FringeNYC 2005 Reviews - Page 4

The Lightning Field
reviewed by Kevin Connell

The Lightning Field (1977) is an art installation by the American sculptor Walter De Maria. It is a work of Land Art situated in the high desert of southwestern New Mexico comprised of 400 polished stainless steel poles installed in a grid measuring one mile by one kilometer. The Field is more than an invitation for lightning strikes, more than a piece of art, it is destination for lost souls in search of an improbable stroke of fortune.

The Lightning Field is also the inspiration for David Ozanich’s new play, which is a must see! at the New York International Fringe Festival and certainly deserves an extended theatrical life. Ozanich is a daring writer, eager to give voice to the brewing storm churning inside his characters. His writing is complex without relying on sentimentality. He articulates, with skill and maturity, an ugliness in human nature that is beautifully dangerous and painfully honest.

Ozanich’s story is told through the lives of four characters, two lovers and two parents. His play delves into issues of divorce, infidelity, physical abuse, and the merits of marriage and commitment. It happens to be told through the eyes of a gay couple and two of their divorced parents. On a pilgrimage in a car, going west to understand yesterday and find tomorrow, Sam and his father Gerrit, and Andy and his mother Lori, ultimately arrive at The Lightning Field where Sam’s desire to propose marriage to Andy bolts the play into action. It is here that we discover the complexity of Lori and Gerrit’s failings in marriage and as parents, and their effects on their children. It is here that we witness their efforts to save and protect Sam and Andy from repeating the regretful mistakes of their own pasts. And it is here that all four characters choose to embrace the light of a newly redefined love, in spite of the pain of secrets revealed and the uncertainty of the next moment.

Jared Coseglia’s direction has finessed Ozanich’s play with a raw sense of compassion and risk taking. Without apology he delves into the play's emotional life and graphic physical and sexual expression. He trusts the simplicity of stillness on stage and the economic effect of each gesture. I credit Coseglia’s direction for the depth, integrity and honesty of each of the four performances and for the seamless integration of the production’s design elements.

H Clark and Cory Grant give generous and revealing performances as Sam and Andy. They both avoid the clichés of “playing gay” that could have diminished the depth of their characters' wants and needs. But both play men that I know and recognize—maybe even are parts of myself, and my friends—and with respect to that, they are more universal than the labels of their sexual identities, making this play identifiable to a broad contemporary audience.

As Lori and Gerrit, Bekka Lindström and Ron McClary are moving as the mid-to-late-40something parents. Their performances are responsible for bringing hope into a production about second chances.

Paul Hudson’s scenic and lighting designs effectively rely on the boldness of a lone silver pole center stage with moving shadows of light diminishing as the hours approach the ghosts of night. Amanda Ford’s costumes capture with accuracy each character’s personality without looking theatrical. And Drew Brody’s original music moves like the wind through the psychological and spiritual bones of this tale.

This is smart and responsible theatre. It deserves to be seen. It deserves to be recognized.

Johnny Got His Gun
reviewed by Julie Congress

Johnny Got His Gun is a one-man play based on Dalton Trumbo’s fiercely anti-war novel of the same title. It’s also one of the most moving, life-affirming, and masterfully executed shows I’ve ever seen.

It’s World War I. In the United States, the war is idealized. Flags wave and the rousing anthem of “Johnny Get Your Gun” is sung as young men go off to spread Liberty and stop the Huns. Joe Bonham is one of these boys.

As the play begins, Joe is floating in and out of lucidness. A telephone is ringing loudly in a distant room. Joe hears it, and then slips into memories of his family and home. He snaps back to the present, the telephone’s still ringing and Joe realizes he’s been hurt and has gone deaf. And then we’re in yesterday again, reliving moments spent with his girl, Kareen. Joe continues switching back and forth between the past and present. When Joe is conscious, he makes some discoveries: they’ve cut off his left arm. And his right. And his legs. There’s just a hole where his eyes and nose and mouth used to be.

