Where's The Theremin?

The House Theatre's "Dave DaVinci Saves The Universe", now playing at the Chopin Theatre until November 8, is a re-imagining of the original 2005 production. Creators of "Dave" - Chris Mathews, Jake Minton and Nathan Allen- revised the characters, rewrote the dialogue and reworked the format to add a new point-of-view to the show.

Without having seen the original production, it is difficult to pinpoint the dialogue, format and plot changes. The most evident differences are in the changes in the show's characters:

• The playwrights replaced the original fictional space adventurers Perdi's novels (Princess Pampamelia, Walter and Stanley) with a similar galactic trio (Cass Meridian, Arcturus, and T.H. Thoth) with updated costumes.
• The role of Gary, who was never seen onstage, has been deleted.
• Paige Hoffman, who originally only played Perdi, also plays Cass Meridian.

Other changes are also noticeable in the 2008 set which is warmer and more inviting with the use of wooden bookshelves and wooden beams to suggest a suburban home, or perhaps it is because of the change from the Viaduct theatre to the Chopin proscenium stage. In the costume front, Debbie Baer's Arcturus is largely more superior than Ana Kuzmanic's Walter.

The biggest difference, perhaps, is the replacement of Nora DaVinci's theremin concert (above)with a spoken word-infused house music performance. The new concert is powerful in its own right, but Stacy Stoltz's moving "performance" of the rarely used theremin was a highlight of the 2005 show. A clip of the concert has been seen in YouTube by more than 11,000 users.