REVIEW: ‘Gazillion Bubble Show’ pops into the holiday season
Photo: The Gazillion Bubble Show offers special Holiday Spectacular performances this time of year. Photo courtesy of Gazillion Bubble Show / Provided by JTPR with permission.
NEW YORK — The Gazillion Bubble Show has become a New York City theatrical institution, much like Blue Man Group and Stomp dominated the off-Broadway scene for decades. The kid-friendly extravaganza, now playing at New World Stages, has decided to shake things up for the Christmas season and offer The Gazillion Bubble Snow: A Holiday Spectacular, which means the bubbles are still present and accounted for, but everything else is a bit more decorated for this festive time of year.
At a recent performance, children and their families were able to ascend the stage, even before the play began, and take a picture with Santa Claus inside an enormous bubble. Then, when the performance officially began, those same children sat with wide-eyed wonderment as the bubbles took over the theater.
Fan Yang and his family started the Gazillion spectacle years ago, and this recent performance featured Fan’s daughter, bubble artist Melody Yang, performing the magical feats with various-sized bubbles. Melody has a definite rapport with the youngsters in the crowd, speaking at their level but never playing down to them. She communicates the amazing spectacle of this bubble environment, while also being gracious and grateful to the volunteers — some of them a bit nervous — who take the stage and help her with some of the acts. Each kid who steps forward walks away with a small prize for their accomplishment.
There’s no real narrative to The Gazillion Bubble Show, though video screens on either side of the stage broadcast the history of Melody’s family and how this show has broken world records. The tenor of the evening is more like a magic show, with an increasingly complex creation of bubbles of all sizes. Some of them are small in size, but somehow Melody is able to blow smoke bubbles inside the other spheres, creating a cool effect that sees bubbles trapped inside other bubbles.
One sequence has Melody creating an enormous bubble snake that picks up (and drops) a ton of bubble solution on the carpeted stage. One note: Audience members don’t get wet, but they definitely walk away with some soapy suds thanks to all the bubble action.
Perhaps the best part of the 65-minute performance is when the theater is shrouded in a torrent of bubbles, thanks to machines that are strategically place on either side of the seating section. This allows everyone, including those who were not chosen as volunteers, a chance to enjoy the mesmerizing quality of these small spheres of fun.
The children in the crowd, and even some of the adults, went wild trying to catch these fleeting creations, which only last a few moments before — voila! — they’re gone. The number of bubbles Melody and the machines are able to create is truly dizzying and all-encompassing, reminding this reviewer of the culminating snowstorm in Slava’s Snowshow, another off-Broadway (then Broadway) show that feels of the same vein as Gazillion.
Attending The Gazillion Bubble Show, and bringing along the children in the family, offers up a rare opportunity for young theatergoers to get acquainted with the whole theater experience, allowing them to unleash their inner-child and watch in amazement as they are surrounded by a bubble jungle that brings pure joy.
By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com
The Gazillion Bubble Show is refashioned as The Gazillion Bubble Snow: A Holiday Spectacular this time of year. Running time: 65 minutes with no intermission. Created by Fan Yang. Starring Melody Yang. Currently running at New World Stages in Midtown Manhattan. Click here for more information and tickets.