Hurry mother hurry hurry and wake me up. I’m having a nightmare mother where are you? Hurry mother. I’m down here. Here mother. Here in the darkness. Pick me up. Rockabye baby. Now I lay me down to sleep. Oh mother hurry because I can’t wake up. Over here mother.

It’s a dizzying, sickening journey Joe takes, and we, the audience, are with him every step of the way. Every discovery he makes, we make with him. Be it memories from the past or what’s happening now, we hear Joe’s thoughts because all Joe can do is think. And it’s awfully hard not being able to communicate or move or—anything. But this story is a testament to the awesome strength of the human character, and gradually Joe starts figuring things out. He discovers how he can tell time, and he learns to read vibrations. And he realizes how this wasn’t his fight, that you can’t fight for “Liberty,” it’s an empty word and it makes no sense for millions of men to die or be injured in its name.

Ricardo Péréz-Gonzalez is remarkable as Joe—the nuance and texture he brings to this immensely difficult part is extraordinary. His body control is stunning; every muscle, every ounce of his being is focused and dedicated to this part. Even though Péréz-Gonzalez is clearly in possession of all his limbs, and moves freely around the stage, he is able to bring Joe, “the living dead man” to us, using only an old-fashioned wooden chair for his set. (Note: Péréz-Gonzalez is only playing Joe in two of the performances, Mark Lindberg will take over for the second half of the run.) Gerritt Turner’s directing is sharp and poignant. The lighting design (by Carlton Ward) and the sound design (by Kristyn R. Smith) excellently enhance and clarify the show, and all aspects of the production work in perfect harmony with one another.

Needless to say, this is a deeply stirring, intelligent, terrifying piece of theatre. The script, by Bradley Rand Smith, is fiercely loyal to Trumbo's novel. I know this, because I went out immediately and bought the book. And though this story may take place in 1918, it’s awfully timely. Then, they were fighting for “Liberty.” Today, we’re fighting for “Democracy.”

Soiree DADA: Neue Weltaffen
reviewed by Julie Blumenthal

Born out of World War I, Dada was first and foremost a political art form: a questioning of the appropriateness—or even the existence—of art and culture in the presence of war. In Soiree Dada: Neue Weltaffen (which loosely translates as “New World Monkeys”), Chicago-based WNEP Theater presents a taut and clever hour which whisks us from rant to art history lesson to impromptu skit and political seminar, all laced liberally with vitriol and goofiness.

Clad in whiteface and sporting questionable European accents (and sharply directed by Don Hall), our Dadaists, Jen Ellison, Emily Dugan, Bob Wilson, and Steve Zimmers scream, flirt, and entertain, demonstrating both a history of Dada and the hobbyhorse itself in action, with many a wink and a nudge. We’re comfortably in on the joke; and it’s a fun ride, fueled by the enthusiasm and wit of the ensemble, each member of which has several priceless moments.

But it’s this comfort level that left me uncomfortable. Tzara and the gang at Cabaret Voltaire wanted to entertain, but they also had a deadly serious purpose: shocking their audience into some sort of moral imperative in the face of the moral bankruptcy they felt was evidenced by war.

I don’t think we’ve become unshockable; but if modern media, and our response to it, is any indication, it’s at least as difficult as it was in 1918. In the face of horror, the only remaining horror is our lack of horror—or something like that. How to rise to this challenge, I’m not certain; but in taking up the mantle of Dada in America in 2005, the gauntlet is down.

As a result, aspects of Neue Weltaffen felt to me like a historical stand-in for something all too present. Those imprecise accents (other than Ellison’s, which is as meticulously spot-on as the rest of her commandeering, seductive, nod-to-Weimar persona) are a case in point: Soiree Dada largely leaves this form in its historical frame, presenting it as a time capsule with reflections on our current era, rather than bringing it fully to life in the present.

