FringeNYC 2005 Reviews - Page 3

Sunset Bitch
reviewed by Matt Schicker

Jessica Martin, whose one-woman musical act Sunset Bitch currently plays at Ace of Clubs as part of the New York International Fringe Festival, is a first-rate Broadway-style singer. But good singers are not hard to come by in New York City; what makes Martin’s act unique is her incredible skill as a mimic. In Martin, who has made a name for herself in England in West End musicals such as Me and My Girl and Mack and Mabel, we have a female Rich Little: an impersonator who not only sounds like someone else, but who zeroes in on a person’s quirks and exaggerates them in an insightful and often hilarious way.

Throughout the evening, Martin impersonates such oft-imitated grande dames as Bette Davis, Judy Garland, Marlene Dietrich, Liza Minnelli, and Barbra Streisand. A musical number about movie clichés features Martin morphing into a string of old movie stars including Jimmy Stewart, Mae West, John Wayne, Peter Lorre, Rita Hayworth, and others. A very funny bit imagines Lee Strasberg casting Marlon Brando and Marilyn Monroe in a Method version of Uncle Vanya. Early in Sunset Bitch, Martin does a dead-on version of Julie Andrews’s singing and speaking voices that's so realistic you’d swear she was lip-synching to a recording of Andrews herself. It’s such an impressive feat of mimicry that Martin reprises it at the very end of the evening.

It’s precisely because Martin is so talented that Sunset Bitch, which she co-wrote with Stewart Permutt and Robert Howie (who also directed), disappoints: though it does combine her vocal and imitative prowess and is generally entertaining, it simply isn’t the best vehicle for her talents. In the act, Martin plays Veronique Raymond, a jaded show business veteran who guides us through the ups and downs of her wide-ranging career with joke-filled anecdotes and songs. But the outrageous, glamorous terms in which Veronique describes herself are distinctly at odds with Martin’s sweet, slightly shy stage presence. She comes across more as an ingénue than a diva, which makes the title of the act seem unrelated to the act itself. At times it also seems that Martin isn’t entirely comfortable with the “stand-up” role the act requires of her, and she rushes through the joke-filled monologues, some of them fairly racy, to get to the songs and celebrity impressions. The jokes mostly are good, and a more confident comedienne would have made the most of them, but the witty, dry comic delivery the material requires is not Martin’s primary strength.

Fortunately, when it comes to the music and mimicry, Martin is the real thing, and there is much to be enjoyed in her performance in this respect. Her "straight" singing voice, which is shown off to particular advantage in the standards “Blame It On My Youth” and “Look To the Rainbow,” easily switches between gutsy belting and sweet head tones.

The finale of the evening is a series of celebrity “screen tests” for a film version of the 1980s musical Blood Brothers which really requires some familiarity with the show. In previous incarnations of Sunset Bitch in England, this last bit of material probably went over like gangbusters, where Blood Brothers is hugely popular and still is running.

Musical director/accompanist Nathan Martin plays with style and does not attract attention to himself, which is exactly how it should be.

Dark Deceptions: The Séance Experience
reviewed by Julie Congress

Todd Robbins is a self-proclaimed lover of illusion. So in his show Dark Deceptions he is very candid about the fact that the 19th century séance he is recreating utilizes trickery, and not the actual conjuring up of spirits. Yet he urges us not to try to pick it apart or figure out how it all works. Instead just relax, go along with it, and you’re pretty much bound to have a wonderfully fun, interesting experience.

Before we begin, Robbins provides some background information on séances and spiritualism (all of which began in 1848 with two little girls who discovered that by cracking their toes against a wooden floor they could make a rapping sound). Robbins also forewarns us that the last 15 minutes of the show will be conducted in complete darkness. This is not a show for those with weak constitutions (and, indeed, children under the age of 14 are not admitted).

