DANCE AND MUSIC REVIEWS : Problematic Program From Mummenschanz

Most of the magic created by the Mummenschanz Swiss mime-theater troupe in the first half of a program Monday at Irvine Barclay Theatre dissipated in the second half.

What occurred was a wrenching change of dimension, a shift from a world liberating the imagination to one constraining it.

The downward plunge may have been intentional by troupe members Floriana Frassetto, Bernie Schurch (two of the original three company founders) and John Charles Murphy, who joined Mummenschanz last year. Or maybe it was inevitable, given the shift from ingenious free-form shapes to figures human, all-too-human.

The program, entitled “Parade,” was dedicated to the memory of Andres Bossard, the third founder who died in 1992.

In the first half, we seemed to be observing some primordial laboratory, in which an unseen creator makes and lets go various try-outs of life forms. The figures loosely appear to ascend the evolutionary ladder, but they do not survive even to the bottom rung. Their passing is gentle, however.

Billowing fabric covering the stage at once established a world of motion and transformation, with events--brief as they were--unfolding at a slow-motion tempo.

Lazy sea-creature shapes rose, fell and floated away. A quizzical bean-bag object rolled about, changing what was its top or its bottom at will. Amorphous shapes encountered each other; accommodations were made.

Though these creatures could be found only in the realm of the imagination, their appetites and needs were familiar, though never scary or oppressive.

How different was the second half of the program.

Here we were in a garbage dump. A trash bag thrown away at the end of Part One returned, but found an unwelcoming reception from fellow disposables.

We saw rodents scurry across the floor, devouring discarded clothes and a plastic bottle. Masked human figures appeared, only to engage in a cannibalistic war between the sexes--where parts of face masks are ripped off and devoured--some envious copy-cat rituals or sometimes creative play.

When the program ended abruptly, with the mummers unmasking, the feeling of disappointment was palpable. They had failed, but only by their own high standards.