Displaying items by tag: Fran Alvarez
The Attic at Goodman Theatre Redefines Memoir Through Breathtaking Physical Storytelling
At intermission, I sent Ken, Buzz Center Stage’s managing editor, a text: “So thankful I made it!! It’s intermission, and if there’s one show anyone sees it should be this.” By the time the lights came up at the end of The Attic, I couldn’t have agreed with intermission-me more.
The idea behind lifelong circus artist Shana Carroll’s autobiographical play began inside a CT scanner. Watching its bridge move in and out of sight above her, Carroll realized how much of her life could be told through the things she had seen while lying on her back. From her childhood bed to her mother’s and her child’s, from motel rooms to hospital rooms, each view from below held another piece of the story she now wanted to tell.
That story became The Attic: Things I’ve Seen While Lying on My Back, Carroll’s onstage memoir now receiving its world premiere in Goodman Theatre’s Albert Theatre. Carroll, a cofounder of Montreal circus collective The 7 Fingers, the company behind the production, also serves as its writer, director and choreographer.
The Attic perfectly walks the line between abstract and concrete storytelling. The pivotal events and overarching themes of Carroll’s life remain clear and accessible, while circus arts and contemporary dance explore the smaller details and dynamics that traditional narration could never fully capture. This is not a play with circus tricks added to it; it is a singular piece of theatre that replaces conventional blocking with a breathtaking physical language.
Tyler Meredith serves as Carroll’s onstage stand-in, carrying nearly the entire narration while moving alongside – and frequently flying among – the rest of the ensemble. Even within such a heavily collaborative production, Meredith deserves special recognition for the sheer feat of guiding the audience through Carroll’s life with such emotional depth, physical precision, and clarity, all while taking part in the circus work herself.
(Top) Anna Kichtchenko. (L-R, bottom) Melvin Diggs, FranAlvarez, Lucy Tan, Santiago Rivera Laugerud and Eduardo De Azevedo Grillo in The Attic at Goodman Theatre.
Still, The Attic cannot have only one star. Every one of its ten performers is essential to creating the world onstage. The remaining nine rarely leave the audience’s sight, and I defy you to find a moment when any of them is truly still. Rather than waiting at the edges of a scene, they continually ebb and flow with Carroll’s memories, moving like a single current that stretches across the entire stage while remaining connected at every point.
Nothing feels like a transition or choreographed scene change, even though every minute contains (no exaggeration) hundreds of precise decisions, from the subtlest shift in focus to a death-defying catch. If every movement executed by just one performer over ten minutes were written down, the resulting document would be longer than this entire review. The level of detail, polish, and commitment is staggering. Live theatre constantly reaches toward the seemingly impossible goal of appearing this intricate and effortless; The Attic achieves it.
Among an ensemble overflowing with talent, Nancy Luna is especially impossible to look away from. A fearless and mesmerizing flyer, she repeatedly launches herself – or is effortlessly launched by Fran Alvarez – into the air with a freedom that makes even the production’s most difficult feats feel instinctive.
The technical elements are equally precise. Projections, lighting and scenic movement distinguish and layer Carroll’s memories without overwhelming the physical storytelling. Even as performers soar and tumble in the background, the production carefully directs the audience’s focus, allowing the spectacle to strengthen the story rather than distract from it.
Although its explorations of illness, motherhood and mortality are geared more toward adults, The Attic offers enough acrobatics, movement and theatrical imagination to captivate nearly anyone. Carroll’s memoir is the beautiful thread connecting each mesmerizing scene, but every individual sequence is remarkable enough to stand on its own.
Plenty of shows claim to keep audiences on the edge of their seats. Shana Carroll’s The Attic earns that phrase in nearly every possible sense. The Attic: Things I’ve Seen While Lying on My Back runs at Goodman Theatre through October 4. Tickets are available at goodmantheatre.org/show/the-attic.
*Extended through October 11th
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