WNEP has been performing iterations of these Dada soirees for nearly ten years, and I wonder how much the work has changed during that time. We’ve surely been New World Monkeys all along; but for a genre birthed in the horror and absurdity of war, our circumstances should exert an irresistible pull. Reflections on current events (Terri Schiavo and the cost of gasoline among them) are enjoyable, but it is the deeper resonance with Dada’s roots and our current political climate that hits the spot Tzara and Co. originally aimed at in their audiences’ conscience. (Interestingly, these moments occur on a more absurd, less literal level than those clever rants on capitalism and society, which a FringeNYC audience swallows as smoothly as cyanide-laced candy. In contrast, moments like a dismembered baby doll discovered to the wails of its “parent,” or a woman struggling to be “correct” at a game whose rules are unknown, vibrate at the level of myth—and truth.)

It’s odd that I’d ask to be shocked, but Soiree Dada is good enough to make me hungry for more of what Dada was born for.

We have our war, sadly; we need our Dada!

The Mayor Who Would Be Sondheim
reviewed by Michael Criscuolo

First things first: John Doble’s The Mayor Who Would Be Sondheim is not a musical. Yes, the title character breaks into song from time to time—usually his own lyrics set to a famous melody—but that’s where the musical part ends. This Mayor is more concerned with the hard choices that come with public office.

The Mayor of Northeast Orange, New Jersey, Kevin J. McFadden, is beset with a host of problems: a sanitation strike, looming city bankruptcy, and a re-election campaign that promises to get ugly. Armed with both a foul-mouthed (and possibly racist) District Attorney and a loyal Girl Friday, McFadden hires the idealistic William “Kid” Kidowsky to help advise him through the tough times ahead.

Playwright Doble has written a thoughtful political treatise about the options (and limitations) of a city on the brink of financial ruin. He wisely makes McFadden an honest politician to emphasize the point that no one in the political arena can escape back-room maneuvering. And he makes Kidowsky’s political education (i.e., youthful idealism is replaced by hard-won pragmatism) miraculously not feel like a cliché.

But, Doble’s decision to make McFadden a musical theatre fan is unnecessary. McFadden’s spontaneous outbursts of song are distracting because they feel like they’re part of a different play. And, they make an otherwise sane and likable character look completely nuts. But, they don’t take up much of the script, and could be easily excised with a swift, deft rewrite—something Doble might want to consider in the future to keep his otherwise engaging play on track.

Director Tom Rowan has assembled a strong cast of six—Nina Daniels, Scott Giguere, Craig Anthony Grant, Larry Greenbush, Mitch Poulos, and Stu Richel—who all turn in good performances. They help The Mayor Who Would Be Sondheim realize its potential as a strong political drama.

The Metaphysics of Breakfast
reviewed by Eric Beckson

Five college students act in writer/director/student Eliza Clark’s problematic play The Metaphysics of Breakfast, which is about April, a young woman who returns to her parents’ home and sinks into a depression after her husband is killed in a car accident.

April’s memories are acted out until she freezes the action by holding up her hands, as if to say, "cut." She then speaks to the audience until the next vignette. The repeated use of this unsubtle device is jarring. Once or twice may be appropriate (to halt an argument, for example). But consistently cutting the action this way spoils many transitional opportunities.

The one set is the kitchen table, cluttered with boxes of cereal and other breakfast items. Strangely, throughout the one hour drama, April barely mentions her deceased husband. We await some clarification (a dark secret or traumatic memory perhaps). Instead, most of what we learn is about her parents.

Dad, a professor who teaches feminism at Yale, speaks in a stilted mid-Atlantic accent. As April recalls, “God is dead. My father killed him when I was young.” Dad tells April that “Jesus was a very, very nice person.” Another memory shows Dad explaining to April how the colonists were never really friendly with Native Americans, contrary to the implication of Thanksgiving.