No séance is complete without a medium. Thus, by adding a collar, a jacket, and some dark glasses, Robbins creates the Reverend T.L. Robbins, a commanding, mystical, and, alright, slightly sketchy fellow who serves as our guide.

I don’t want to go into too much detail as to what happens during the séance itself, it’s best to be surprised. But here’s a little taste of what ensues: the audience reads Robbins’s mind (more or less accurately), our pulses are slowed (and Robbins’s is stopped, as verified by an audience member). A table jumps around the stage on its own accord, an exorcism is performed, a tambourine seemingly plays itself, and a wineglass spells out the last name of an audience member’s departed loved one. There is a great deal of audience participation, and four people are invited onto the stage for the majority of the show; twice we all sing hymns together. The end of the production is indeed done in pitch blackness, with audience members holding each others' hands.

The interactive nature of the event brings about an unexpected cohesiveness and camaraderie in the audience. We hold hands, we sing together, we check each others' pulses, we laugh (Robbins does an excellent job keeping this a very entertaining experience), and, yeah, we may jump collectively a couple of times, too.

So, what are you waiting for? Go see Dark Deceptions. It’s engaging, exciting, astonishing, and you’ll bond with your fellow audience members as you never have before. And, c’mon, how often do you get the chance to be part of a séance?

Movie Geek
reviewed by Gyda Arber

The FringeNYC Festival is always full of multimedia pieces, shows that combine theatre with film, yet very few succeed at completely integrating the two. Movie Geek, however, one of this year’s multimedia offerings, quite effectively marries both genres to deliver a fully realized story about a fictional movie mogul who changed the face of Hollywood as we know it.

The show begins with a montage of famous movie themes (including ET, Gone with the Wind, and North by Northwest) that transports us back to the days when movies actually had overtures, much like musicals today. With this fitting opening, we are thrust into the world of Movie Geek, whose Citizen Kane–like mysterious last word ("Noseplug") launches us into a series of flashbacks that reveal his life story. Interspersed among the flashbacks, primarily performed live on stage, are filmed interviews with Movie Geek’s biographer, a Liz Smith–type gossip columnist, and several “friends,” celebrity cameos by Kathleen Turner, Bill Cosby, and Henry Winkler (yes, really!). Clips from referenced films are also interspersed throughout.

The cast is uniformly good, especially Josh Halloway as the Narrator, Maggie Marion as the love of Movie Geek’s life, Paulette, and writer Dylan Dawson in the title role. Much of the humor in Dawson’s script comes from extensive film quotes, sometimes full scenes, from movies like A Few Good Men and Fatal Attraction. Aaron Maurer’s filmed segments fit perfectly between the live scenes and frequently interact with the onstage action, most successfully in a scene in which our hero tries to hop a freight train.

Movie Geek is a humorous addition to this year’s FringeNYC, and a tribute to movie geeks everywhere—the celebrity cameos alone make it worth checking out. Do, however, try to sit in the front; much of the action, on stage and on screen, is close to the stage floor, and it’s nearly impossible to see much of it from the nosebleed seats.

The Suffrajets Present A Musical Séance
reviewed by Loren Noveck

Victoria Woodhull and her sister Tennessee Claflin were amazing 19th-century personalities. Tennessee was a clairvoyant who supported her family as the “Wonderful Child” from a young age; Victoria received visions from spirit guides her whole life. They were the first women stockbrokers in New York, and gave financial advice to Cornelius Vanderbilt. They ran the newspaper Woodhull and Claflin’s Weekly, and were among the first women publishers. Victoria Woodhull ran for president in 1872, years before American women had the right to vote. And both sisters preached and practiced “free love”—at one point, Victoria, her husband, her ex-husband, and her lover shared the same New York apartment. There’s astonishingly ample material in the histories of these two to write probably a dozen plays, and I’m delighted that a group as stylistically inventive as the Suffrajets has jumped in.

