This show gets an A
for Aluminum

Kids Stuff
By William Feldman

Welcome to Kids Stuff. Today’s column includes a truly fun weekend family-fun idea.
What do the words element, transition metal, silvery-white metal, and Symbol: Al with an atomic number: 13 equate to? Aluminum. (Can you tell I just finished an AP chemistry course? Mr. John Connelly, my teacher, would be proud!)
But it’s not just any aluminum, it’s The Aluminum Show, currently running at the Trump Plaza in Atlantic City through August.
The bottom line is you will be in awe after seeing how they combine dance, acrobatics, puppetry, special effects and strobe lights in making inanimate aluminum tubes come alive.
I have to be honest, I do not even know how to describe this unique but awesome show. I have never seen anything like it before in my life, and everyone else in the audience was saying the same thing. The entire show consisted of aluminum tubes, like the ones you would see connected to the dryer for venting. Some of them were smaller than that, some were the same size, and others had a circumference that could devour a human body. With this little element, I will continue.
First you walk in and you see the stage set up with aluminum pipes and red lights, all of the light fixtures around the theater were covered with small aluminum piping-shaped shades, and hanging from the ceiling were six large, four-point star balloons. I thought this was cool!
Then the show commenced with four aluminum-covered individuals walking to different parts of the theater, to explain to the audiences the activities prohibited during the show. The performers acted this out in mime to delineate the activity. Again, I thought this was cool.
This is where the chemical reaction becomes catalyzed. Forget about The Blob, you will now remember The Aluminum Tubes. You are watching these larger circumference aluminum tubes on stage slowly project horizontally and all of a sudden, out of nowhere, like worms they are overtaking the audience. Literally they came off the stage and crawled over and on the audience’s head, all the way to the back of the theater, and boom, they deflated and retracted backstage. I have no idea how they did this. I wondered what in the world it was, and how could I describe this to my readers, but I was having a great time.
This next act, I interpreted as a worm in larvae state and going through metamorphosis. Again, this could be from Dennis Erlich’s MG Bio class last year. This was unique, the movements kept reminding me of the ‘s’ bend of a sink’s pipes.
Forget the beach ball? At one point during the show they took these aluminum helium-filled 4X4 balloons and tossed them out to the audience. They were humongous and slightly heavy when they landed on your head. Also, they had great background music to accompany each individual. For example, they had mini-aluminum coils dancing to Daylight Come and You Want to go Home.
This was really neat, they had, I believe, six performers dressed in black, which included their head covering, but each one had either an aluminum arm or leg and one had an aluminum head.
They danced in very specific timed intricate movements, and when they finally came together they formed a body. This reminded me of the skeleton dancing you see around the Halloween season.
In one particular act, they had someone moving in such a slow motion without losing their balance and falling. It was almost like being in suspended animation. This was disturbing in a good way.
Next they had another act where tubes were hanging from a portable wall on stage and were being mechanically controlled, which gave you the impression of elephant trunks.
For all my readers who are fans of Enchantment Theatre Company productions, you and your family will enjoy this. Each performer has unbelievable artistic skills that could be vividly seen, especially in their puppetry act, which was larger than life. Their precise small movements and timing were unbelievable and equaled total realism.
The next segment used portable commercial fans and thin sheets of aluminum. The manmade wind made the thin sheets blow in the air like flames. The performers danced, did acrobatics and threw balls over the strong air currents that make the balls levitate and hover in the air. This device can also be seen at the Franklin Institute. I remember as a young kid playing with this extended periods of time, while my parents sat on a nearby bench and watched.
The performers brought an audience member on stage and wrapped his entire body with one large piece of aluminum. As soon as he was completely covered in foil, four small aluminum tubes made their way onto the stage, followed by an enormous aluminum tube. I was able to predict what happened next — the large aluminum tube "ate" the audience member.
Last, but definitely not least, were the models doing their runway strut. No, not the models you are thinking about, I am talking about aluminum models with the most outrageous outfits. Anyway, after the show the performers came out for all audience members to take a shot of trying different things with the large circumference tubes.
Here is some history of the show’s background: I read that The Aluminum Show debuted at the Israel Festival in Jerusalem in 2003, and the show has traveled to Portugal, Argentina, France and other European countries before making its debut here.
Here is the greenhouse pitch for the show. Basically all the costumes and props are manufactured with aluminum paper, tubes and pipes that have been collected from factories that are disposing of leftover materials. I guess they do not have a large overhead.
I highly recommend this show to everyone of all ages. The audience consisted of kids as young as 2 to the lady across from me who was over 76, but the best part is that everyone seemed to have a smile on their face the entire time.
For more information, visit www.ticketmaster.com or call 1-800-736-1420. ••
Columnist William Feldman can be contacted by e-mail at wmkidscolumn@aol.com