team up for Lewis Carroll collage
Among the few theatrical upsides of the pandemic is the emergence of thrilling multi-troupe collaborations, as companies who were long on each other’s radar suddenly have more bandwidth to make partnerships happen.
The latest in this glorious list, “Phantasmagoria,” brings together two stalwarts of the experimental and avant-garde, Cutting Ball Theater and Mugwumpin, with a relative newbie, Bay Area Theatre Cypher, which combines theater and hip-hop.
Ramsey Faragallah as the Father and Yousof Sultani as the son in “‘This Is Who I Am.” Image courtesy of Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company.
Written on an accelerated schedule (commissioned in June 2020 and ready in August 2020), then cast, rehearsed, and produced by five companies across the United States by December 2020, Sunday night’s opening was a revelation and a reminder.
This is an achingly human show you don’t want to miss.
Amir Nizar Zuabi writes from a deep understanding of grief all kinds of grief. He knows the ugly, unspoken parts of it, as well as the role it plays in affirming life the lives and objects that have passed, and the lives and objects still here. And he understands that sometimes grief can be a fragile armor to hold inside the pain until we’re ready to integrate it into a new, softer, stronger thing. Zuabi is a generous enough writer to give us moments to catch our breath and find humor and connection.