Death In Vacant Lot!

DownTown Express, Harry Newman

All the performers in the production achieve a remarkable level of physical unity and cohesion - all clearly sharing the same imaginary world - while at the same time moving in and out of some 40 characters.

An engaging, kaleidoscopic memory play of startling images, unexpected humor, and surprising tenderness. Throughout, characters and scenes transform almost instantaneously. It's a wonderfully controlled, open-ended chaos with multiple potential meanings.

New York Theater Wire, Philippa Wehle

The 13-member cast, multi-talented musicians, actors and dancers who have worked with Cirque du Soleil, Robert Wilson, the SITI Company and the Suzuki company of Toga, expertly played 40 different characters in this complex meditation on memory and time that weaves disparate tales together and moves backwards and forwards through space and time.

Excellent ensemble work and the fine direction of this young, very promising theater company.

Offoffonline, Frank Episale

Death in Vacant Lot!, an intriguing new performance piece combining choreography, tanka poetry, live and pre-recorded electric and acoustic music and performance,

Death in Vacant Lot! is a memorable calling card from a remarkable young company determined to carve itself a niche in 21st century avant-garde theaterActors play multiple roles, awaiting entrances and exchanging costume pieces in full view of the audience, stepping in and out of the onstage band, and providing sound effects for each other's mimed actions.

Steele keeps the action surprisingly entertaining even as he delves into the philosophical vagaries of Terayama's text. Often funny, occasionally frightening, and beautifully staged throughout, DiVL! takes full advantage of its excellent cast. The spectacular athleticism and seemingly boundless creativity of these actors is a testament to Steele's sure touch as a director and to the impact of Suzuki and Viewpoints training methods on contemporary actors around the world.

Of all its many successes, the production's greatest achievement is to draw attention to the fact that all theater is site-specific and ephemeral. The play isn't set in a small town or on a film set: it's set in the theater in which it is performed. As characters onstage grapple with the violent tension between memory and history, the window behind them looks onto the man-made canyons of lower Manhattan's financial district, just a few feet away from a great scar on the city's collective memory.

Hanjo

El Mural Newspaper r
"Obra del Año" for 2003
Hanjo vibrates at the Degollado. The opening night of Hanjo showed that the possibilities of the body are infinite and that Guadalajara is part of the conversation of quality theatre. [The play] explodes all the possible senses and shades of human emotion. The meeting, the waiting and the return bring us to another universal topic: love.

In the opening scene, Aura lays inert while Hannes’ body crackles with delicate tremors that grow from her womb until, reaching greater force, they bend every joint of the body.

Ocho Columnas
Hanjo an exploration of the senses and sensibilities. The adaptation was made by the American Kameron Steele and the Mexican Jorge Zul de la Cueva. The play is opening in Mexico and the adaptation is one of the best in the Spanish Language.

In many ways this play and it’s staging achieves a level of the highest quality. The South Wing is directed by Kameron Steele, who has a meticulous way of working; a designer obsessed with theatrical forms.

Hanjo is very interesting because Steele and his company attempt to transform the body into a voice, into spirit. And within the dance and the theatrical circus that is the staging you can feel this with great clarity.

El Informador
The Teatro Degollado has a new non-quotidian shape for the opening of Hanjo. The public was on the stage facing the house, as if they were the protagonists, the actors facing them with their conflict of human relationships.

The lighting design and musical composition are impeccable, and responsible for the precision of the play. Steele creates a show where all the elements make sense.

The story is universal in principle as it is told by a multicultural company.The action takes places in a small white rectangle with as little as a garden chair, small table, a wood stool and a bowl with seeds. The costumes of the actresses are completely white, steamy, out of time, and the actor is dressed in black. The three actors perform with bare feet.

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