By Margaret Quamme, The Columbus Dispatch
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Shadowbox Live’s new show, Body Language, is a fresh take on a familiar format. While a few bits pay tribute to common Shadowbox material, most are original and crisply polished. Veteran players take the lead in most of the skits and songs, but they also leave room for plenty of new talent.
As usual, sketches and songs alternate in the sex-themed show, interspersed with occasional self-mocking videos. The skits range from sweet to comically bawdy, with the raunchiness ratcheting up as the evening unwinds, while the musical numbers are more intense and serious. At times, the switch between one mood and another can be disorienting, but for the most part, they complement each other.
The skits this time are nicely varied and pleasingly brief, which gives more actors an opportunity to shine, and most allow for some finely tuned physical comedy. Some feature players whose long-time experience with each other makes for an ease with each other and impeccable timing: In one, young Gracie (Julie Klein) deals with the marital problems of Barbie (Amy Lay) and Ken (J.T. Walker III), both of whose physical movements are comically recognizable.
Others showcase larger casts of characters. In Sperm Dating, beleaguered ova Betsy Shortt is courted by a half dozen barroom suitors, as other candidates swim nimbly through the scene.
Among the newer players, with a number of small but amusing parts, is Brandon Anderson, who shows an ability to wink at his posturing image in both skits and in a dynamic but playful version of Foxy Lady.
The skits also benefit from precise and well designed technical support. A sketch in which a woman (Klein) talks to her GPS (Jimmy Mak) sparkles not just because of Klein’s wry, well-timed delivery but because of perfectly synchronized lighting and sound effects, as does a sketch in which a warring couple (Walker and Stacie Boord) communicate through snatches of songs punched into a car radio.
Even the more typical skits, like a soap opera parody, play clever variations on the usual themes, shifting briskly between American, Spanish and Russian takes on a hospital scene.
Shadowbox has always been strong musically, but this production highlights how well the varied singers work together. Together, Jennifer Hahn and Stacie Boord make Alannah Myles’ Black Velvet an elegantly sultry stunner. Boord, Lay and Leah Haviland work equal magic on Nelly Furtado’s Turn Off the Lights, with their voices combining to make more than the sum of their parts.
The evening ends with a quietly electrifying Purple Rain, to which all of the company’s primary vocalists contribute, with the focus moving smoothly from one singer to another without diminishing the song’s communal effect.
Even those who think they know what to expect from Shadowbox should be surprised and pleased by the level to which the company has grown, while those who haven’t experienced it will find this a good time to give it a try.