The lights go up on a most­ly bare stage. In the back half of the stage there is a sheet of plas­tic being used as a cur­tain. It’s snagged on a table. As it ris­es a fig­ure becomes vis­i­ble over a minia­ture cityscape. The light bright­ens to reveal not a cityscape but a mess of pots and oth­er mate­ri­als behind which the main char­ac­ter, the Mak­er, twitch­es and flut­ters. Ross McCor­ma­ck mix­es dance and clown­ing to bring this mad sci­en­tist styled char­ac­ter to life. He’s hard­work­ing, obsessed, and slight­ly pathet­ic as he pat­ters around his work­shop. Usu­al­ly fid­gety, the moments of smooth move­ment and still­ness pro­vide inter­est­ing con­trasts and fur­ther glimpses into this char­ac­ter. Two of his cre­ations join him on the stage. James Vu Ahn Pham and Emi­ly Adams are locked togeth­er to start, their feet on each other’s hips. They move around like acro­bats, con­stant­ly touch­ing and adjust­ing. It’s mes­meris­ing to watch. They are up on the table, then back down on the ground, then the Mak­er is flip­ping them round like toys. When they even­tu­al­ly part, they are like baby ani­mals. Con­stant­ly sway­ing as if they can’t quite sup­port the weight of their bod­ies. Their faces are, not exact­ly vacant, but open to the world around them which they expe­ri­ence neu­tral­ly because they haven’t learned how to react to it yet. As they explore the Mak­er tries to manip­u­late them to per­form cer­tain acts. Hilar­i­ous­ly for the audi­ence, this does not work as he plans. The final dance sec­tion is strong before the show ends with the Mak­er show­ing off his cre­ations again. Sound by Jason Wright, and light­ing by Natasha James is excel­lent.

This is mar­velous dance the­atre.