nytheatre Archive
FringeNYC 2002
SHOW REVIEWS ON THIS PAGE: Hold The Doors, The New Hopeville Comics, Sopranos!, 6 Story Building, The Way Out, Spiritual Dyspepsia, One, Appearances, the making of the black man, Man Of Infinite Desire, Fairytales Of The Absurd, Five Frozen Embryos/The Sleepers
|
HOLD THE DOORS by Richard Stroker |
|---|
|
South Pleasant Company’s Hold the Doors, which opened Saturday at
PS 122 as part of the New York International Fringe Festival, touts
itself as "movement-theater performance." But it really should be called
a nomedy: it’s not comedy and it’s not drama. Written, directed and choreographed by Cristina Septien, Hold the Doors is reminiscent of a junior high talent show and "Saturday Night Live" at it’s low point in the early ‘80s in that it seeks to get attention and to be funny, but lacks the resources to consistently do so. The show opens with a 20-something guy singing a self-pitying, melancholic song of lost love. Then we’re hit with a series of two- and three-person scenes that aren’t quite funny and aren’t quite dramatic and we’re not quite sure which they aspire to be. At times though, the production rises above the sophomoric level. A few scenes worth noting include one involving Lionel (Nicholas Williams), whose day job is testing chairs by sitting in them (but his dream job is to compose ad jingles), and the new co-worker with whom he has become smitten, Katie (Annie Lok). Their playful discussion and actions nearly achieve genuine love and humor. Lionel also shines when Katie is over at his place and he’s wooing her with his goofy jingles. Also, the scene where actor-playwright-tennis-player-elevator operator Louis (Josh Garrett-Davis) auditions for an aluminum chair company info-mercial is clever and downright funny. He dresses up the chair to represent his sister and turns the audition into a scene from a play he’s written. The closing song and dance number with the whole cast is a lot of fun and helps us to forget much of the fluff we’ve just seen. |
|
THE NEW HOPEVILLE COMICS by Michael Criscuolo |
In his "Author's Note" on the back of the program, Nate Weida, the
mastermind behind the new musical The New Hopeville Comics, writes that
the show "spans my frivolous twenty-first year. This project has mostly
been my journal regarding every thought, question and concern of that
wild past year." Indeed, Hopeville seethes with a determined feeling of
self-catharsis. It's also buoyant with youth, ambition, and invention,
all three of which go a long way toward overcoming Hopeville's
significant shortcomings. After breaking up with his girlfriend, comic book artist Peter (Josh Tyson) discontinues his popular title, The Hopeville Comics, in favor of something more personal—The New Hopeville Comics. In the idyllic town of Hopeville, everyone is happy, and it never rains. They even have their own superhero, Perfect Man (Jason Karn). But not all is well in Hopeville. Two young women, Molly (Anne-Caitlin Donohue) and April (Megan Lewis), try coming to terms with their love for each other. And, three scheming villains—appropriately named Sex (Boise Holmes), Drugs (composer Weida), and Rockenroll (Tristan Yonce)—plan to take over the town. When Perfect Man fails to stop them, the citizens of Hopeville must either join together to defeat the Corruptors, or lose the town in a haze of hedonism and debauchery. Hopeville has a lot of things going for it: a shameless and enthusiastic cast; a load of originality and ambition; terrific, propulsive, melodic, feverish music, which draws on many influences (including 1960s Aretha Franklin, 1970s Stevie Wonder, and jazz pianist Vince Guaraldi); and an eight-piece band, The Commander Squish Orchestra, that plays like there's no tomorrow. Despite the abundance of talent, Hopeville doesn’t work very well. The songs function more like pop songs than musical theater songs: they emote aplenty, but don't move the story forward or develop character. An excess of pop music vocal embellishments crush whatever meaning the lyrics may have. Weida also never clarifies whose story he's telling, opting to tell many instead of one. Director Steve Royal, whose work is of the line-up-straight-and-face-forward variety, fails to help clarify Hopeville's point of view dilemma. And, Carrie Plew's choreography indicates that she doesn't yet understand the function of dance in musical theater (i.e., to move the story forward and/or to develop character). There's no question that Weida is immensely talented. Hopeville is a worthwhile project that shows a lot of potential. But, he needs to learn more about storytelling. At this point, he can either give Hopeville the major tune-up it needs in order to become the moving, substantial work he intends it to be, or he can credit Hopeville as the piece he needed to write in order to grow artistically and move on to the next one. The choice is his. |
| SOPRANOS! by Andrea Somberg |
|
Like its title, David Sisco and Lorene Phillips’s new musical revue,
Sopranos!: Opera for the New Generation!, tends to over-punctuate,
particularly when it comes to the laughs. While many of the short
vignettes—operatic renditions of everything from pop songs to HBO’s
"Sopranos" series—start off as amusing, the jokes that bring chuckles at
the beginning of the scenes have lost most of their impact by the end.
