Photo by Christal Wagner Photography
The Constructivists' ‘A Cappocalypse!’
The Constructivists' ‘A Cappocalypse!’
The Constructivists engage in fun social satire as they debut a new ensemble comedy this month: A Cappocalypse!. Created by Andrew Hobgood and Joe Lino, the show features a wild cast of characters who have been cast together under the most stressful of circumstances. The vocal group known as Oconomowocapella has assembled for rehearsal when it becomes apparent that the world might be coming to an end outside the rehearsal space. Mounting tensions explode into revelations and confrontations between the members of the group.
The Constructivists assemble a weird combination of different personalities that form a microcosm of humanity. Matthew Scales has a scrappy, harried presence onstage as the group’s ostensible leader Stanley. Ben Yela shows cleverly subtle comedic instincts as his hippie brother Chuggy. Stanley’s authority is challenged by an egotistical reality TV has-been (played by a darkly charismatic Joe Lino). Other notables include a paranoid conspiracy-monger played by Kellie Wambold and Andrea Ewald as a fragile assistant with a spotty memory.
Photo by Christal Wagner Photography
The Constructivists' ‘A Cappocalypse!’
Matthew Scales (Stanley) and Ben Yela (Chuggy) in The Constructivists' ‘A Cappocalypse!’
Hobgood, Lino and company do a respectable job of cramming the production with lots of fun, little details. Everyone in the audience is admitted into the show as a member of the a cappella group, handed sheet music of “99 Luftballons,” and assigned a seating section in the intimate, little studio space. Everyone is given name tags on the way into the space for reasons which become clear in the course of the comedy. There’s a fun universality about the comedy. The world is ending ... but it’s always ending. We’re all hopelessly under-equipped to deal with it, but real human connection can happen. A Cappocalypse! takes a pleasantly chaotic look into the chaos of human connection at the end of the world.
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The Constructivists’ A Cappocalypse! Runs through April 6 at Zao MKE Church, 2319 E Kenwood Blvd. For more information, visit theconstructivists.org.
