When Jessica Thebus went to a garage sale and found a bottle labeled Colonel Wahoo’s Electric Tonic, it was empty, so she didn’t have a chance to see if the potion lived up to its claims.
But the bottle did contain something else: the genie of creativity. When Thebus began to direct Redmoon Theater’s “The Medicine Show,” she named the main character Colonel Wahoo.
“He is an evil salesman who promises that his product is the solution to all your problems, but he is a very dark character who is a fraud and a liar,” says Thebus. “This is a show that comments on consumerism and advertising.”
Although the show follows a script, it seems to be five parts pandemonium and five parts spontaneity — as usual with Redmoon Theater. The charlatan that is the star doesn’t travel alone. To attract the public’s attention, he comes with circus performers and much much more.
There is a painted wooden stage full of all sorts of unlikely paraphernalia: a papier mache bathtub, toilet and sink and lots of alligator masks and puppet snakes. Between performances it is all pulled across the city “very slowly,” says Thebus, so that the actors can set up shop at various mini-festivals sponsored by the Chicago Park District.
In the course of the show a parade occurs, and children who want to participate just follow the procession and join in what is called a “quick commando residency” to learn their parts — whether it be as snake charmers or lizards that are part of an urban legend or cops who see to it that Colonel Wahoo gets his comeuppance.
“Children have a way of understanding the dramatic potential of puppets that we might not,” says Thebus. “They are a bridge to communicate creativity and to discover the potential of a group of people playing together and making theater together.”
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“The Medicine Show,” 2:45 p.m. Saturday, Gill Park, 833 W. Sheridan Rd.; 2:45 p.m. Sunday, Carver Park, 939 E. 132nd St.; 2:45 p.m. Aug. 23, Humboldt Park, 1440 N. Sacramento Ave.; 11:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. Aug. 24, Taste of Logan Square, Kedzie Avenue and Logan Boulevard; 2:45 p.m. Aug. 30, Madden Park, 3800 S. Rhodes Ave.; free. 773-388-9031.