FringeNYC 2013: The Assessment
There are 26,000 home fires every week. There are 2,000 miscarriages every day. Someone is diagnosed with cancer every nineteen seconds. But I do it out of love. Are you ready for your assessment?
Official production websiteShow details/ticketing at FringeNYC
Review by Melanie N. Lee · August 11, 2013
The FringeNYC blurb advertising the solo show The Assessment presents a mystery: a list of disasters such as fires, miscarriage, and cancer, followed by, “But I do it out of love. Are you ready for your assessment?” The accompanying graphic says, “I love all my people.”
The production presents a bare stage, except for a black metal chair, and a man in a beige suit. Who is this guy? And who or what is being assessed?
The Speaker begins recalling a banal ride through Penn Station, wishing he could detour to Long Island. Then, speaking about tragedies, he tells us that there are two kinds of religious people in a crisis: those who abandon faith, and those who stubbornly stick by it. Of the latter group, he says, “I love those ones. As I love you. As I love all my people.”
His job, he explains, is tied to human disaster: “When tragedy strikes, I’m last on the scene before it happens. I show up and the shit hits the fan. That’s my tragedy.”
He muses upon random disasters such as a deadly space heater accident which leads to an unjust execution in Texas, and upon random miracles such as a sick man, after prayer, vomiting up “something foul and evil” and then “his cancer was just f***ing gone.” Amidst these musings, the Speaker pulls a black metal chair from the audience, drapes his jacket upon it, and calls it Frank, a Long Islander with a wife Susan, “two perfect kids”, and a dog. Frank’s ordinary, unassuming life is thrown a loop by one unearned crisis after another—death, loss, disease, and more death. (Funny that I didn’t think of the story of Job until now.)
The Speaker is surprised by the responses from Frank’s near and dear. Susan resorts to quoting Animal Farm and reading The Poisonwood Bible to her husband. Frank’s friend Geoff confesses to a tryst. After a particularly devastating night, the Speaker wants to resign his job. Yet observing Susan, The Speaker comes to an insight about faith and about his own role in the scheme of things.
Written by Oren Stevens and directed by Nora Ives, The Assessment promises, and delivers, a mental exercise in exploring The Meaning of Life and the question of the usefulness of faith. As the Speaker, Alex Grubbs gives a solid, engaging performance, involving us mentally and emotionally.
What The Assessment doesn’t provide is a clear answer, at least not an obvious one. Who is this guy: God? The Angel of Death? The Devil? The Fickle Finger of Fate? Life itself? At least he knows who he is, doesn’t he? And who or what is being assessed: Life? Faith? Justice? Us? God?
So with significant questions without clear answers, I found The Assessment, as a theater experience, challenging but not fully satisfying. (Note: I got to read the script after seeing the play, and now I think I can narrow down that field of possible answers.)
Preview: Interviews with Artists from The Assessment
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:
Journey to FringeNYC · Oren Stevens (Writer)
- Where were you born? Where were you raised? Where did you go to school?
Alright, I have a secret, and I'm going to tell you, but none of my New York friends can know. Pinky swear. I was actually born in New Jersey. I know it's not anything to be ashamed of (Meryl Streep was born in New Jersey, guys*), but I know some people would be scandalized if they found out. I moved to California when I was two, and stayed there for the rest of my childhood. I made it back to the east coast for college, and moved to New York straight afterward. *According to Wikipedia. Actually, we might have been born in the same hospital. There's a 50/50 chance, as there are only two hospitals in Summit. But I digress. - What are some of your previous theater credits? (Be specific! Name shows, etc.)
My last show was a brand new adaptation of 'TIS PITY SHE'S A WHORE that performed to sold out houses with Bigger Than a Breadbox Theatre Co. in San Francisco. Ninety minutes, half the characters, all the blood. It was a rollicking good time! But really, if you're in SF you should look BtaB up. They're doing some very exciting work. And not just mine! - Why did you want to be part of FringeNYC?
I had a show in the Fringe last year (which I avoided mentioning before so I could bring it up here) and I had a fantastic experience! The Fringe is an amazing way to put together a show — there's an amazing community, tons of support, it's wonderful. - What was the most memorable/funny/unusual thing that has happened during the development and rehearsal process for this show?
This is the first time I've tried to write a one-man-show, and the result is that the audition process was kind of a nail biter going in. We only saw a few people that we wanted to see, and all of them gave really solid, fantastic reads (it was a very talented group of guys), but Alex Grubbs (who is playing him this summer) not only really seemed to grasp the role, but had this way of taking these speech patterns that are very much mine, and making them sound new and fresh and not at all like me. It was the first time the play didn't just feel like me talking for 45 minutes, and was totally breathtaking. I'm so excited for everything he's bringing to the table in rehearsals. - Be honest: how many drafts have you written of this play so far? Are you still re-writing? What’s the process been like?
So this is actually very similar to the first full draft (I've been doing some rewrites, and will continue to, but the structure is sort of set, necessarily). I will say that I tried to write it a year before I got the working draft out, and it ended up being a terrible two minute monologue. I don't know what changed in that year (actually I know exactly what changed but I don't want to give anything away), but it made it possible to write this thing right.
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...
