Julio Torres will continue his relationship with HBO for Color Theories. Torres’ off-Broadway play recently closed in New York, but the performance was taped during the month-long run, according to Variety. The show finds Torres “blending stand-up, surreal design, and dream logic into a whimsical exploration of color, emotion, and identity that is equal parts comedy, theater, and art piece,” per the official description.
As with Torres’ previous HBO special My Favorite Shapes, Color Theories once again takes everyday minutiae and magnifies it through the comic’s unique lens. This time instead of objects it’s Torres’ relationship with colors, which is “not unlike the way that people use astrology,” he said to The New York Times. For instance, “Navy blue is the color of law and order… of bureaucracy, of passports,” while “orange is the mid-point between yellow, which is childlike wonder, and red, which is rage,” as Torres explained on Late Night With Seth Meyers. (The Rock is orange, “because he is exciting but not aggressive.”)
Announcing the show, Torres said, “I have some untested theories about colors that I’d like to explain via this multimedia, potentially synesthetic experience.” The set of Color Theories is like a sketchbook come to life with the whimsy of Faerie Tale Theatre. He uses words and drawings to illustrate his theories, while the sound and lighting design come together to complement the various “Color Stories” sprinkled throughout. The show serves to expand the playful and peculiar world that Torres has built across projects, one that feels spiritually kin to something like Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. For example, Bibo the robot from Fantasmas co-stars in Color Theories, creating a tangible continuity as Torres himself grapples with the intangible. Color Theories does not yet have a release date, but it will live alongside Fantasmas, My Favorite Shapes, and Los Espookys, making HBO the home of the Julio Torres Televised Universe.
