Boston Sunday Globe
SUNDAY, MARCH 24, 1996
LAZER VAUDEVILLE ZAPS MUSIC HALL BACK TO ITS ROOTS
By Mark Dagostino
This is Lazer Vaudeville, where the physical skill, comedy and magic of an old-time roadshow combine with the speed, light and color of a video game.
A monster, a dragon, a wizard and three humans make up this touring troupe, which rolls into the Music Hall in Portsmouth next Sunday for a fantastical family show.
“The Music Hall was built to be a live entertainment/vaudeville house – and we‘re bringing that history back in a whole new way,” said Cindy Marvell, one of the humans in the troupe, on the phone from the Midwest.
Old-fashioned skills from juggling to rope twirling play out under blacklights, lasers and special effects yielding such visual delights as a 7-foot tall emcee named Alfonso the Dragon, a glow-in–the-dark cowboy and a saw-the-monster- in-half trick performed with a laser beam instead of a saw.
The Boston Globe
Could any kid resist this?
Lazer Vaudeville pulled in standing-room-only crowds at The Music Hall on First Night, and this return engagement will be the only chance to catch the Florida-based troupe in the area in the near future.
Fans of old vaudeville should appreciate the updated juggling maneuvers in this show – with machetes and running chainsaws – as well as Carter Brown‘s lost art of “hoop rolling” with 10 old wooden bicycle rims.
Physical comedy fans will also enjoy Jeff Taub, who intercepts clubs from Brown and Marvell at precarious angles and keeps his acrobatics going throughout the show.
Tickets are $8.50 in advance, $10 at the door. The show starts at 3 p.m.
