Available online
An ordinary hotel room becomes a place of upended perspective and magic in Thaddeus Philips’ connection-themed play
The adventure is over, the wizard has been exposed and Dorothy is back in her Kansas bedroom. Everyone is pleased she’s woken up. “But it wasn’t a dream,” the girl insists. “It was a place.”
The same could be said of Zoo Motel. The work of theatre-maker Thaddeus Philips and designer Steven Dufala, this online fantasia seems to be set in an everyday motel room, complete with single bed and en-suite bathroom. Instead, it draws us into a dreamlike world of upended perspectives and visual magic. By the time Philips plays a clip from The Wizard of Oz , we are losing our grip on the line between reality and fantasy. This room is both a place and a dream.