Black Light Theater: Aspects of Alice

I finally got to go to the "Black Light Theater" last night. What is "Black Light Theater"? It's an only-in-Prague thing, which uses black light to camouflage the stagecraft. It also involves some puppetry, mime, etc. A lot of visitors to Prague dismiss "Black Light Theater" as "touristy." I am Mr. Self-Aware and I am fully aware that I am, in fact, a tourist. I actually like to do touristy things when I tourist. I don't like to eat in touristy restaurants. I draw the line there. But doing touristy things? Sign me up.

There are multiple "Black Light Theater" productions around town. I chose "Aspects of Alice" because (a) the source material was supposedly Lewis Carroll's Alice, and (b) the theater was conveniently located just on the other side of the Charles Bridge, in the heart of tourism row.

I would describe the production as being a community theater version of Cirque Du Soleil. The black lighting does an effective job of camouflaging the wires and such when the "Alice" character is floating and spinning -- which she seems to do for much of the production. Oh and there's a little girl-on-girl action which they call "artistic nudity." although it's more girl-on-girl toplessness as the two Alices are wearing fleshtone panties, which was weird because there were a lot of children in the audience. I guess the parents were expecting a little closer connection to Lewis Carroll's Alice, although, I must say, I didn't get the tie to either Lewis Carroll Alice book.

The music was great and, overall, it was an entertaining 80 minutes or so. It's an only-in-Prague thing, so I'm glad I went.