The show begins before you enter the theater lobby on the 14th floor of the Cambria Hotel, before the costumed attendants greet you just past the revolving door at the northeast corner of Randolph and Dearborn and usher you into the elevator, before you step off or out of your preferred mode of transport and into the entropic eddies that are the awkward traffic of humans and cars learning to move en masse again, where some shop and some shout and some gawp agape across the street from—yes—street performers on trumpets outside the Macy’s. Check the mirror before you go out, because the show begins with you, and this is the last time you’ll ever not be at the first show to open in the Chicago Loop since early 2020. Will lipstick survive a bus ride under a mask? I have done the research, and the answer is yes.
When the action begins, your eye will wander. Dancer Mickael Bajazet has you from the moment he strikes up the band—every impish expression compels with sweetness. But before you get too comfortable, a bit of slapstick starts up between a custodian (Oliver Parkinson) and a maid (Cassie Cutler). Take note: they are unusually lean and muscular. This is called foreshadowing.
The greatest treats of the evening are also its greatest feats—dance and acrobatics by Duo 19 (Parkinson and Cutler), Bajazet and Vita Radionova, and Lea Hinz—performed at such close range, you can see every supple muscle quiver and track the calculations of coordination. Impossible distillations of physics, ingenuity, and craft keep bodies hovering between flight and fall—exquisite illustrations of trust in humans and human invention, radiant, perilous, tilting extravagantly on the edge of folly, mastery of this moment. (Between the acts, these same performers bring you plates. They pepper your food. They pour your water. It’s not new but still needed: a reminder of the life of service that many artists lead.)
Open run: Wed-Sat 7 PM, Sun noon, Cambria Hotel, 32 W. Randolph, 312-488-0900, zinzanni.com/chicago, $69-$234 (includes a four-course meal). All audience members 12 and over must provide proof of COVID-19 vaccination.
