You won’t see a more imaginative or visually spectacular production
than Josh Zeller’s adaptation of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels,
currently being presented by the Actors’ Gang in Culver City.  In less
that two hours (including an intermission), a cast of seven gifted actors
bring Gulliver’s voyages to 4 exotic lands vividly to life, portraying (in
order of appearance) the diminutive Lilliputians, the giants of
Brobdingnag, the theoreticians and academics of Laputa, and finally
the horselike Houyhnhnms and human like Yahoos. 

The costumes designed for each of these peoples by Shannon A Kennedy
are awesomely original.  The Lilliputians have long pointy noses and wear
Mohawks made of long pointy spikes, and the residents of Laputa have
florescent spirals flashing around their heads.  Adding to the fantastic
onstage images is the dazzling scenic and lighting design of Francois-
Pierre Couture.  Light projected from behind an upstage scrim allows
shadow puppets to tell some of the story (including a brief history of the
world) and to create the illusion that Gulliver is gigantic compared to
the tiny Lilliputians. When Gulliver visits the final land of his travels, actors
playing the Houyhnhnms, wearing Tibetan monk-like costumes, pass
behind the scrim and are revealed to the audience to be horses (as
Gulliver sees them).

The stage is so filled with fancy and wonder that, were it not for the
numerous scatological jokes and images, this would be an ideal show for
children.  As it is, Gulliver’s Travels delights the inner child in its adult
audience, as it challenges them with its satirical view of the world.  The
cast (Chris Bell, Seth Compton, Keythe Farley, Vanessa Mizzone, Molly O’
Neil, Steven M. Porter, and Malcolm Foster Smith) are uniformly excellent
as is P. Adam Walsh’s direction. Ara Dabandjian’s original music and
Jason Tuttle’s sound design add to the magic, as do John Burton’s
puppets. (When Gulliver visits the land of the Brobdingnags, he is
represented by a puppet and thus dwarfed by the actors playing the
giant Brobdingnags.)

Even those unfamiliar with Jonathan Swift’s famed satire will find much
to relish in this production of Gulliver’s Travels.

Actors' Gang Theater at the Ivy Substation
9070 Venice Blvd., Culver City Through October 27
Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays: 8 p.m.  Sundays: 3 p.m.; Price: $25
Box office: 310-838-4264

--Steven Stanley