Tess Gill, Laurie Norton, and Dia Shepardson, creators of The Suffrajets Present a Musical Séance, have crafted the sisters’ lives into an evening that feels like an old-time vaudeville show, with only two performers (Gill plays Victoria and the cello; Norton plays Tennie and the ukulele; Shepardson directs). Moving from 19th-century campaign songs to burlesque ditties to punk rock anthems, the piece inventively uses a mixture of musical numbers and short scenes to hit the high and low points of the sisters’ remarkable careers. Tom Bartos’s music is variegated in style and texture, and both performers’ musical talents are well-showcased.

I think that large chunks of the prose were taken from historical documents—notably Victoria’s campaign speeches and speeches she made later in her life, when she was being shunned by “polite society” and the suffragette movement for her views on free love. (If they’re not actual historical text, kudos to whoever wrote them.) The speeches are completely fascinating as both pieces of forgotten history and as pieces of theater, and formed some of my favorite parts of the play.

Some of the more traditional scenes are also quite effective. I was especially taken by one in which Tennie plies her trade as both spiritualist and dispenser of patent medicines to prostitutes, doing what may well be as much harm as good, but clawing her way to financial security all the while.

On the other hand, I was less engaged by sequences in which the performers recite names of famous women throughout history, or run through women’s accomplishments since Woodhull and Claflin’s deaths. The larger contemporary relevance of their stories seems abundantly clear without explicitly calling attention to it in this way.

I’ve long been fascinated by Woodhull and Claflin, and thoroughly enjoyed this journey through their checkered histories.

Supposedly
reviewed by Josh Chambers

Supposedly is a meditation on one woman’s existence at two different times in her life, both of which seem to be characterized by a numbing, almost impenetrable stasis. Playwright/director Barbara Cassidy describes the play as a “triptych in one act” with events that alternate “between the banal and the extraordinary.” The play begins with the actors reciting definitions of the word “supposedly,” as well as assorted synonyms and usage. This act seems to imply that the mission of the play is to address the nature of assumption, belief, truth, fiction, etc., and it is, to some degree, about stories and the inherent falsity of any shared narrative. Unfortunately, Supposedly is simply not able to probe these heady areas in any fashion that is either cogent or compelling.

When we first encounter the lead character, Lola, she is snorting drugs in a restroom with her co-worker Amy. In the ensuing and occasionally simultaneous scenes, we are introduced to an older Lola, her husband Sam, and their teenage children Nick and Jen. The play basically meanders between these two points of view, occasionally repeating text or making incidental connections, and relying on the out-of-focus musings of each of the central characters for substance. While attempting to provoke and illuminate, it ultimately exhausts itself in non-sequitur and limp stabs at profundity. The questions Cassidy raises are well-worn, even timeless: Do you believe in God? Why bring children into a lawless world? Is nature a monster? But they are not seriously engaged either textually or dramatically, and instead are left to fester in the arena of performance as malnourished afterthoughts.

The acting and stage direction are of little service to Cassidy’s bland script. Although Joanie Ellen occasionally exudes a hazy narcotic charm as the younger Lola, the performances on the whole seem under-rehearsed and non-committal. There is never a moment where momentum or tension is achieved or maintained, and the cast seems ill-at-ease with both the words and the overarching action of each scene. In her direction, Cassidy often chooses to have the characters who are not playing the scenes enact divisive yoga-inspired stage pictures which actually serve to further derail an already convoluted production.

But my larger issue with Supposedly, more than the piddling details of craft and execution, is that the play is devoid of any discernible human passion. I have no idea what is motivating the play, where its ecstasies and agonies lie, or what is being sacrificed on the altar of its creation.

