2008 New York International Fringe Festival Reviews
Noir: A Shot and A Chaser
reviewed by Jon Stancato
Aug 17, 2008
Thank goodness Silent Theater's new play Noir: A Shot and a Chaser isn't actually silent; we'd miss the production's primary strength: perhaps the hottest jazz combo FringeNYC has to offer. It's unfortunate that these talented musicians (Isaiah Robinson, Rob Fry, and David Taylor) score a trite film noir plot staged in bad pantomime that more often resembles an acting exercise than the cinematic stylized physicality to which it aspires.
The plot is straight out of any number of Raymond Chandler stories. A detective (Joe Vonderhaar) is hired to find a missing person: Starla (Gillian Hastings), the daughter of a powerful senator. He finds her seeking stardom in an underworld haunt run by Crazy Al (Alzan Pelesic), a demimonde populated by a handful of derelicts like Jenny (Kyla Webb), Crazy Al's girlfriend and resident femme fatale, and Lorenzo (Marvin Eduardo), a washed-up vaudeville ham. Complications arise and by play's end, the stage is littered with more bodies than Act 5 of Hamlet.
The story is told via voiceover narration (baritoned by Michael Quinn) and enacted by "silently" by performers on stage. The narration is faithful to its inspirations and has some nice zingers (like "Follow the dangerous curves up to her face and you'll hit dead-end eyes") strung throughout. It does, however, drop out altogether for long stretches...which would be quite all right if director tomika todorova and the ensemble had developed a clear storytelling language to keep moving the story along. While I have no idea how they create the physical score for their productions, the actors of the Silent Theater look (and sound!) like they've been stranded without a script instead of given the liberty to create meaning without spoken dialogue. They struggle to communicate, gesturing wildly, forcing laughter, and grunting and, while the occasional word, phrase, or (gasp) line of dialogue does emerge, the lines are spoken so quietly as to negate their presence entirely. It is possible to communicate narrative without words—dancers do this all the time—but it requires precision and a recognizable movement vocabulary, two elements missing almost entirely from Noir. This boggles the mind even more after Webb and Eduardo delight with a second act tour-de-force dance, only then generating heat worthy of the jazz trio accompanying them.
I won't even get into the inexplicable and gratuitous nudity.
The play is billed as a multimedia production, and there's video footage projected nearly throughout, but anyone who sees the show during one of the daytime performances will likely be unable to catch any of it because of light leaking into the performance space [the Deluxe Tent at Spiegelworld].
I wish I could say this play is worth seeing for the smokin' jazz alone, but, alas, the on-stage action of Silent Theater's Noir is simply too loud to sit back and enjoy the groove.
Written/created by: Joe Vonderhaar
Directed by tonika todorova
Presented by Silent Theatre
They Call Me Mister Fry
reviewed by Melanie N. Lee
Aug 16, 2008
They Call Me Mister Fry, a one-man one-act written and performed by Jack Freiberger, directed by Jeff Michalski, recounts Jack's first year as a full-time teacher in South Central Los Angeles, dealing with emotional traumas, street violence, and rigid bureaucracy.
Tired of being a "sub-slut" who teaches children for a day and then leaves, Indiana-born Jack, or "Mr. Fry," nervously answers a video ad to teach at super-prestigious Carpenter Avenue Elementary School in Los Angeles. There, he notes, "even the hamsters at the science lab read at a fifth-grade level." Inspired by the musical Camelot and using King Arthur as an imaginary mentor, Jack wins the position, then loses it for being "the wrong color of the rainbow" (white). Instead, he's directed to Academy Elementary School in South Central L.A., which has three-legged desks, bullet holes in the window, graffiti with bad penmanship, and perhaps scariest of all, No Child Left Behind.
"Are these students' hopes and dreams different from those at Carpenter?" he reasons. "It's got to be safe; look at all these police here!" Armed with a yellow balloon sword birthed from his party clown skills, Jack determines to unleash the King Arthur within every student, using creativity and entertainment to educate.
An alumnus of Wonder Bread Elementary whose worst childhood death experience was with a pet turtle, Jack is soon engulfed in a world where kids want to be "gangstas," parents are too overwhelmed to read their children's poems, and wearing the wrong color can get you stabbed to death. He's constricted in a system where each class "learns the exact same thing at the exact same time to the minute." His live-in girlfriend Nancy, who once chided him for being "lazy and incompetent", now chides him for being too involved. No Child's "academic SWAT team", underscored with the Darth Vader theme, invades his classroom and writes him up for using a toy weapon—the yellow balloon sword. Jack discovers that "children love to learn, but hate to be taught."
