Westmount Mag’s Byron Toben reviews Around the World in 80 Days once more!: “loved it again”
Read on WestmountMag.ca: My second time Around the World in 80 Days
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LOCAL AUDIENCES GET TO ENJOY THIS FAST-PACED TREAT OF A SHOW
By Byron Toben
I first reviewed this fine show of Around the World in 80 Days in Hudson last August, following its initial presentation at Lac Brome.
After an eight-month hiatus from these exurbs, producer Geordie Productions is now offering this enjoyable piece to a more local audience back in Montreal from May 20 to 29 at Concordia’s D.B. Clarke theatre.
I saw it again at a matinee there, loved it again, and as Sinatra and many others have often sung, “Love is better the second time around”.
I did not notice any changes to the Hudson show other than the much larger Concordia stage allowed the actors more room to whirl about as they handled their many boxes of props and costumes.
Thus, I have no changes to my original review, seen below, other than to slightly update my handy statistical resume, at the end, of the fastest times recorded to circumnavigate the globe since Magellan did it in 1615.
It had ended by my doubting that the world record set by the since terminated Concorde aircraft did it in 32 hours, 49 minutes, 3 seconds in 1992 would ever be broken by sub orbital craft.
However, Boom Supersonic has promised a smaller, lighter, more affordable Concorde-like model in service by 2022, with initial demonstrations by the end of 2018. This may at least reduce those bothersome 3 seconds.
… the much larger Concordia stage allowed the actors more room to whirl about as they handled their many boxes of props and costumes.
I am omitting times by satellites in outer space as being unfair competition. (However, for the record, this takes only about 92 minutes to circumnavigate, according to Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield.)
Another note – at the end of performance “Talk Back”, a tiny young audience member asked if the moneybag carted around by Fogg (played by Chimwemwe Miller) and valet contained “real” money. Mr Miller, in the spirit of Shakespeare’s Prospero (“We are such stuff as dreams are made on”) replied that all theatre is imaginary, including the money.
We remain in debt to the imaginations of futuristic writer-seers such as H.G. Wells, Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and particularly here, Jules Verne.
Around the World in 80 Days continues at the D.B. Clarke until April 29.
514 845-9810 or geordie.ca
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