This all being said, I want to mention one moment in the performance where I experienced excitement and possibility—where Supposedly transcends its root awkwardness and opens itself up to the chaotic dimensions that Cassidy may have had in mind when first writing the play. It is toward the end, and out of nowhere the Older Lola, Sam, Nick, and Jen are marching in place in a garish white light to the sounds of “I've Been Working On The Railroad” as Younger Lola and Amy move to either side of the downstage space to enact their final scene. The moment is so genuinely bizarre, so completely uncalled for, that it galvanizes the entire piece in a single moment of mystery and provocation. This was the kind of evocation that the opening sequence promised and demanded, and it was a gratifying end to an otherwise compromised production.

Wade
reviewed by David Reinwald

“Do you need help with the machine? You gotta push the bar all the way until the quarters disappear.” Meet Wade (Steve Barney). Odd, yet caring and a tad bit too talkative. He’s one of those people who is funny without even knowing it, and he’s quite willing to help you on your regular trip to the Laundromat. He’ll even watch your clothes for you while you go off to do other things, lest they get stolen. Wade’s home-away-from-home is, in fact, the Laundromat. He says that he’s not one of those people who is constantly doing things. He just likes to sit around... at the Laundromat.

When I met Wade, he surely had a lot to say. He is quite an insightful guy. And, you know those things he says about just staying at the Laundromat aren’t entirely true. He also told me about his forays to the grocery store where he tried to meet some women. He stood around in the condiment aisle casually reading the nutritional information on the back of the mustard bottles—all of the various brands. Finally, a good looking gal ventured by and he struck up a conversation with her. It was all about mayonnaise. Too bad for my pal Wade, she wasn’t too interested—she hastily ran away.

Wade is a little socially inept, if I might say. You probably guessed it already. But, gosh the things he observes. He is one bright guy and is so insightful to the daily rhythm of life. He talked about how his homeless and deaf friend Charlie gets treated when he comes into the Laundromat. On that subject, Wade pointed out how white folk like himself want to give a little encouragement to a white homeless person on the street who is perhaps just a little down on his luck, but for a black homeless person, they ask, why doesn’t he have a job? Wade, himself, has felt like that outsider. In his youth, he even once tried to believe he was gay, as that would make him feel like his difference at least had a place. But that all fell apart when he saw his gorgeous new female schoolteacher.

In Wade, director, writer, and performer Steve Barney has written a one-man play that is funny and intellectual, heart-warming and incredibly perceptive. His performance is natural and convincing. Barney writes about the people who have inspired his performance: “For me, it can be very easy to forget that those people who, at first glance, appear to be playing bit parts in life—the convenience store clerk, the old guy sitting on the park bench mumbling, the bored-looking flight attendant—all have a complex first-person existence.”

You should go and meet Wade soon. Don’t worry, he’ll be there to greet you. And, don’t forget to get your clothes done while you are there.

Tokyo Nostalgia
reviewed by Kimberly Wadsworth

In Tokyo Nostalgia, Theatre Arts Japan showcases the work of Kunio Kishida, a Tokyo playwright of the early 20th century. Kishida isn’t that widely known in the United States, but apparently his impact on Japanese theater was much like Arthur Miller’s in this country.

The evening opens with Two Men Playing With Their Lives, featuring Motoki Kobayashi and Yosuke Takahashi as two unnamed men who meet at a train yard at night; each has decided to kill himself by jumping in front of a train, but neither counted on having any company. So instead, they get to talking—about each of their reasons for suicide, about whether they each should go through with their plans, and even about who gets to jump first. There are some moments of dark humor in the piece; a number of moments when one or the other decides to go ahead and make a jump for it and dashes offstage, but returns a moment later, making an excuse for not following through—Takahashi’s character returns to the stage after one attempt and complains the passing train got soot in his eye. “I can’t go like this,” he pleads to Kobayashi, “can you help me get it out first?” Both actors’ performances are quite affecting; unfortunately, during their more thoughtful monologues, I was having trouble hearing them speaking over the hum of the theater’s air conditioning.

