It’s playing at a London theatre (SohoPlace), but it’s not your conventional type of show. There’s really no plot, no musical numbers but there is music, it’s not really a one man show though there is one actor on stage for most of the time, and there are puppets and lots of movement but it’s not a children’s show.
What it is is storytelling, and we get to hear (and see) Phelim McDermott tell the story about meeting the highly applauded and decorated musician Philip Glass and possibly working together on putting on a show based on children’s author Maurice Sendak’s picture book ‘In the Night Kitchen.’ The picture book is about a little boy with a small pee pee having fantastical experiences (yes, really, but bear with me), but in Tao of Glass it is ‘acted’ with puppeteers (Sarah Wright, Janet Etuk and Vic Llewellyn) breaking the monotony of the one man dialogue by holding the young boy up flying him through the air, along with another larger puppet who is the son or our narrator, with lots of staging that gets built up and torn down, along with lots and lots of tissue paper that is thrown all over the the stage and all over Phelim. It’s a lot but it really does all come together. Tao of Glass also includes new music by Glass, but sadly Glass doesn’t make an appearance (he is 81).
But Tao of Glass (Tao means way) is also, as the program states, a love letter to theatre, and a love letter to Glass himself. It’s philosophical, magical, and mystical. And it introduces us to the concept of what happens when music and theatre meet – transforming each other into something very unique.