HOLOGRAM

Lantern Church Gym

August 1, 2011

I hate to say it, but I didn’t “get” this show at all.  There is lots of fancy multimedia used in the production but, beyond the “neat factor”, I’m not sure of the point of it all.

What I did understand is that the central character is Democritus, an ancient Greek philosopher who wrote about the presence of atoms and their properties.  Creator and performer Peter Christeas likens Democritus to Tesla.

Christeas, as Democritus, interacts with famous characters from Greek history and mythology – including Plato and a council of Greek gods – who are projected on the screens at the back of the “stage.”  (These are other actors – all in mask – who have been taped acting their parts.  This is one instance where I say, “Lose the masks!”  In this show, they are distracting and make it difficult for the audience to hear all the lines.)

However, I do give credit to Christeas for attempting the project at all, as relying on technology as much as he does to carry off his show is a risky move.  (He mentioned after the performance I saw about the computers crashing during previous shows.)

As he talks to the characters projected on the screens, his timing with his lines has to be exact, as he’s interacting with script that has been pre-recorded.  Sometimes, Christeas seemed to have difficulties with this.

I found all the computer imagery slows the pace of the show, as there is waiting time involved for an image to pop up on the screen.  Also, the video editing is fairly choppy and needs more work.

Hologram is definitely an interesting experiment, but I think Christeas needs to spend some more time focusing on the actual story he’s trying to tell, rather than all the technological bells and whistles.  He also needs to bring his acting up a couple of notches; otherwise he risks being completely overshadowed by all the computer gimmickry.

Hologram runs again on Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.