Mom, a high energy woman who enjoys figure skating, is curiously in love with her pedantic bore of a husband. In a well-choreographed pantomime sequence, Mom and Dad lasciviously figure skate together to give young April a metaphorical education of sex. The close parental relationship is evident in Mom’s remark, “Sleep is always better in someone else’s arms.” Mom and Dad do not try to hide their lively sexual relationship from April. No matter, declares April. “Home is where you’d rather be than anywhere else—even someplace exotic.”

April shares these other insights: “Life is like breakfast. It happens every day.” “We get two homes in a lifetime—the one you are given and the one you make.” “If we could change one thing about the way we are, I’m not sure we would. We all secretly love ourselves too much.”

Stefano Theodoli-Braschi (Dad), has little latitude with his cliché character, but remains lively in a Niles Crane sort of way. Jana Sidkar (Mom) is convincing as the daft mother offering homespun homilies. Sidkar appears very much at ease on stage. Chad Callaghan and Lila Neugebauer, playing many roles, adequately provide comic relief in their pantomime and curt utterances. They use many effective, simple costumes and props.

It is a challenge to portray a depressed woman, as April clearly is, but Tara Rodman’s monotonous tone and dour facial expression make the hour pass very slowly. Contributing to the play’s leaden quality is the lack of premise and character development, and a plot that is mostly a collection of mundane childhood memories.

There is an aching sense of suppressed reality in this drama. While April dotes on her parents, they seem far more wrapped up in their pursuits and each other. One can imagine that April’s depression was only triggered by the traumatic loss of her husband, and in truth has a deeper well. The unintended or hidden story here is one of denial and emotional immaturity. Since there is no resolution or character development, it’s fair to say that it’s unrealized by the playwright. As a result, what we have is a therapy session, not a drama.

Basura!
reviewed by Matthew Trumbull

“Basura” is the Spanish word for trash, and as I write this I am surrounded by mucho basura. I have recently moved, and home life for me is currently a chaotic universe of boxes and clumps of duct tape sharing space on every open surface. So as I sat down to see Basura!, a silent FringeNYC showcase of puppets formed from garbage, and took in the rubbish-strewn stage, I felt glumly right at home. But director Colette Searls and her skillful puppeteers Erica Lauren McLaughlin, Katie Sasso, and Jessie Touart invest their creations with playfulness and inner desires, and immediately I felt a remarkable bond with ordinarily revolting matter, such as packaging tape, once it was molded into a man who cripples himself in a hell-bent effort to embrace his tape-lover.

Basura! places us in a world that is quite literally a mess, being explored by three non-speaking puppeteers dressed entirely in black except for blue ribbons around their bowler hats. At first they seem tentative about the trash that is cohabiting this world with them, but loneliness and boredom drive the puppeteers to create friends from whatever flotsam is at hand. The puppets they bring to life grow increasingly complex as the show moves along, some requiring all three puppeteers to operate. They do an excellent job of giving lifelike movements to what might seem uninspiring material—curtain cloth is transformed into a bag lady pushing a shopping cart, scrutinizing garbage on the floor, picking only the best to put in the cart. Even more oddly touching is the previously-mentioned packaging tape man stuck to a box, struggling mightily to free himself and be with his packaging tape woman, stuck on another box a distance away. When he finally resorted to amputating his one stuck leg, there was an audible gasp from the audience. Though the packaging tape man is little more than a foot high, the puppeteers seem to be invisible behind him and his fellow puppets as they expertly keep focus on their fascinating creations.

Once we perceive even the simplest narrative, our human attention will rivet onto anything struggling to achieve a goal, and often the simpler the creature involved, the more profound this struggle becomes. If we watched an actor in a play see a woman across a stage, fall in love with her, risk a dangerous journey to be with her, lose his leg, continue on, finally reach her and live happily ever after, never once uttering a word, we might find it quite hokey. We would imprint that story with our own prejudices about human nature, and judge its authenticity based thereupon. But in Basura!, we watch tape puppets embark on the exact same story, and we tear up, because we have simply let the silent and beautiful journey unfold and affect us, without reading anything into it. In this complex and distracting age, we still love a parable with simple archetypes, and seeing Basura! now has me investing my surrounding rubbish with a magical inner life that makes me hate it a little less. How could I hate these darling wads of duct tape as I pick them up and turn them into sailors, piloting my laptop across the rough seas of my desk?