Freiberger portrays not only his wide-eyed self, but also a "Nubian god" of a principal, a martinet veteran teacher, a boy's concerned Hispanic uncle, and King Arthur. He focuses on portraying two troubled fifth-graders: Anthony, a wannabe-tough, "Yo"-ing, arm-gesturing Latino rape baby who brings a knife and cappuccino to school, and Jasmine, a shy, physically developing, sensitive African American poet who desperately wants a father figure, who bows her head as she draws a semi-circle with her foot.
His characterizations are good, and the show is funny and poignant. Visual aids projected on screen—a teacher evaluation, a student's note, pages of poems—enhance the show's realism. They Call Me Mister Fry illustrates the overwhelming challenges of teaching children growing up in discouraging circumstances, capturing the setbacks and progress of a well-meaning teacher caught between ultra-needy children and clueless bureaucracy.
Written/created by: Jack Freiberger
Directed by Jeff Michalski
Presented by John Freiberger
Green Eyes
reviewed by Judith Jarosz
Aug 16, 2008
Green Eyes is billed as an original contemporary musical, with music and lyrics by Brian Mazzaferri, and a book by Mazzaferri, Jessica Redish (who also directs the piece), and Lizzie Leopold (who also serves as choreographer). The press material states it is a contemporary love story that tracks the rise and fall of a relationship over time through folk-rock music and modern dance, utilizing two singers, two dancers, and a five-piece orchestra to fuse both song and dance, and shed new light on the traditional "boy meets girl" story.
But there is no new light shed that I can decipher. The couple (sung by Nick Blaemire and Celina Carvajal, and danced by Ryan Watkinson and Melissa Bloch) meet, fall for each other, become euphoric, then analytical, then vulnerable, then fear their vulnerability, creating suspicion and anger. This is followed by remorse, then reconnection, disappointment, and ultimately, separation. Sounds to me like a lot of couples since the beginning of time.
Nick Blaemire, looking like a disheveled young Dustin Hoffman, has trouble with the pop vocal style. He may just have been tired, but I worry that his cords will go the way of many singers trying to push their throats for this style of singing and ending up with shattered cords. Celina Carvajal has a delicate beauty, like a petite Peter Pan, and her vocals pack a punch. But although she fares better with the style, there was some jarring unnecessary scream belting at times.
The dancers are both wonderfully trained and attractive, and Bloch in particular acts with her whole being, but it was very distracting at times when all four performers were active and you were forced to select who to focus on. And when the dancers start to peel their clothes off, the poor singers just don't stand a chance! It is telling that one of the highlights of the piece is when the couple consummates their love, and the moment has singers sitting silent while the two dancers perform a passionate and tender modern pas-de-deux to a haunting cello solo, beautifully executed by cellist Seth Woods.
The songs by Mazzaferri are sometimes very catchy, but a lot of them sound alike. I enjoyed the song "Words That Rhyme" where the two singers throw rhyming words at each other with double meanings. Music director Matt Hinkley also plays guitar and does a very nice job of leading the talented five-piece band onstage while not upstaging the action. All of the musicians, Hinkley, Alexander Rea on drums, Mike Pettry on piano, Seth Woods on cello, and Danny Stone on bass do some great work.
Scenic and costume designer Maiko Chili gives us four simple modern chairs and modern street dress, while lighting designer Ji-Young Chang makes simple choices that suit the piece. There is a lot of talent connected with this piece; it just needs some rethinking.
Written/created by: Lizzie Leopold, Brian Mazzaferri, and Jessica Redish
Directed by Jessica Redish
Presented by Diana Glazer, Steve Tate, Leopold Group
Psalms of a Questionable Nature
reviewed by Zachary Fithian
Aug 17, 2008
Marisa Wegryzn's Psalms of a Questionable Nature taps into that certain kind of paranoia that tells you that no one, not even family, can truly be trusted. While perhaps true, it's a cynical and depressing world in which even Ma and Pa may not be what they seem. Coupled with writing that leads to the questionable nature of some character decisions, Psalms is at best confusing, and at worst an exercise in audience patience.
The play opens in the basement of the house in the middle of nowhere. (This is appropriate, seeing as how the theatre was downstairs, coupled with an all-too-realistic lack of lighting.) We learn that a woman, Greta, is here to tidy up the house of her recently-deceased mother. The house, unfortunately, comes complete with a crazy younger stepsister named Moo and a basement full of secrets.
