Twin Cities Horror Festival XV Reviews 3 The New Batch: There’s Room For One Thousand More and Evidence: Silence Experiments

It was the best of times is was the worst of times. Hello faithful readers, I’m back with reviews of two more shows running at this years Twin Cities Horror Festival. One is undoubtably one of the best of the festival, the other the worst. The festival runs through Oct 31st and it’s the perfect way to celebrate Monster Month. Here is a link to the festival website so you can get all the details: https://www.tchorrorfestival.com/

There’s Room for One Thousand is one of the most elaborate shows I’ve ever seen at the TCHF. Set in the Haunted Mansion ride at Disney World, the show begins the minute you are ushered into the theater, where you suddenly become a guest about to take the ride. Just like the actual ride, everyone is ushered into the center of the stage, surrounded by the portraits from the Haunted Mansion. Then we hear the voice of Paul Frees, who is heard throughout, narrating the ride. The portraits stretch as they do in the ride, and after the intro, we are told to make our way to the ride cars, our seats.

We meet three employees who have earned the reward of getting to stay overnight in the Haunted Mansion, but you can be sure there is more to this than a reward for being such good employees. The characters move through the rooms of the mansion, where moments from the ride are reproduced with astonishing accuracy, especially considering that a TCHF production requires everything in the show to be loaded in and out in 10 minutes.

Writer Tim Wicks’ affection for the ride shines through, as does his creativity. This is such a beautiful blend of design and script. Every element, from the wallpaper on the mansion’s walls to the employees’ costumes, feels authentic. The realizations of characters from the ride, like Madame Leota, the head in the crystal ball in the séance room, and the puppet of the Hat Box Ghost, which is twice the size of the human cast and looks like it was Imagineered at Disney, are astonishing.

This is now the show most likely to be the best of the festival. There is one performance left that is not quite sold out, on Halloween at 6:00 p.m. I urge anyone who has ever been on the Haunted Mansion ride to get to that last performance. I hope this will not be creator Tim Wicks’ final show, he is dealing with a terminal cancer diagnosis, but if it is, he is going out on a high note, one he should be immensely proud of.

The description for Evidence: Silence Experiments says there is a suicide cult and that 11 people disappeared. Five bodies were found; six never were. That sounds interesting. I have no idea what that has to do with what I just saw.

This is one of the most aggressively inaccessible shows I’ve seen at TCHF. Essentially, it’s a music show with visual elements that are utterly pointless. There are three performers in the show, including Roberto Kerry, who plays music and sings. The other two alternate between speak-singing while music is being played and using a digital camera and projector to display washed-out images of photos and drawings and written words on a screen that cannot be seen well enough to discern what is on it..

There are moments when some of the music is enjoyable, but as you’re listening to it, you’re watching one of the other performers put images in front of the camera that cannot be seen and writing that cannot be read. They also, at times, use a marker to doodle on the paper or photos and, for good measure, drag electronic cords in front of the camera.

One of the final lines of the show was “Please stop,” and my only thought was, they read my mind.

This is a touring show. Someone mentioned that it was from North Dakota, where I grew up. The performers are young, and I imagine they get a certain thrill from alienating the audience or being misunderstood by the aged white CIS man in the audience.

The best way to enjoy the show is to close your eyes, ignore any and all visual elements, and let the music wash over you. But be careful. You definitely run the risk of falling asleep, there is a hypnotic aspect to the music.

If you avoid only one show at this horror fest, this should probably be it. I think Kerry has real musical talent; I just wish it had been in the service of something understandable.

Don’t forget to keep an eye on the new website  79 Seconds on Stage a free and full guide to local theatre in the Twin Cities.

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