Black Forest Theater Offers Madcap Sci-Fi Window to Soul in ‘The Flaming Eyeball’

CHICAGO – A team of golden goddesses seemingly are traveling through space. What is their obsession? It’s a flaming eyeball.

Black Forest Theater’s latest production, “The Flaming Eyeball,” is a distillation of three year’s development through many prisms. Writer and director James Moeller began the piece as an exploration of Hollywood movie pitches and then it became the movie itself.

Co-directed by and featuring Black Forest artistic director Carla Hayden as one of the eyeball pursuers, the play flows through the final frontier of space with fellow travelers Masha Kore and Heather Svoboda.

While these seekers philosophize on their optically essenced nirvana, dancer Natalia Naranovich alights the scene as the object of their desire.

The small black box of the gallery theater is transformed into an intergalactic universe through the essential set design of Chicago artist David Jansheski. It is a character within itself.

“The Flaming Eyeball” runs Friday and Saturday at 8 p.m. through March 29 at the Peter Jones Gallery at 1806 W. Cuyler in Chicago. Tickets are a recommended donation of $10 or whatever level of donation you prefer.

Each week, a featured artist will open the show. On March 8, HollywoodChicago.com film critic Patrick McDonald will front his band The Telepaths.

By HollywoodChicago.com Staff