There’s not much of a plot to Sopranos!—the music and humor are supposed to carry the audience through the hour and forty-five minute performance. Sopranos Rebecca Todd Bixler, Lisa Neubauer, Ilya Speranza, Rebecca Comerford, and Jennifer Winn uphold their end of the bargain, hitting all of those very high notes with enthusiasm and style. JB Becton, as the narrator, is also a very enthusiastic performer. In fact, the enthusiasm throughout the play runs so high that at times I felt it was just as over-punctuated as the jokes. Facial expressions, voices, gestures—all are larger-than-life as the actors try to wring every drop of humor from their roles. There are some amusing scenes in Sopranos!—I enjoyed the PBS mockumentary numbers, especially the Mariah Carey and Julie Andrews skits. The HBO television spoof also has its moments, including a lively duet by Dino (Ilya Speranza) and Gavin (Lisa Neubauer). This is a spirited performance, and, if you like opera, it might be worth your while to swing by and take a look. See Sopranos!, but keep in mind that sometimes in opera a note can be held onto for too long. Unfortunately, as is demonstrated here, so too can a joke. |
|
6 STORY BUILDING by Stephen Graybill |
|
If you go see any show this summer at FringeNYC, you MUST go see
6 Story Building, playing at the Kraine Theater. Without
a doubt, this show will steal the festival. The five actors
Marcus Weiss, Wendy Echols, Colin Stokes, Sheila Murphy, and
Kevin Del Aguila (also writer/director) kept me smiling all
night long with their intelligent, hysterical, and captivating
show about an apartment building, 6 stories high. 6 Story Building is a little hard to describe, since there is no single story in it. The uncontrollable interaction between the tenants of the building gives us a through-line to relate to as we watch seven vignettes unfold in front of us. From the two building mechanics philosophizing about the facts of life in the basement during "Subplot," to two cheerful New York City newcomers who cannot help but belt their naïve emotions to music in "Suite Harmony," the characters bowl us over with their hilarious tales The ingenious writing of Kevin Del Aguila reminds me very strongly of David Ives and his collection Mere Mortals. The rapid-fire rhythm and humorous tone in each scene matches the next, and I found myself eagerly waiting with confident excitement to see what new comedy would ensue. The acting in this show is nothing short of truly professional. Throughout the show my sides were hurting and my eyes teared with laughter. Their comedic timing is immaculate and I could only watch in admiration, hoping to learn something from this group of genius performers. The set is made up of simple items, the lighting enhances the text, and the sound (when it worked) suits the light-hearted tone of the show very well. All of it focuses our attention more on the action and words of the play, complementing the dialogue exceptionally, and seamlessly binding things together. If you see any show at FringeNYC this year, experience the brilliance of 6 Story Building. |
| THE WAY OUT by Paul Hagen |
|
The story of Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, the prizefighter wrongfully
imprisoned for over twenty years, grabbed national attention with the
feature film The Hurricane. For those looking to experience his
story without the Hollywood whitewash, playwright Timothy Nolan has
created The Way Out. The play begins at the end of Carter's final legal appeal and catapults into a frenzied series of scenes from his life with three goals: to create a biography of Carter, to expose a climate of racial prejudice in the justice system, and to explore the tragedy of time lost. The biographical scenes (i.e., Rubin's discovery of boxing and the night of the murders) can at times feel overlong, and the scenes about race relations seem echoes of what has been said many times ("Black people can only be seen as entertainers or criminals," "Twelve white people is not a jury of my peers," "Officer please get the shotgun out of my nose"). But in encountering lost time, all aspects of the work—writing, performance, and direction—approach brilliance. The audience is asked to viscerally experience seconds slipping away from us; we are witness to Carter sending his daughter away after an embrace constricted by handcuffs; we are part of Carter's hallucination as his imprisonment pushes him toward a truly disturbing breakdown. Throughout, Shiek Mahmud-Bey as Carter embraces, laughs with, and is attacked by a huge cast of characters we never see, and he does so with admirable clarity. It is truly his play—a series of monologues and scenes, some more or less successful, and when he is at his best, he truly shines. Tod Engle as "The Judge" ably plays a multitude of stock characters: "token white man" as judge, cop, member of the press, and attorney. Director Vincent Marano is at his best choosing to have actors boldly confront the audience, casting us as jury, as passersby on the street, as a rioting mob. Though The Way Out is in many ways a story you've heard before, in the end it proves to be a story that bears retelling. |