The Day the World Went Queer!
reviewed by John Samuel Jordan

The Day The World Went QUEER! is most definitely what FringeNYC is all about. According to Elena K. Holy, Producing Artistic Director of the Present Company, FringeNYC is a “celebration of the best emerging theatre companies and performing artists in the world.” Moral Decay, Inc. (QUEER!’s producer) is just that. This musical, even though slightly flawed, is fantastic.

In a nutshell, the citizens of small-town Sanctityville, USA, decide to legalize same-sex marriage to allow the new and very well-liked gay couple in town to get married. Along with a third “friend of Dorothy,” this dastardly trio of gays then begin their plot to turn the whole town gay. (Why, I’m not sure, but it’s a great way to satirize the current and highly controversial hot topic regarding same-sex marriage, so who cares?) The Sandford family is the first target. Grant, the dad, starts wearing buttless, leather chaps and hanging out in the backroom of the Elks' Lodge. His wife Harriet gets a new haircut and turns from a super-scary Stepford wife into a flannel-wearin’, beer-guzzlin’ biker. Their son Bill returns home from college and with the help of his sweetheart, Susan (together, they're billed as the “hetero heroes”), begin to fight the gays to save the day.

Act One is flawless. The performances, direction, choreography... everything flows perfectly. Richard Todd Adams (Grant) and Jennifer Dorr White (Harriet) dive right into their roles and effortlessly share their well-crafted talent with the audience. White, even though vocally shaky with a few of her solos, pretty much steals the show with her dead-on comic timing and overall commitment, while Adams must be given props for his hilarious performance of “Nobody Wants a Daddy” in Act Two.

Also in the cast are Douglas Ullman, Jr., Marisa Michelson, Eric Moore, Jonathan Hack, and Rachel Clark, who give consummate performances as well. Moore’s presentation of “The Boy Inside” is both heartwarming and fun, as he ponders his lust for the boy next door.

The direction by Jonathan Matthew Gilbert (he also wrote the book) is right on the mark throughout. Musical direction by John Andrew Tarbet must have been pretty darn good because they all sound great. The choreography by Brad Broman is standard musical staging. Costumes by Sara Jablon are the obvious choices (though I’m not sure Sandford’s chaps are the correct size). Lighting design by Cris Dopher is Fringe-tastic.

The lyrics by Joshua H. Cohen, overall, are very witty, and the music by Lavell V. Blackwell complements them rather well, interspersed at times with hysterical dance tracks, thanks to David Mallamud.

My only problem with this production is the weak and easy conclusion, or perhaps I should say lack of conclusion. Things seem to get tied up, without anything really happening or changing. Perhaps I was just caught up in the whole escapism aspect of the Fringe and missed it. Regardless, I left the place humming. What more can you ask from a musical?

The Last Castrato
reviewed by Kaipo Schwab

“When I was six, I was the only child who had dolls that were anatomically correct,” remarks Joseph, the lead character in Andy Eninger’s The Last Castrato, as he begins his appeal in front of a parole board hearing. He wants us to understand how he got locked up and so he tells us his life story.

