The Light Fantastic – Jackalope Theater – June 7, 2018

Promoted as funny and scary, the show featured good special effects and one moment early on when everyone except me (low blood pressure) jumped out of their seats.

The song Time in a Bottle became an element near the end of the play, which reminded me of the parody about drug testing, Mine in a Bottle, we did in the Bar Show years ago, which then reminded me of the show Urinetown (I would have liked to have been in the room for the discussion about naming that show), which was mentioned at this week’s Porchlight Music Theater New Faces Sing Broadway 1975 event in conjunction with John Cullum, who appeared in Urinetown, and won a 1975 Tony for Shenandoah, which I never knew, as it was only recently that I learned he was a Broadway star for years before appearing on Northern Exposure, like so many other Broadway stars who move to television, which made me think of Jerry Orbach, who starred on and off Broadway (two Tonys and the original El Gallo in the Fantastiks) before becoming Lenny Briscoe on Law and Order, though he never sang or danced on that show, which reminded me that I keep waiting and hoping that Sutton Foster (whose brother Hunter was in Urinetown with Cullum) will break into a tap dance on Younger, which is also how I felt about Dule Hill on West Wing, though they did figure out a way to let him tap dance a couple times on Psych. But I digress.

The Light Fantastic featured a monitor displaying the dialogue (and considerable sound effects), from the written script, which reflected some inconsequential differences from what the actors spoke, although I did notice one time when the reversal of order of a sentence killed a would-be comedic moment.

Other than that, and the moment when an audience member had to be helped from the theater after nearly passing out in the front row, the show seemed to go as planned.