|
SPIRITUAL DYSPEPSIA by Daniel Asher |
|
Madeline, the lead character in Spiritual Dyspepsia, has a
problem. She can’t figure out why, for her 30th birthday, her friends
have paid for her to spend a weekend at a Massachusetts retreat designed
to spiritually awaken its guests through yoga, meditation, silence, and
self-reflection. Why didn’t they send her to the beach where she could
have tropical drinks, mingle late into the night and, hopefully, end up
having a meaningless fling? Madeline should be wondering how she has any friends at all, for playwright Taz Pirmohamed has written her as a selfish, yuppie, go-getter with nothing else on her mind except herself. While at the retreat, guests are expected to respect the rules. These include an oath of silence (although they may speak to the teacher), and showing up to all events. These are two things that the self centered, narcissistic Madeline can not, will not do. This leads to one of Spiritual Dyspepsia’s major flaws: After expressing many times, and in many different ways, that she doesn’t want to be there and doesn’t need any spiritual guidance, why does Madeline stay? Why doesn’t she take her bag and go? More importantly, there was nothing that the actress playing Madeline (Kirsten Potter) could find in the role to make me believe that this woman would stay. This is not entirely her fault. Potter is saddled with pedantic dialogue (e.g., "This makes as much sense as low fat Twinkies"). The relationship between Madeline and the Teacher resembles a turbulent mother/daughter relationship, replete with screaming matches, turned shoulders, and melodramatic "Why won’t you understand me" type quibbles. It seems unrealistic that such an experienced, spiritually enlightened teacher would allow someone to make her so angry. Eventually, the most unlikely of people, the Custodian of the joint (quietly and sweetly played by Lawrence Merritt), helps Madeline find the importance and value of silence. I don’t want to reveal how, as it is the one special, tender scene in the play. The saving grace of the show is Bill Warren’s simple and efficient set design. With a few rice paper-like flats, a bench, and a door, he creates the many different rooms, and areas, indoors and out, of the retreat. Aiding this illusion are Jonathon Spencer’s lighting, and Jeremy Wilson’s sound design. |
| ONE – (THE OTHER) by Ivanna Cullinan |
|
Seeing One – (the Other) by the UK’s Perpetual Motion Theatre
gave me the pleasant experience of having to eat my words. I had been
wondering aloud to a friend if performance pieces ever have a visceral
impact. Indeed they do, and this piece was so wonderful that I am
definitely going to find a way to see Perpetual Motion’s other FringeNYC
piece, Perfect. One – (the Other) is a show where you are
actually able to simply go and be receptive, the production is full
enough to happen—no analysis necessary. In the dark of TNC’s Cino Theater, a hot orange desert image appears and an anonymous traveler enters. In a variety of languages, he starts to speak: "Even paradise has clouds", "I need to feel thirsty again" and, most importantly, "what’s your name?" As noted in the program, everyone is at some level a foreigner. The production explores the ways that anyone can feel alien, even within a world they recognize, with a vividness that adheres to your gut. Now, the traveler’s phrases interested me but due to the fans, he was not easy to hear. However, not being able to hear text bothered me (the text-junkie) more than the person I was with. She didn’t mind at all, being far more fascinated with the movement, which was wonderful: feet articulating the sounds of trains (and I want to convey in that phrase something far less rudimentary than pantomime and much more fun), bodies reacting to invisible crowds—the bumps going as far as accidental couplings with strangers—as well as scenes from a rave, a seduction, a lesson. Selective images, occasional voices, and the constant communication of the body make this production vivid. Everything from the possible mishaps inherent in learning a new language to the potential disasters that the extremes of loneliness can leave you vulnerable to; all of these make One – (the Other) communicate powerfully to its audience. |
| APPEARANCES by Pamela Butler |
|
Appearances, a fifty minute dance piece at the Culture
Project, is performed by Dance Imprints, founded by artistic
director Dagmar Spain. Spain is the choreographer and joins six
other dancers to express relationships, to self and to others,
and the working out of entanglements, conflicts and resolutions.