You see, Joseph was born without a penis. His father, ashamed of his son (how could he play baseball without balls?) enrolls him in a school for "special needs" children where he is treated like an idiot until they realize he can read—after which they "upgrade" him to idiot savant and send him to Paris, where idiot savants are considered artistes. There, Joseph meets Elena, a woman born without skin—she lives in a specially sealed contraption to protect her vital organs and only her head is visible. Elena’s talent is that she sings like an angel. Joseph’s talent is that he has no talent (he even fails at writing simple haikus) except to look normal (with clothes on, of course). The two fall in love at first sight and Elena’s parents suggest that he market himself as one of those rare Italian Castrati of old—boys or men who purposely cut off their manhood so as to reach those musical high notes. But, since Joseph can’t hold a tune, he enlists Elena to sing for him as he lip-synchs in front of the crowd. Naturally, Joseph becomes a huge star—so much so that he receives 30 penises a day from wannabe admirers who castrate themselves to be like him. To reveal any more of the story would be unfair. At the very least, I have to leave you wondering just how did Joseph end up in the aforementioned prison?

Joseph is energetically portrayed by our solo performer, Jeff Swearingen (who looks like he could be Viggo Mortensen’s younger brother). Perhaps too energetically: Swearingen leaps, rolls, kicks, and rips around the stage like the Tasmanian Devil (a chair on stage broke in half after one such out-of-control maneuver, leaving awkward remnants of itself in later scenes.) I sat through most of these gymnastics hoping he would calm down so I could just listen to him. At times I also wished that he and his director, Brad McEntire, would have toned down some of the acting choices (the broad style employed bordered on indicating) so the audience could follow the story more easily. Eninger has written a solid tale with a complex character at the heart of it, but each time the story began to move us Swearingen (perhaps by McEntire’s direction) would overplay the bit, distracting us from the moment.

Lighting, sound, and set (two simple suitcases filled with assorted props and sometimes doubling as characters) complement the action on stage nicely.

Perhaps with a few more performances under its belt, The Last Castrato will hit more of those high notes. The story certainly warrants the effort.

Ratface
reviewed by Fred Backus

Wall St. Productions’ presentation of Ratface by J. Snodgrass opens with three women posing like the Charlie’s Angels silhouettes over the sleeping form of a man in a hospital bed labeled “Charlie” as cool pop music pulses loudly and a young woman in pink faces upstage in the background. It is a striking and enticing tableau that makes you wonder what the images have to do with the story about to unfold.

Not very much, and this signifies one of the weaknesses of this production—many of the directorial elements seem tacked onto the script without enough justification. Referencing the theatrical event through staging, casting without regard to gender, and adding minor roles are all ambitious choices, but they are not innovative enough to hold up on their own without any apparent textual or thematic reasons for being there. Director Adrienne Willis knows how to get the audience’s attention, but too often her bag of tricks screams for it, which can distract from the story being told.

One gets the feeling that Willis is trying to wow the audience with a zany and high energy tour de force, but I’m not sure this approach is right for the material. Ratface is a black comedy about a failed suicide attempt by a teenager whose friends and family want him to finish the job. The play starts out surreal and becomes more and more absurd as the play progresses, but there is a nonchalance about the cruelty dished out that seems to beg for a deadpan approach. By making the piece so cartoonish and over the top, this production manages to both plough over the play’s humor and take the teeth out of its bite.

Some of the performances are indicative. Grabbing the audience with her broad and off-the-wall approach, Foss Curtis as The Doctor starts the performance at 9, reaches 10 very quickly, and then has nowhere to go for the rest of the play. Emily Schweitz is convincing and appropriately unappealing as Charlie’s mother, but her Joan Crawford interpretation, whether originating with her or Willis, is a predictable choice that leaves little surprises. Cass Buggé as Charlie’s best friend Jesse, manages to ground her performance with some nuances, but she, like Curtis, is hampered by the confusing and inexplicable choice of being cast in a role written for a man. Bill Fischer as Charlie makes a likeable straight man, but he seems reluctant to assert his presence as the focal point of the play, and therefore isn’t able to provide this production with a much needed anchor.

Ratface reaches an absurd crescendo by the end, but the moment loses much of its effectiveness because the drama and humor aren’t given enough of a chance to build. With its offbeat and funny script and a talented cast, this production might have hit a little closer to the mark if it wasn’t straining quite so hard. By losing the gimmicks and trusting more in the script, I think both the humor and the pathos of Ratface would have a better chance to emerge.