The relationship between Greta and Moo is fundamentally believable, and they even spend enough time together to develop an odd sort of rapport before all the nastiness is unearthed. But there are moments, particularly in the midst of an argument, where either or both women seem to completely change their minds without any particular reason. They are often small decisions in small moments, but the combination of such moments makes the play increasingly harder to follow. Many questions are raised that never seem to be answered, which makes for a confusing 90 minutes.
The show is, however, not without its strong points. Both Carrie Heitman and Emily Kunkel do the best they can with the material they are given. Heitman is wonderfully Type-A as Greta, a woman who carries a holier-than-thou air even though she is not without her own checkered past. She could not be more different than Kunkel's Moo, who is endearing despite her oddities, which include an aversion to showering. They seem, through their acting at least, to have a genuine affinity for each other.
At the beginning of the show I had high hopes; it seemed as if we could have had a sort of Topdog/Underdog on our hands, but Psalms, though it has its moments, doesn't quite have the fierce dialogue that is necessary to carry a two-person play.
Written/created by: Marisa Wegrzyn
Directed by Tracy Cameron Francis
Presented by Interlink Theatre
The Corn Maiden
reviewed by Kimberly Wadsworth
Aug 17, 2008
In The Corn Maiden, Jess McLeod and Justin Swain's adaptation of the Joyce Carol Oates novella, young Marissa Bantry is the new girl at an upstate New York girl's school. As her mother drops her off for her first day, the troubled Jude watches, jealous of Marissa's platinum blond hair—although, the lonely Jude may also envy Marissa her doting mother as well. Then during a class trip to the Museum of Natural History, Jude sees a diorama depicting the ritual tribal sacrifice of a victim called "The Corn Maiden," and comes up with a horrifying idea for Marissa; enlisting her friends Anita and Denise, they lure Marissa to Jude's basement, feed her drug-laced ice cream, and hold her captive for days.
The cast is uniformly excellent. Those playing younger characters are spot-on at playing tween-age girls—Hana Kalinski is never too cloyingly sweet as Marissa, and Maria Teresa Creasey swings effortlessly between the tough girl Jude wants/tries to be and the wounded little girl she actually is. Kate Shine and Heather Bonahoom hit exactly the right uneasy balance as Anita and Denise slowly realize that Jude's taking their game a bit far—they know they should stop, but Jude wouldn't like them any more if they did, so... Erin Roberts is also compelling as Marissa's mother Leah, and is especially so in her scenes with Jessica Day, playing her brittle sister Avril. Rounding things out is Michael Markham as Mikal, the indifferent teacher who is suddenly thrust into the spotlight when he becomes suspected of Marissa's disappearance.
Director Jess McLeod wisely leaves most of the action to the cast, but has also added a handful of short films to the piece—cutout photograph animations, the kind sometimes used in old Monty Python episodes, which I assume are supposed to depict Jude's dreams or subconscious fantasies. A couple are cleverly done, but not all of them quite seem to work—I couldn't recognize any of the faces in one early one, and thus didn't understand its "message." Even with the ones that do work, the cast's performances more than make their characters' states clear, so the films don't seem to add anything. However, they also don't detract anything as such, so save for one or two moments of confusion I didn't mind them.
Viewers should also be warned that a good deal of scenes take place with characters seated on the floor toward the front of the stage, and it can at times be hard to see them in the space; a young woman sitting to my left was sitting behind someone fairly tall, and had to keep trying to peer around his head and even got up to her feet once or twice just to see what was happening. This seems to be more an unfortunate quirk of the space [The New School], though, and not the fault of the production. Don't let it stop you from seeing this, but do choose your seat wisely and considerately.
This is a fine and finely performed adaptation of a chilling tale. Definitely worth the trip.
Written/created by: Jess McLeod & Justin Swain, adapted from the novella by Joyce Carol Oates
Directed by Jess McLeod
Presented by Artist Collective NYC
Kansas City Or Along The Way
reviewed by Emily Otto
Aug 17, 2008
While paging through the FringeNYC program guide, observing the sheer volume of flashy titles and pop-culture-themed shows, each competing for the fickle attention of the potential audience, I'm struck by the lack of glitter and fairy dust surrounding the description of Kansas City or Along the Way. Everything about this production, including its PR, is surprisingly subtle. But the lucky audience members who catch one of the remaining performances will have the privilege of enjoying a finely wrought piece of theatre that will remain with them long after the lights come up.
