Manchego: The Birth of Cheese, by Ambrose Martos

Manchego: The Birth of Cheese
Written and performed by Ambrose Martos
Lighting Designer Berit Johnson

Manchego is definitely a great children’s show! Actually no – it is slated more towards adults. But kids would most likely love Ambrose’s humor and he does bring out the adult kid with his audience. Ambrose is an excellent entertainer and can most likely make almost any material funny. Ambrose’s usual self-indulgent character takes the audience on a fun ride of his life full of Ambrose sexuality and he even changes and grows a little bit. His audience interaction is playful – with lots of somewhat edgy material. One piece of advice and this is from personal experience; there was a pregnant lady in the audience, which he mentioned and had a nice moment with. Never, no matter how pregnant the woman is, how sure you are that the woman is pregnant, talk about her being pregnant. Why? Because there will come a time when you will be so sure and you will be wrong about her being pregnant. Yes, it should only take one instance for a performer to learn this lesson – sometimes it takes twice.

Ambrose’s use of lighting, sound and film was great. Berit Johnson lighting designer deserves big hand for simple and effective light in a festival show, which is not easy. A film credit would have been good to see in his program along with the dancers in his film. Ambrose makes use of a lot of music, but gives no credit to the musicians who recorded the music. Using pre recorded music, which many people do can be a major problem, if you want to move your show to that next professional level and suddenly need to get permission to use all the music. Personally I do not believe it is a good thing to depend on popular recorded music to support a show. If you are going to use music, work with musicians to come up with your own music or do the music yourself. It is so often just a crutch limiting your growth and creativity. Someone told me after the show, in festivals in Europe they make you list all your music and show you have permission to use it.

Outrageousness is throughout the show combined with some good technique. The puppet work is fun and effective as well as this hula-hoops work. The roller-skating one is never really sure if he can skate. At some point it could be nice to see a flash of some great skating. Nit picking, his grandma could be filled with more age from the beginning and playing with the level and timing of some of his entrances and exits could help it become an even more effective show. Manchego will not be everyone’s cup of tea but this audience had a great time and so did I. Of course there is Ambrose’s trademark and people that know him as a performer know what that is. From the last solo show Ambrose did a few years ago – Manchego: The Birth of Cheese, shows real growth as a creator. Keep on going and pushing the limits.