This isn’t a problem with the third piece, Railroad, which has no dialogue at all. Kobayashi and Takahashi are joined by actress Yuriko Hoshina, the third member of the ensemble, in a mime about three people at a station waiting for their respective trains. I wasn’t certain what the story was that was being told in this case, but as a slice-of-life mime, the ensemble was spot-on. Many in the audience chuckled with recognition at things they’d seen on subway platforms every morning in this city.

Hoshina also serves as the evening’s host, introducing and setting up each of the evening’s plays. But she absolutely steals the show in the evening’s second play, Paper Balloon. The plot is simple—a young couple having a spat about how “we never go out any more.” But through sheer charm, the wife soon draws her indulgent husband, played by Kobayashi, into a game of make-believe about an outing they could take, a fantasy day trip to a seaside resort. They both get so caught up in the fun of acting out all the phases of their trip—the train to the resort, lunch at the hotel, a stroll on the beach—that they forget their quarrel, until the game ends—and with it, the play—with a sudden tender moment between them.

Hoshina is simply delightful as the young wife, giving her such a sweet, playful manner that you can’t imagine how anyone could resist playing along with her. Soon after Hoshina kicked off their fantasy trip, I was wearing a huge grin, one which kept growing the further they got into their voyage. Similar grins broke out on the faces of others in the audience as Hoshina won more and more of us over.

Director Eriko Ogawa uses simple, straightforward direction befitting Kishida’s realist playwriting style. Her wisest direction, though, may simply have been to let Hoshina win over the audience during Paper Balloon—it’s a performance I’m still grinning about a full day afterward.

Good Luck With It
reviewed by Hieu Tran

“I’ve rarely seen anything this deep be that funny.” Those were the words of my friend after we got a chance to see the solo show Good Luck With It, an indescribably surreal romp into the mind of San Francisco comedian Will Franken. Well, perhaps “indescribable” is too strong a word. But let’s just say that any description I, or anybody else, tries to give of this show is a poor substitute for the actual experience. In fact, “comedian” itself might be too weak a word to describe Franken. He seems to be more of a comic force than a tightly defined comic persona.

How so? Well, in a mere hour and 30 minutes, Franken manages to inject more thought, soul, and hilarity into such varied topics as the parents of murdered children or President Bush’s campaign to capture the 18th century (yes, you read that right) than any other show I’ve seen. The best part is he pulls no punches. He refuses to dumb down or censor his material, and he virtually obliterates any distinction between the high-brow and low-brow. So, with that, be forewarned. Parts of the show are incredibly racy. Yet even in those parts Franken’s performance is so winning and smart that you never get the impression he’s doing any of it for a cheap laugh. In fact my friend, whose close friend was murdered a few years ago, found the piece about the parents of murdered children to be absolutely brilliant, as it revealed the media’s obsession with “getting to the bottom” of people’s grief, as if 15 minutes on television and a published book deal would somehow help the mother of a child pick-axed to death find closure over her son’s gruesome demise.

Aside from effortlessly mixing high culture (references to Edna St. Vincent Millay, John Milton, deconstructing television ads) with low (the most scatological ad for a woman’s empowerment symposium ever), Franken also manages to find a marvelous balance in his performance between precision and spontaneity. The density of his work, not to mention the frequency with which he logically transitions from one subject to the next, suggests that much of the show has to be pre-coordinated. Yet, in actual performance, it never feels that way. Franken appears to be just coming up with these topics off the top of his head. The show doesn’t feel so much like a rehearsed routine as it does a series of spontaneous combustions.

Not to mention, it’s probably the funniest thing I’ve seen all year. My friend and I are planning to see it again, this time with more friends in tow. In a theatre with, say, maybe 15 people tops on a Sunday afternoon, the audience was laughing so hard it sounded like 45 people were in the room. I wonder how it’ll sound when the house is full.

A Play With Myself
reviewed by Robin Reed

What’s a girl to do when her dad documents just about every second of her life from birth to age sixteen?