Through a series of interwoven monologues, we meet the play's two characters, Louise (Rebecca Benhayon) and Joseph (Adam Groves), each living in southern Ohio during the Great Depression. Louise's story begins in 1932, after her fiancé has abandoned her. Faced with a future completely unlike her imagined life, she struggles to find meaning and direction. Joseph tells his story in 1939 after the death of his wife. While fighting to gain custody of his children, he must come to terms with the pain of his loneliness and the memories that haunt him. The monologues lead up to a pivotal scene in which the two characters meet and their stories intertwine.
The Depression Era setting is rendered beautifully in the play's use of music, most notably in three folk songs written by Groves and playwright Robert Attenweiler. Clearly inspired by the work of Woody Guthrie and sung and played by Groves, the songs transport us to another time and place with a power that goes beyond words.
Oh, but the words. . .I couldn't overstate the magic of words in this play. Attenweiler's golden ear for dialogue and poetic imagination conspire to produce lines that are at once metaphorically rich and completely speakable. He captures a specific time and place without ever allowing the characters to become caricatures, even in their numerous flights of fancy. Joe Stipek's intelligent direction shows his understanding of "less is more" in a show with such rich dialogue. Particularly in the monologues, where it would be easy for the actors to be static, his staging offers an effective blend of energy and stillness.
Both Benhayon and Groves turn in nuanced performances here. Groves, in particular, is captivating to watch in the complex role of Joseph. He captures perfectly the spirit of a man who persists in a life that seems destined to break him. That's actually what makes both the script and performances so moving; both Louise and Joseph insist on finding hope and beauty in a world that offers them little of either.
This show is a remount of an 2006 workshop production, and FringeNYC is all the better for it. I feel lucky to have had the chance to see it. Amidst the screaming neon of so many shows, this piece is a gorgeous little gem.
Written/created by: Robert Attenweiler
Directed by Joe Stipek
Presented by Disgraced Productions
Self-Portrait as Schiele
reviewed by Jon Stancato
Aug 16, 2008
I adore the work of Egon Schiele, the 19th century Austrian expressionist known for his contorted, erotic, limby grotesques and for a life cut too short by a fatal case of influenza. TheatreMeme's new play, Self Portrait as Schiele, frequently delights with staging motifs cribbed right from Schiele canvasses. But director Gerritt Turner's painterly stage pictures, presented by some memorable performers and accompanied by an immersive sound and lighting design, simply cannot ground Mark Lindberg's frustrating hallucinatory script.
Lindberg's story begins in the studio of Madchen (Elsa Carette), a disheveled young artist living in New York, as she writes a letter to someone named Elvira, telling her, with anticipation, about an upcoming exhibition. Shortly after Madchen finishes writing, she hears a knock at her door. It is Egon Schiele (Doug Paulson), a prospective figure model she has met at the Neue Galerie. It is, frankly, inconceivable that a visual artist who counts the Neue Galerie (singularly devoted to works by Schiele and his Austro-German contemporaries) among her haunts and is, by her own description, working on angular contorted nude portraits, would be unfamiliar with Schiele's name—and this lapse is unfortunately symptomatic of the playwright's broader lack of investment in creating a world populated by people that feel "real," whether they are turn-of-the-century Austrian ghosts or 21st century aspiring artists.
Madchen asks the sickly Schiele to drop trou (the first instance of quite a bit of full frontal male and female nudity) so she can paint him. Striking an iconic grotesque, he lectures her with expressionist talking points which, stilted as they are (perhaps they are taken directly from Schiele's writings...?), come across pedantic instead of incendiary as they probably were in Austria circa 1918. As Schiele's rant grows more intense he suddenly vanishes, leaving Madchen with a completed canvas.
