At 45 minutes, a treat.

At 60 minutes, a pleasant break from bouts of blackjack at any Vegas casino.

But at 75 intermission-less minutes, it's an endurance test for the eyes and ears.

What begins as sparkling innovation turns into stomping repetition. The visually bland scheme of black, white and silver never varies, except for flares of red or gold lighting. The pulsating music that was loud becomes loud and then miners-excavating-coal-inside-your-head LOUD.

Most of the show involves aluminum ducts, in lengths varying from hand-puppet sizes to strips long enough to fly over orchestra seats in the Knight Theater. There are limits to what one can do with these ducts: extend them, compress them, step in and out, pull them over the head, use the flattened versions as percussion instruments.

Show creator Ilan Azriel explores every opportunity provided by these contraptions – and then explores and explores and explores them again. The same can be said of inflatable pillows, which the dancers/puppeteers turn into a gigantic faceless beast or send floating over the heads of the crowd. The cleverest choreographer in the world would run out of ideas eventually under these limitations, and his back-front-side-side steps are often rudimentary.

The first sequences are the most imaginative. Aluminum tubes become questing inchworms or assertive serpents; they pop through holes in a wall to sing “Staying Alive” and convince us they are as animate as you and I. Creatures resembling headless versions of the Michelin Man chest-bump and strut, until confronted with a miniature version of themselves. Whimsical moments flash by without wearing out welcomes.

Then the humans make an appearance, never to leave again, and the show turns into a strobe-and-house-music assault. (Even when the music switches to jazz, it blares.)

Men and women in metallic-looking suits interact with silver balls and sheets that look like aluminum foil and strips of metal. They get into glittery, body stocking-like tubes and wriggle. There are still clever ideas here, including a fashion show that seems to have been designed by Doctors Octopus and Seuss.

But every idea is simple: Actors wearing this fantastical, shining gear walk around and around and just … leave. Later, a jaunty puppet with a crinkly metal head, whose limbs are operated in tandem by half a dozen gifted artists, walks around and around and just … leaves. By that point, half a dozen patrons in front of me were emulating him.

By Lawrence Toppman
Theater Critic