A.F.R.A.I.D. (As Reported by Fanny Fern)
reviewed by Terri Galvin

Why aren’t more Americans acquainted with the 19th-century writer Fanny Fern? In 1855, when Fern (the pseudonym for Sara Payson Willis Eldredge Farrington Parton) was hired by the New York Ledger, she became not only the first woman newspaper columnist in America, but, at the then-astonishing salary of $100 per column, the country’s highest paid journalist of either sex. Having begun her writing career only four years earlier, as a destitute 41-year-old widow / divorcee / single mother, she’d already captivated readers both here and in England with a string of popular periodical articles, a best-selling collection of satirical essays, and a well received autobiographical novel—prompting a cranky Nathaniel Hawthorne to proclaim her the “exception” to that “damned mob of scribbling women.”

What makes this recognition all the more remarkable is that Fern’s early work focused not on world events or current crusades like temperance or abolition, but on the relatively prosaic frustrations, oppressions, and disappointments of ordinary women in Victorian America. Even when the financial security afforded by her column (Fern’s particular “room of her own”) allowed her to cover weightier topics like prostitution and sweatshop labor, she continually returned to the everyday domestic trials of women held hostage by the husbands, fathers, and brothers so cogently impaled on the tip of her acutely observant pen. And while always eager to skewer the latest perpetrator of social injustice, Fern also never hesitated to mock herself—disarming potential critics while endearing herself to readers who might otherwise be alarmed by such breezy insurrection within the ranks.

Clearly, this is a writer long overdue for a second look.

Which is why A.F.R.A.I.D. (As Reported by Fanny Fern), composer/writer Susan Stoderl's operatic musical, feels so frustrating. Culled directly from Fern’s writings, A.F.R.A.I.D. presents an assortment of characters and vignettes that strictly adhere to the letter of her work, but, sadly, drain the life and immediacy from her irreverent, ironic spirit. Where Fern could be poignant, playful, and incisive, Stoderl’s loose collection of scenes and commentary (including a meeting of the American Females for Righteousness, Abasement, Ignorance, and Docility), is heavy-handed, melodramatic, and overly formal, with nearly all dialogue sung in full operatic majesty. Characters who should be risible are flattened into leaden, ruthless villains, never quite reaching the absurdity to render them comic rather than tiresome. And though she has a splendidly talented cast, Charmaine Chester’s static stage direction only heightens the starchiness, as performers stride center stage to deliver their pieces straight out front, often oblivious to fellow characters.

This seems almost tragic, considering how Fern was celebrated for her distinctively conversational style, full of spontaneous, italicized interjections, and chatty personal asides—more an intimate tête-à-tête with a vivacious friend than a moralizing lecture on societal woes. (This is the woman, after all, who wryly observed that “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach,” and coined the term “fashionist” nearly a century and a half before Sex and the City-inspired pundits added the final “a.”) And although Stoderl has produced an innovative musical format for Fern’s material, she has, sadly, lost the acerbic mischief of Fern’s unique voice.

Given the degree of artistry in this production, it would be well worth the effort to recapture that voice. In today’s battle over “moral values” and the vast economic schism “between squalor and splendor,” Fern’s observations on life’s little details are just as relevant—and potent—as ever. As she herself discerned, “Little things are the hinges of the universe.”

And perhaps of the theatre as well.

Unspeakable: Richard Pryor Live & Uncensored
reviewed by Richard Hinojosa

“Your pain is your comedy,” says Richard Pryor’s fourth and seventh wife in this truly remarkable telling of the life of a man who brought laughter, inspiration, and pain into so many people’s lives. What I particularly liked about Unspeakable is that it is not just about Pryor’s comedy, nor is it a straight-up biography—rather it is a fairly stylized juxtaposition of both his comedy and his life, illuminating the root of his comic genius while simultaneously revealing the real Pryor.