The ensemble is in a sense "family". They are related as humans,
if not by blood. They struggle alone and together to be who they
are, have what they want, keep what they have. Generations are represented here, from Eleanor Laurence, who is eight or nine, to senior dancers Ronald B. Stratton and, Francine Roussel. The balance of this excellent ensemble represents ages in-between. Hayley Camp, Gregory Dolbashian, Zsuzsa Gasparics and Dagmar Spain help to express a range of adult angers, desires and joys. Eleanor Laurence is surprisingly relaxed for such a young performer. She moves simply among the adults with a youthful, light step, imagining how it might feel to be in their shoes, but so different from the purposeful and dramatic movement of her elders. I loved the contrast. There is dialogue—pronouncements rather than exchanges, but it feels right—and a French song done with verve by Francine Roussel in a cafe scene. Each dancer expresses his/her own individuality, sometimes defiantly, until they are finally drawn together and truly connected in the powerful ending. Children's' blocks and a mylar tube are the only other elements on stage and both serve as versatile and powerful metaphors. Jim Papoulis creates music that perfectly underscores the dance, from the haunting opening with its vast echoing emptiness to the lighthearted music of a Parisian cafe. Jax Brodsky 's lighting is dramatic and beautiful. Dagmar Spain has also designed costumes to enhance the individual personalities of each performer. Wallace Spain's set is perfect in that it is completely spare. I truly enjoyed this piece and recommend it heartily. You don't often see dance of this quality for the price! |
|
THE MAKING OF THE BLACK MAN by Sarika Chawla |
| Five men command the stage, each one
representing the role of the black man in five unique ways. the
making of the black man, written and directed by sean, presents 90
minutes of prose, lyrics, beats and movement to tell the story of these
men. The central hinge of the piece is a character who calls himself blacque (Nhojj), a dreadlocked man dressed in black, who moves with fluidity and sings with clarity, and at times slinks across the stage holding a mask to his face. He expresses the voice of the past, one that has lost his children, with each generation looking less and less like him. braun (Jerry James) portrays an educated professional, uniformed in a suit as he struggles to break through the glass ceiling. He is ashamed of his compatriots, bleu (N’Daba), blanco (Edward V. Corcino) and red (Joanes Prosper), whose greatest pleasure comes from hanging on the corner, rolling and smoking blunts. In return, these three look down upon braun, who insists that he is not black but brown; American, not African-American. Ultimately it is blacque’s voice from forgotten times that breaks them free from their stereotypes, reuniting the five men into brotherhood. After a time, the prose tends to be heavy-handed in its explanations and arguments of what represents today’s black man. After much back and forth between the characters, the show drags down into a debate of which one is truly keeping it real. However, the dialogue is broken up by movements, clapping and stomping that are satisfyingly simple and clean, and by music that rings of melancholy. Five stereotypes have been plucked and presented as very real characters, yet one prominent representation is missing—he who creates work such as the making of the black man, connecting the ancient art of storytelling to today’s culture in order to educate, entertain and enlighten. |
|
MAN OF INFINITE DESIRE by Paul Hagen |
| A brick, partially transmuted into gold;
an egg that is Helen of Troy; an origami swan; an alarm clock; a tarot
card; a handkerchief wet with the sweat of Satan: these are the
souvenirs Mephistopheles (Christina Nicosia) reveals as he spins this
one-woman tale of Dr. Faustus. Rich, dense language abounds throughout,
but paradox is at the center of Man of Infinite Desire.
Mephistopheles claims, "I am literary symbolism," even as he warns of
"the danger of mixing metaphors." Language is heaped upon language; at
times Latin, German, French and English are spoken in a single breath.
The play mocks the treatment Goethe and Marlowe gave to the tale of Dr.