After the death of her father, Marina Lutz found tons of audio/video tapes and photos of her entire childhood through adolescence. She spent years sifting through it all, trying to make sense of this stuff she never even knew existed. She has put it all together in A Play with Myself, a solo work that is one of the fringiest of Fringe shows I’ve ever seen.

My folks took tons of pictures of me as a kid. Heck, there are probably some old Super 8 films somewhere too. This is nothing compared to the lengths to which Mr. Lutz went to “preserve” Marina’s childhood. An audio tape of Marina singing at age three and another one of an interview that borders on interrogation after her first school dance sent chills down my spine. Mr. Lutz seemed to have a little case of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and a big case of creepy.

So when your whole life is spent (even at times unknowingly) in front of a camera, what else would you do than become an actress? Well, if you’re Marina, you make a pit stop as a punk rock über-groupie in New York and LA, kissing-and-telling your way into 15 minutes of bicoastal infamy, including mentions on Page Six and a spot on Geraldo.

Marina Lutz is engaging and charismatic and she’s got a very unique manner of delivery, dry and incisive. She drops bombshells that speak to her father’s questionable motives as nonchalantly as she drops the names of the over 300 rockers she's bedded. A Play with Myself tells the story of a New York that no longer exists, one of punk rock and CBGB's, a time when Times Square was the place to be: edgy, a little dangerous, and a lot of fun. It simultaneously tells a tale of a little girl who honed her survivor instincts early and used them again and again throughout her life. But just when you think you might want to feel bad for her, she tells of how she got the money to join the Screen Actors Guild from a total stranger who walked into the bar she was tending, saw the nudie art photo of her on the bar (with a sign that said “Help Marina Join SAG. Suggested Donation: $900) and wrote her a check.

This girl’s still got spunk. Oh, and she’s looking for help with a book and/or movie deal. Suggested Donation: $900.

Tarot Reading: Love, Sex and Mommy
reviewed by Josephine Cashman

Kimberlee Auerbach is having a bad day; her friends and mother think she should get married so her “life has some meaning” and now her married-four-times father has told her it’s time for her boyfriend Eric to step up to the plate and propose. Kimberlee’s not all that sure that Eric’s ready for matrimony, or even if she is, so she runs off to a tarot reader for some advice. Played by Anita Velez-Mitchell, who brings a marvelous sense of mystery and wisdom to her role, the Tarot Reader appears on the DVD screen behind Kimberlee, and through the cards that are drawn, Kimberlee examines her life in a series of funny and poignant vignettes.

Starting off with the Fool Card, Kimberlee investigates her childhood, during which she had an intense sibling rivalry with her younger brother Michael and, because of his childhood illnesses, she frequently felt that “it’s the Mikey Show. And I’m the dancing sidekick.” She progresses on through other cards in her Tarot Reader’s deck, each one highlighting various relationships Kimberlee has had. There’s the emotional tale of Kimberlee’s relationship with her mother and all its funny and sad ups and downs (what do you do when your newly single mother is getting more dates than you?). There’s a one-night stand with a painter, with its itchy and hilariously embarrassing trip to the pharmacy. Then there’s her abusive relationship with would-be venture capitalist Ben, which shreds what little self-worth Kimberlee has.

The events of 9/11 shake her out of her depression and her inner woman, her “higher self,” asserts herself. Humorously, Kimberlee’s higher self is a big black woman named Malvina who “is strong and confident and takes no shit from anyone.” With Malvina's help, Kimberlee dumps Ben, shakes her life back into order, and begins to connect with healthier and happier people.

Well directed by Eric Davis, Tarot Reading: Love, Sex and Mommy tells a rollicking and emotional story of self-realization and growth, and while not all the characters that Auerbach portrays in her (mostly) one-woman show are exactly vivid, her storytelling and sense of humor brings her tale to life. The audience eagerly goes along for the ride for this charming, whimsical, and entertaining show.

