Violin. Clarinets. Cello. A toy piano. It’s a stage adaptation of the story of a chimpanzee. Lucy is further proof that local theatre has the power to create new and fascinating projects without having to resort to stuff created elsewhere. It’s fine that we’re doing another production of . . . I don’t know Harvey or whatever, but it’s really cool when Milwaukee theater can come up with something fresh and interesting like this.
Milwaukee Opera Theatre’s Lucy is based on the life of a psychologist, his wife and their chimpanzee. Lucy was a chimp raised as a human by a noted psychologist. She was born in 1964. Not too much longer after that, she was taken-in by the Termlins. She was tuaght sign language and a lot of different aspects of being human. By the time she was 12 she had gotten to be quite destructive. She was sent of to a rehab center to get her acclimated to life with other chimps.
Written by Kelley Rourke with music by John Glover, Lucy makes for a fascinating topic for theater of any kind. The fact that it happens to involve strings and woodwinds only makes the project that much more fascinating.
The World Premiere of Lucy runs Nov. 7 - 9 at the Tenth Street Theatre on 628 N. 10th St. For ticket reservations, visit Brown Paper Tickets online. A wealth of information on the development of the production is available on its website.