Faustus, but then recreates the ritualistic incantation Dr. Faustus used
to call Mephistopheles, only to then dismiss it, saying "But you can say
almost anything and I'll show up." Nicosia also transforms into the hungry Dr. Faustus, innocent young Gretchen, and the coquettish Marthe. But in his glittering red robe, she holds court as Mephistopheles: prestidigitator, storyteller, puppeteer: a creature incapable of wanting, who desires nothing more than desire. Nicosia (who also wrote the piece) explores the paradox through a complex network of symbols, presenting us with a corpse: "This is not an ending. This is not an end. This is not even a means to an end." The corpse becomes a puppet and then a mask and costume, as Mephistopheles wholly transforms into Gretchen, who then gives birth to Mephistopheles again. Characters become others as easily as lead is transmuted into gold, German becomes English, and even the audience is invited to "embody embodiment," to become symbols ourselves. Eric Green's sound design creates an atmosphere of a European circus sideshow. Jonathan Van Gieson's direction challenges the audience to keep apace with Nicosia's physical and verbal acrobatics. Complex as a puzzle yet also as simply delightful as a magician pulling a coin from your ear, Man of Infinite Desire calls to you like a ringmaster to watch your own preconceptions of life, death, hell and desire appear on the high wire. Answer the call. |
|
FAIRYTALES OF THE ABSURD by Pamela Liu |
| Director Edward Einhorn warms up the
audience for an evening of absurdity by starting off with Eugene
Ionesco’s To Prepare a Hard Boiled Egg. Delightfully performed by
Peter B. Brown as Man with Egg, this first of three plays comprising
Fairytales of the Absurd details how to hard boil an egg like no
existing Martha Stewart cookbook. Next comes a bittersweet piece, again by Ionesco, about how a loving and very imaginative father fends off his rambunctious daughter’s questions about the breakdown of her family dynamics. Celia Montgomery is very engaging as the narrator, the maid, and the not-so-often-seen mother. Einhorn employs a puppet and actress Uma Incrocci to together play the part of the little girl Josette, which they accomplish very effectively. The result is a roller coaster of actions that is well-timed and cleverly choreographed. After the intermission, we are treated to an original work written and directed by Einhorn. This fairy tale is about a princess who ends up marrying her second head. The costumes and set are a delight for children. Influenced by Ionesco, Einhorn creates a fairy tale where a witch plays a big part in finding true love for princes and princesses. The story line and the actors are very humorous and appealing to children. On that level, this original work of absurdity is successful. But if One Head Too Many has any political statements to make, they get convoluted by the time King Kustard goes to see the witch. The pacing also starts to lag around there too. But soon after, the resolution gets neatly and of course absurdly wrapped up. Touted as appropriate for kids 5 – 12 by FringeNYC, Fairytales of the Absurd is a fun, imaginative and playful time for all. |
|
FIVE FROZEN EMBRYOS by Amy Heath-Bell |
| David Greenspan's Five Frozen
Embryos, presented by Singularity on a double bill with The
Sleepers, is a rapid-fire dialogue between two characters as they
dissect the legalistic language involved in the court case of Diane,
Mark and their five frozen embryos. We learn through the characters’
sometimes heated discussion that Diane, now divorced, is suing over the
right to decide the fate of the remainder of the embryos she and Mark
had frozen during an attempt to conceive children while they were
married. Although words and ideas are flying at lightning speed, the
characters, known only as Female One (Ilka Saddler Pinheiro) and Female
Two (Ellen Shanman) and costumed in white, vaguely 19th century dresses,
never move from the couch at center stage. Jon Shumacher’s staging is simple and effective. As Female Two, Ellen Shanman has great comedic timing and plays well with the difficult pace and tongue twisting language. Ilka Saddler Pinheiro is much more subdued but unfortunately her voice is so quiet that many of her lines were lost in the laughter. David Greenspan has written a cunning little discourse covering embryonic fertilization, marriage, the Bible, abortion and the rights a woman has regarding her own body. Filled with astute observations and clever wordplay, Five Frozen Embryos is often laugh-out-loud funny. Greenspan deftly negotiates this difficult and emotional subject. At the end of the play Female One and Two merge to speak in the voice of Diane. The effect is chilling, but it did leave me to wonder who these women are. Are they representative of Diane’s subconscious? All women? The complexity of our legal system? Even with this question unanswered for me I still highly recommend this play. It is not very often that the topic of a woman’s rights to her own body is explored so even handedly, thoroughly and with such a sense of humor. |
