The Grand Parade (of the 20th Century)

No vocal announcement instructs you as to what is coming next in a grand parade.  The stunts and spectacles just keep tumbling forward, connected through their kaleidoscope of movement, but otherwise distinct in time, space, design and drama.

And when it’s truly a Grand Parade, you can’t peel your eyes from the performance.

Double Edge Theatre’s The Grande Parade (of the 20th Century), on limited engagement at Arena Stage, hooks audiences on the creatively confounding concept of combining the ethereal paintings of Marc Chagall with an almost schizophrenic journey through the last century’s current events and chaos.

Greeted upon entering the intimate theatre with a circus set, the one hour performance starts to paint a slow picture of nonsensical life — complete with Chagall’s flying animals and dreamlike Brides — before then diving into a frenetic march of scrambling sequences that alternate between reminiscent, rattling, reactionary… and random.

In short, this Parade is hectic history on fast forward.

One can’t possibly see the show’s complete offering in one viewing — like did you catch the women on Stage Left manipulating the mannequins?! — but relies on major historic themes (landing on the moon! stock market crash!  Kennedy’s assassination! prohibition! Hitler!) to string together a show that, in the end, may actually be less about acting and more about athleticism.

It’s a completely unpredictable phenomenon of radical movement that — like a parade — just keeps tumbling forward, and demands undivided attention at every shot, swing, fall and folly.

The Grand Parade (of the 20th Century) is on stage at Arena Stage’s Kogod Cradle through Sunday.

*Images credit Maria Baranova