Flying Foot Forum's new show: A vibrant and inventive 'French Twist'

Zut alors! The Flying Foot Forum's new show, "French Twist," is certainly entertaining. From the opening number-replete with berets, accordion music, chansons and pseudo-French accents-the 90-minute show is a Francophile's dream: or rather, an absinthe-soaked, fantastical mélange of hyper-kinetic dancing, rapid-fire rhyming, wildly inventive percussion, live on-stage music and vibrantly patterned costuming.

By Camille LeFevre, Special to the Star Tribune

Last update: May 12, 2008 - 11:42 AM

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FLYING FOOT FORUM

What: "French Twist" with live music by Victor Zupanc, Eric Jensen, Alex Schroer and Peter O'Gorman.

When: 7: 30 p.m. Tue-Sat.; 1:00 p.m. Sun. Ends May 18.

Where: Dowling Studio, Guthrie Theater, 818 S 2nd St., Mpls.

Tickets: $18-$34.

More information: 612-377-2224; www.guthrietheater.org.

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The maestro of this controlled mayhem is choreographer and director Joe Chvala, a mad tapper who plays an apoplectic painter, a foppishly despotic king (imagine Louis 14th and Marie Antoinette combined, and under the influence of psychedelics), and a beneficently deranged cabaret owner. The FFF's usual suspects are also in full-throttle form.

Karla Grotting invests Chvala's manic tap, giddy rhyming games and maniacal vocalizing with spot-on precision and full-bodied gusto. And percussionist Peter O'Gorman is a master of rhythmic invention, whether he's slapping and tapping his own body (or someone else's), generating amazing effects with his mouth, or using kitchen utensils to create a symphony of sound. The kitchen scene and Gorman's wine description are especially delectable.

Newcomer Lisa Bark sings, dances and acts with delightful aplomb. JP Fitzgibbons embodies a sneering, slumping, scruffy, cigarette-chomping chef, and a frou-frou Madame whose supposed delicacy belies her sturdy constitution. Jeremy Bensussan literally goes toe-to-toe with Chvala in several dueling duets. Doug Anderson is a powerhouse performer. More of the delightfully droll Jan Campbell, s'il vous plaît. Less of the often-awkward Julianne Mundale. And give Charles Robison more costuming. (Why, in one scene, is he wearing only drab pants and shirt, when the others are peacocked, kudos to costumer Maryanna Culligan, to the hilt?)

FFF aficionados will recognize numbers like "I Saw Esau" and "All Creatures Now are Merry Minded." But they've been folded into "French Twist," a giddy bon-bon of purely entertaining proportions staged within a colorful Parisian set by Michael Hoover. Mais oui, Virginie, there is a can-can. But it's unlike anything you've ever seen before.

Camille LeFevre is a Twin Cities dance critic.