Under Wraps: A Spoke Opera

Under Wraps, an original work by Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland, is, on the surface, a story of unrequited love between a gay man and his straight best friend. That’s on the surface. But what about the sixteen-person chorus under a huge sheet of parachute cloth? This shape-shifting chorus functions as set, musical accompaniment, and as the hero’s conscience, repeatedly mocking his motivations in this funny, vibrant, and visually stunning show.

Artistic Fraud of Newfoundland’s Artistic Director, Jillian Keily, has created a startingly original staging style called kaleidography, which transforms the entire cast and stage into a unified image of patterns and shapes, constantly flowing into new images as smoothly as if one were looking through a kaleidoscope. The basis of this concept is a precisely timed grid style of choreography that has a central rhythmic structure on which all sight and sound are based. The resulting symphony of colour, movement and sound can only be described as theatre at its most spectacular.