Redmoon Theater » Hunchback

Hunchback

Dates: November 29, 2007 – February 3, 2008

Location: Redmoon Central

Redmoon’s 2007 season concluded with a remount of the company’s acclaimed Hunchback, an adaptation of Victor Hugo’s novel The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This visually stunning production tells the tragic story of Quasimodo the hunchback, Esmeralda the gypsy, and Frollo the villainous cleric, in a hypnotic, dark, monumental tale of loss and redemption. Featuring delicate mask work, multiple styles of puppetry including rod, shadow, bunraku and giant puppets, and mechanical towers enabling acrobatic feats, Hunchback, conceived and designed by Jim Lasko, was first produced by Redmoon at Steppenwolf Theater in 2000. The New York Times called the original production of Hunchback “an inventive amalgam of puppet show, performance art, modern ballet, and circus.”

The remount, directed by Leslie Buxbaum Danzig, resonated with critics throughout Chicagoland: the Chicago Tribune’s Chris Jones refers to Hunchback as “a very savvy and self aware adaptation…one of Redmoon’s best shows,” while Hedy Weiss of the Chicago Sun Times observed, “there is no shortage of true heartbreak and invention here.”