Hercules in High Suburbia
reviewed by Kevin Connell

Wouldn’t it be funny to take the Hercules myth, update it, set it in modern-day suburbia, add a bunch of one-liners, and have all the characters break into song? Yeah, sure, it could be. But Hercules In High Suburbia (in this incarnation) simply didn’t work for me. Now—in all fairness—there were members of the audience who seemed to be having a good time. I simply didn’t have the same experience.

Yes—the cast of actors are impressive and collectively have substantial film, TV, Broadway, off-Broadway, and regional credits. But in this production, something is amiss. Perhaps it is a thinly constructed script that seems to exist only to thread a path to the next song? Perhaps it is the airtime wasted between scenes and characters' entrances and exits? Perhaps it is the one dimensional performance style that seems forced—more about actors selling a show than characters coming to life? Perhaps.

Writer/director Mary Fulham has penned and staged this production about Hercules, the greatest hero of Greek mythology. As writer, she has gleaned only the barest of plotlines from the original Greek tragedy. She introduces us to a Hercules, his father Zeus (a god), and his mother Megara (a mortal). For some reason—not explained in the production—Hercules has been gone for three years, lost in the underworld, otherwise known as Hades. Meanwhile, back in suburbia, Megara is being evicted by Lycus. Hercules returns, strangles Lycus with a golf club, and eventually goes mad, killing his three sons—Ernie, Chip, and Rob. He repents his actions—end of story. Thrown into the mix is a messenger in the guise of a security guard, a pink satyr, a newscaster, and a dominatrix Playboy bunny named Madness. But sadly, Fulham’s direction lacks the vision necessary to actualize the intended comic sendup of the tragic original.

Making his musical theatre debut, the production’s composer/lyricist, Paul Foglino, succeeds in his score of 1950s spin-offs of tunes—a bit rockabilly, a bit Delta blues. But his lyrics are less memorable and fail to move the action of the story forward.

The cast includes Hal Blankenship, Ellen Foley, Dan Matisa, Postell Pringle, Dana Vance, and Neal Young. In this production of failed “bigger, faster, funnier,” Vance’s performances as the Satyr, Madness, and the Newscaster are particularly noteworthy. She finds success in bold understatement, clearly defined characterizations, and a natural comic timing, bringing to life the only genuine moments in this Hercules.

Confessions of a Dope Dealer
reviewed by Eric Michael Kochmer

Sheldon Norberg used to be a drug dealer. He grew up in a fairly well-cultured environment in Oakland, California, and knew all about the evils of drugs. One day, he is on a boat with his older brother, who informs him that he has been smoking pot for years and years. This terrifies Sheldon down to his very roots, thinking that his older brother whom he respects so much is a pot-smoking hippie. This of course leads to Sheldon smoking pot with his two older brothers, while still having a wide variety of cultural activities for a 13-year-old boy—he’s in school, he’s in plays as an actor, and he has a rock band. Then his parents move away from the city to the middle of nowhere. There isn’t even good weed in Rosedale. This leads Sheldon to dealing drugs…

Sheldon Norberg really lived through the life of a drug dealer until about the age of 30, when he went back to school and studied Chinese medicine and meditation. He then wrote a book, Confessions of a Dope Dealer, from which he adapted this solo play. His tale is very realistic, and happily it isn’t a "drugs are bad" play; it's more of a "drugs could be good if we knew more about them and could license them out legally" play. I’m not sure if I agree with a lot of the theories about the legalization of all drugs that Norberg wants to do by the end of the play, but a lot of them make sense and his glowing positive nature makes them convey very easily. I might also add that Norberg is clearly very intelligent—not only did he survive in the illegal drug trade for almost 15 years, but he was never arrested. I have to say that I liked Confessions of a Dope Dealer quite a bit, especially the first 45 minutes (after that I felt it dragged a bit—it was almost too predictable once he got into the points about how his confidence was dropping and his paranoia was increasing). But Norberg has such a compelling nature that his performance more than makes up for a little over-writing.