Amusing acrobatic take on playwright’s process

A mixture of pantomime and circus, Jamie Adkins’s “Typo” at Theater Yong tells his story through acrobatics, juggling, unicycling, ladder walking and slack-wire balancing, supplying anarchistic fun for younger audience members and families.
Acrobat and choreographer Adkins’ acts begin with his playwright character trying to write a show as objects and phrases from his ideas appear on the blank page stage and changing as he continues to write. Each new page leads him on an eventful journey with unexpected surprises and innocent jokes drawing laughs. The live music provided by comedienne-musician Anne-Marie Levasseur adds depth and fun to the show. She jokes in French and plays the accordion, the piano and a bongo. She also wanders off with a ladder Adkins has been using to attempt to change a light bulb, leaving him hanging in midair.
No matter what Adkins does, he cannot get it right. The stage is littered with his crumpled drafts and one piece of paper he tries to throw away turns into a ball and bounces right back at him. He tosses away another piece of paper-turned-to-ball and gamely bounces it around the stage.
At other times, he holds on for dear life at the top of a ladder that is splitting in two, wrestles with his bulbous red nose and flips and somersaults across a slack wire. Throughout the one-hour performance, Adkins’s mistakes result in laughs, then the same mistakes turn into tricks for the amusement of the audience.
The show was nominated for a 2005 Drama Desk Award in the Unique Theatrical Experience category after a three-week run at the Victory Theater in New York. “Typo” also received four awards at the Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris.

by Limb Jae-un

The show starts at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday and 2 p.m. on Sunday. Ticket prices are 20,000 won to 50,000 won. For more information, call 1544-5955 or visit www.cfnmk.or.kr.