The show opens with an exposing stand-up monologue about a night Pryor spent partying with the reputedly wholesome Bill Cosby. The show then turns on a dime and gives us a rather shocking scene from Pryor’s childhood. The show follows this format throughout. The story is mostly chronological but there are some time hops; both backward and forward. We see Pryor slip slowly into the depths of cocaine addiction as he searches for something to satisfy his insatiable desire for pleasure while at the same time he searches for someone to love him for who he is. Finally, he realizes that he must first discover for himself who he is before anyone else can love him for that.

Playwright/director Rod Gailes does a good job balancing drama and comedy in this well-researched and insightful script. The structure he creates constantly leaves the audience wanting more: either more snippets of stand-up or more of a peek into Pryor’s private life. I have to admit that I thought I would laugh more at a play about the life of Richard Pryor. However, when I realized that I was watching a (somewhat lengthy) dramatic play, I found that I could not connect to the dramatic action as much as maybe the playwright expected me to. This did not, however, detract from my overall positive experience with this play.

It is perhaps Gailes’s directorial choice to create a certain emotional distance from the drama by staging much of the play in stylized fashion. For example, there are ensemble chants and movement scenes, most props are mimed, and the set consists of only a few blocks. I found some of these stylized moments to be among my favorites, and Jorge Arroyo’s lighting design helped to make many of them very eye-catching.

The cast delivers an excellent performance. James Murray Jackson, Jr. as Pryor gives a performance that is downright inspired. His ability to physically and (to a lesser extent) vocally impersonate Pryor is at times uncanny. The eight-member cast all deserve acclaim for such fine work.

Ultimately, I think FringeNYC audiences will enjoy this judicious look at a man who helped to transform stand-up comedy into what we know it as today.

Vicarious
reviewed by Michael Criscuolo

After seeing Justin Quinn Pelegano’s confusing new play Vicarious, I ran for the dictionary to look up the titular word, hoping that perhaps Merriam-Webster could shed some light on what I’d just witnessed. I came up with the following: "(1) performed or suffered by one person as a substitute for another or to the benefit or advantage of another," and "(2) experienced or realized through imaginative or sympathetic participation in the experience of another." Neither definition was helpful to me, nor will they be to many others, I fear. Vicarious, while initially promising, fails to reveal itself down the homestretch, and eventually gets bogged down in a mire of uncertainty.

Bobby is an unemployed slacker who spends his days sitting on the couch, eating Doritos, and watching the tube. These days he is addicted to TV news coverage of the disappearance of a grade school girl named Jennifer. Bobby’s roommate, Doug, is fed up with Bobby’s filthiness and his constant presence. Doug’s lack of privacy makes it impossible for him to invite over the object of his affection: the lovely office intern, Trista. Wanting to help his friend out, Bobby decides to surprise Doug by inviting Trista over. But, instead of hanging with Doug, Trista seduces Bobby. Or does she? Before long, Trista is hanging at the apartment all the time (seemingly without Doug knowing)—dressed as a Catholic schoolgirl, as the perfect suburban housewife, as Bobby, etc.—along with Young Jennifer, and Jim Davis, the TV newscaster. Is Bobby just imagining all of this? Or is everyone except Doug involved in the abduction of Young Jennifer?

Alas, neither question is answered satisfactorily. Vicarious feels like only author/director Pelegano knows the answers, but refuses to share them with anyone else. Not even the cast looks like they know, which is too bad because Vicarious has a good one. Ryan Farley and Kira Blaskovich shine as Bobby and Trista; Jed Orlemann is appropriately disgruntled as Doug; and Michael Chmiel and Kara Greenspun lend ample support as Jim Davis and Young Jennifer. When the play stays close to realism, in its first half, both the cast and the script soar. But, as surrealism slips in during the second half, Vicarious loses its footing, letting both the actors and the audience down. Hopefully, with some judicious rewrites and changes, Pelegano will see fit to revisit this challenging and potentially gratifying work again sometime in the future.