FringeNYC 2013: Down the Mountain and Across the Stream
Your child is at war. Is she safe? Turner claims to know. He sells the information, but if he has the truth, why does he hire Eric to deliver it? Alice and Gerald are about to find out.
Official production websiteShow details/ticketing at FringeNYC
Review by Garry Schrader · August 10, 2013
The title recalls Hemingway, his first flop, Across the River and Into the Woods, and one of the main characters does too: Gerald is a writer, sensitive and macho at the same time, who carries a gun and says he was “built for war.”
But I read playwright Jake Shore’s Down the Mountain and Across the Stream as a critique of a certain style of masculinity, a critique that calls to mind a favorite—truer—reversal of an old truism: “When the tough get going, the going gets tough.”
The hour-long play is set in the nonspecific future, when war is a constant and the generals don’t much care any more about winning hearts and minds, can’t even be bothered to let grieving families know the fates of their cannon-fodder sons and daughters.
Gerald and his wife, Alice, have a son who went off to war, and from whom they have heard nothing. Alice lives in the simple faith that he’s still alive, but for Gerald, “Hope can be…bad. It can be bad if it’s untrue.” A backwoods capitalist, Turner, has found a way into the generals’ enclave and is turning a nice profit selling the news of the life or death of their children to worried families. Turner sends two colleagues—ambivalent Eric and pragmatic Jen—to visit Gerald and make him a deal.
Shore’s dystopian vision of a militaristic, late-capitalist near-future is strong, but is compromised somewhat by problems of plausibility and the fact that the primary characters make decisions that seem more rash and stupid than tragic. The cast is solid across the board. I found Stephen Heskett particularly compelling as the conflicted Eric, who exemplifies T. S. Eliot’s observation that the good tend to be weak. Daniel Damiano's Gerald is persuasive in suffering and in anger, and the tension and skittishness of Cara Moretto’s Jen helps build the suspense. Laurie Avant was a touching Alice, but I wondered if the character needed to seem so simple-minded.
Mr. Shore does double-duty as director, and while he gets credit for sustaining tension and a consistently somber tone, he has given short shrift to the stagecraft. Some kind of set design would have been welcome, as would more blocking: His actors too often seem uncomfortably glued to the three cubes that constitute the set.
Nevertheless, serious-minded plays, plays that ask us to question how our characters are affected by our society, and how our choices have consequences, are always welcome, particularly at FringeNYC. So give welcome to Down the Mountain and Across the Stream, one of the more intelligent and thoughtful plays you are likely to see at FringeNYC this year.
Preview: Interviews with Artists from Down the Mountain and Across the Stream
We're asking artists from each show to answer questions about themselves and their work to help our readers get a detailed advance picture of the festival:
All About My Show · Jake Shore (Writer)
- Complete this sentence: My show is the only one in FringeNYC that...?
was a top ten choice for the 2013 Stanley Drama Award. - What do you think this show is about? What will audiences take away with them after seeing it?
The show is about the difference between a person's intentions and their actions, war, a mother's unrelenting love for her child, profanity, deception and the natural human tendency to mimic those who are closest. It affirms hope. - Why did you want to write this show?
My want was born out of my need to write. It's why I'm alive. - Who are some of the people who helped you create this show, and what were their important contributions to the finished product?
Cara Moretto suggested I change a male character to a female one. It awakened me to the fact that a particular character was a bit forced and artificial as a man, but after being re-worked became organic and true as a woman. - Which character from a Shakespeare play would like your show the best: King Lear, Puck, Rosalind, or Lady Macbeth -- and why?
Rosalind. Puck has seen my show and claims the whole thing was a dream, which I contest but he holds firm to. I trust Rosalind. She's a smart cookie. I think she'll like it.
Gianfranco Lentini reviews Waiting For Waiting For Godot
“There’s nothing [everything] to be done” about Waiting for Waiting for Godot at the 2013 New York International Fringe Festival. Written by Dave Hanson and directed by...
Julie Congress reviews The Magic Mirror
The Magic Mirror, an opera with 14 singers and a live orchestra of seven (plus a conductor!), has a sound of a magnitude unlike any other FringeNYC show. Yet while an auditory...
Andrew Rothkin reviews The Young Olympians and The Most Amazingly Awesome Adventure Ever
What do you get when you combine ancient Greek mythology with puppetry, pop
culture, a wacky quest, and some fun and catchy new tunes? If you’re the
talented cast and crew of The Maryland...
Jason S. Grossman reviews The Famous Play
Two actors appear on stage and post an enormous sign with the playwright's contact information. A narrator enters and identifies himself as the playwright and describes what the audience is...
Kimberly Wadsworth reviews unbidden
Geneticist Julia Lamb, the woman at the center of Joanne Hudson’s Unbidden, is something of a mess. While researching a study into the human genome, Julia (Chelsea Leigh Barrett)...
David Koteles reviews Marshall's Law
A man and a woman are locked in a basement. A basement where dark secrets seem to be kept, waiting to be revealed. We learn the man and woman used to be best friends, until he “stole”...
Fred Backus reviews Mercedes Benz Awkwardly
Arriving from Australia to help close out the 2013 New YorkInternational Fringe Festival in its final week is Mercedes Benz Awkwardly, a raucous one-woman comedy about a first time...
Bob Stewart reviews The TomKat Project
The TomKat Project by writer Brandon Ogborn is a great example, (by this reviewer) of a perfect FringeNYC Show. It has 7 players, (including the playwright as narrator) 7 chairs, a few...
Pamela Butler reviews The Unfortunates
The late 19th century in London’s East End was not a safe place for young women plying the trade of prostitution. Women who for one reason or another fell into desperate situations, were...
Robert Weinstein reviews Quake: A Love Story
Ain’t Real Theatre Company’s Quake: A Love Story begins in the basement of a sparring couple as they go through their collective possessions after a bitter separation....
Gianfranco Lentini reviews William
1592. The end of the Renaissance is rapidly approaching, and the Baroque period is about to take the stage. Henry VI (Parts I-III) has been publicly performed, and the audience cries for...
Mitchell Conway reviews And It Spins Twice
For those interested in contemplating the implications of string theory, And It Spins Twice is a good introduction to some of the concepts that are radically altering our understanding...
