FringeNYC 2013: Uncertain Ground
Two actors in irresolvable conflict, demonstrating human aggression, which has become a dark part of our communication. The performers play with various theatre approaches, which result in poor theatre orgies on the border of vaudeville and avantgarde.
Official production websiteShow details/ticketing at FringeNYC
Review by Nita Congress · August 14, 2013
Think Dadaist Monty Python in a Slovak accent murmured by Kafka, and you have a sense of Uncertain Ground.
The piece is a series of sketches unforgettably populated by two consummate performers, Brano Mosny and Peter Tilajcik. The two are extraordinarily well-trained actors, conscious of and with control over every nuance of their bodies and voices. Their presence and precision in space, their unexpected contortions, their full-body characterizations, are mesmerizing. Mosny and Tilajcik, along with director and Theatre Stoka company artistic director Blaho Uhlar, wrote the sixty-minute play, which includes songs, declamations, dance, and movement—but mostly, two-handers illustrating a wide variety of mis- and missed communications.
“I want a ticket to [unpronounceable name beginning in a phlegmy guttural and ending in a pthew exclamatory],” declares Mosny, portraying an implacable customer to Tilajcik’s increasingly hotheaded and frustrated railway clerk. Then they switch parts, and the matter escalates profanely and ludicrously.
A bit later, we encounter Tilajcik as a mad orthodontist gleefully describing an utterly horrific procedure to unfazed patient Mosney. And a bit after that, an even madder innkeeper played by Mosney squelches guest Tilajcik’s hapless requests for the return of his ID with lunatic counter-requests for the key: which he already has, knows he has, and demands anyway, ultimately concluding: “You can keep the key, I don’t need it.”
There is a barber who out-chills Sweeney Todd, prompting his customer to ask, “Are you a murderer?” With the answer, a low, smiling, “Not just yet.”
There is a lover who declares his love passionately to a partner who only wants to find the mouse in the apartment.
There is an arrogant customer who views his waiter as a serf, and demands to be read the menu before shredding it and scattering it across the stage, mischievously noting that he feels the waiter’s blood pressure rising.
These and other skits are woven together with a recurring narrative about a drowning swimmer filling his lungs with water, rampant profanity, rising and falling bouts of hysteria, and declarations such as “I don’t think we found a mutual understanding.”
This thoroughly original, riveting piece makes no logical sense. Nor does it want or intend to, as attested to by one character’s assertion: “Every day I am trying to find certainty.”
Preview: Interviews with Artists from Uncertain Ground
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 · Juraj (Other)
- Complete this sentence: My show is the only one in FringeNYC that...?
...comes from Central Europe, the only one, that brings to the rich palette of FringeNYC that unique blend of grotesque angst, dadaistic playfulness, straightforward truthfulness and existential whisperings. - What do you think this show is about? What will audiences take away with them after seeing it?
In the best-case scenario, the audience will see something about themselves, which is usually hidden and experience a kind of catharsis by seeing it. In the worst-case, they will spend about an hour watching two wonderful actors doing funny things in funny situation - and that is not so bad way of spending an hour of their lives, actually. - What aspect of the show are you responsible for, and what exactly does that entail? Please be specific, e.g., if you’re the dramaturg, what are the things that the audience will experience that you’re responsible for?
I am PR manager, authorized company representative and a general "helper". I try to do everything I can so that actors and the director can concentrate on their work. For example, right now I am answering these questions. - How did you first become involved/acquainted with this show?
I was asked by Stoka Theater director Blaho Uhlar, if I could help with a few things and now I ended up accompanying the theater company at FringeNYC. - Is there a particular moment in this show that you really love or look forward to? Without giving away surprises, what happens in that moment and why does it jazz you?
There are many powerful moments - at least for me. For example when one of the actors - Peter Tilajcik - sings a beautiful Hungarian song and it is at the same time, funny, pathetic, sad and dramatic.
The Five W's · Juraj (Other)
- Who is more important in the theater: the actor, the playwright, or the director?
Well, it depends on a type of theater. In Stoka Theater the actors and the director are the collective playwright. Our productions are rooted in our lives, and grow from it into their own absurd, intimate, authentic, powerful beauty. Come and see Uncertain Ground and you will understand what I mean. - What do you think this show is about? What will audiences take away with them after seeing it?
Uncertain Ground is a theatrical study of possibilities and dangers of (mis-)communication. Through a series of bizarre situations, two actors act out that, which is usually deeply hidden: fear of the other person, anxiety and relational blindness as well as joy and happiness masked behind our Central European kafkaesque sense of lostness. And the two actors, Peter Tilajcik and Brano Mosny are fantastic! Very fresh, grotesque and brilliant. - Where would be your ideal working environment: New York in 2013, Shakespeare’s Globe, the theater of Sophocles and Euripides, Stanislavski’s Moscow Art Theater?
New York 2013 or Bratislava, Slovakia anytime. - When did you know you wanted to work in the theater, and why?
When I first saw a production of Stoka Theater back in 1990s, I wanted to be part of this group. Be their friend and help them if I can. - Why did you want to produce/act in/work on this show?
Because I like and highly appreciate Stoka Theater founder and director Blaho Uhlar, who is one of the key personalities of contemporary Slovak theater. I like his approach to theater and life.
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...