The following morning, the confused and now coughing Madchen seeks out advice from Dr. Sonnenschein, a family friend and sex therapist (the incandescent and sensual Elizabeth Hess). Dr. S chalks Madchen's hallucinations up to mounting pre-exhibition stress and sends her off to seek medical help. Dr. Blumen (the tightly wound, bumbling, and very funny Adam Hyland) thinks she's got a flu of some sort (cue ominous foreshadowing music for those who know Schiele's bio), but Madchen is more interested in him than in his diagnosis and invites him over for a modeling session/date. Schiele comes again that night, infecting her further with his sickness and his lust for poetic expression. Madchen decides that she is Schiele's reincarnation and from here, the play transforms into an extended hallucination, with suitably grotesque expressionist pas-de-deux, stunning sound and light design (from Sanaz Ghajarrahimi and Stephanie Palmer, respectively), and a nifty piece of stage magic by art designer, Ellie Famutimi, allowing the ensemble to "paint" Schiele canvasses with water. Here the text is able to achieve a certain levity, almost parodying its early obtuseness as it devolves into cyclical chaos, reminiscent at some points of Ionesco. But Schiele's work is not absurdist and, though some theatrically compelling moments do emerge in this nightmarish dreamscape, they take us further from the expressionism that is this piece's raison d'etre, undermining what poignancy his tragic life might evoke.
At it's core, Self Portrait... seems to explore the ramifications, both literal and metaphorical, of what happens when artists connect across space and time, but without successfully developing Madchen's character beyond her function as a vessel for Schiele's spirit, and without substantively exploring what that spirit means to art history, to the play's characters, or to the playwright himself, the play leaves us longing for a trip to the Neue Galerie, where we might understand more deeply why Schiele is such a vital inspiration to so many of Madchen's real-world counterparts.
Written/created by: Mark Lindberg
Directed by Gerritt Turner
Presented by theaterMEME
Usher
reviewed by Robert Weinstein
Aug 17, 2008
The past hangs heavily over Usher, the new musical based on Edgar Allen Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher. This is as it should be. Any adaptation of this Gothic classic worth its proverbial salt needs at least a heaping teaspoon of the Past not to mention added servings of Decay, Sickness, and Death.
On that front, Usher, with music by Sarah Hirsch, book and lyrics by Molly Fox, and directed by Becca Wolff, dishes out generous portions: ghosts of dead relatives speak to the characters through their portraits or loiter threateningly around the action; a bottle of poison intended for one of the main characters, Madeline, is passed playfully over and around her beloved, James, who is desperately trying to save her; and there is the crumbling mansion, the eponymous House in which this all takes place, signified by the transformation of the portraits into the basement tombs where all will finally rest. Throw in a dash of deceit, a pinch of possible incest, and stir in some sinister manipulations and you have yourself a House Poe would be proud of.
The production does a nice job with their source material. It lays out each scene in a clean and episodic manner. Plot points and themes are clearly established. Characters are introduced in a way that lets you know who they are and where they fit into the stratified world. Melissa Mizelli's lighting design bathes the stage with requisite gloom, creating a space full of shadows and silhouettes that never allow any character to be fully revealed. Timothy Mackabee's set design pares the set down to the absolutely necessary, dispensing with the ostentatious. The set pieces are a bit too pretty to suggest a decomposing house but Mackabee has built a set that plays well against the enormity of the playing space. The space overwhelms everything that happens in it, effectively conveying the impression that the characters are dealing with forces much larger and stronger than they are capable of dealing with.
In a strange bit of irony though, the cleanliness of their storytelling eliminates the element of surprise and the production's ability to make its mysteries more palpable. Because they don't hide certain ingredients of the story, it loses the ability to stay ahead of the audience. The characters' thoughts are never that far from the tips of their tongues but the book and lyrics don't create the necessary tension between the words and the haunting perplexities running through the House.
Fans of Edgar Allen Poe might walk away from the production feeling slightly let down but there are still theatrical treasures to be found. The show opens with a clever scene in James's studio as he paints two unruly portraits. Anyone who's ever spent long periods of time creating anything will appreciate the terse and helpless banter between the artist and his creations not to mention the comical tensions between the creations themselves. The first meeting between James and Madeline and their subsequent reunion in the House of Usher result in two songs, "Take My Hand" and "I Might Have Taken You Dancing," that elevate the material beyond the intended gloom and act as counterpoints to the inevitable despair.
Written/created by: Molly Fox, Music by Sarah Hirsch
Directed by Becca Wolff
Exodus
reviewed by Michael Criscuolo
Aug 15, 2008
Daren Taylor's ambitious new drama, Exodus, has a lot on its mind. Set in a dystopian future where most of the population serves the privileged upper class, the play's themes of political and economic exploitation couldn't be timelier. But a muddled script and uneven production impair this story's ability to achieve its potential.
Exodus opens in a fictional America where 80% of its citizens have been shoehorned into 20% of its land. It seems that gentrification has taken hold so aggressively that the rich have gained an economic and territorial foothold over most of the country. The action takes place in a small Kansas town where hunger and slave labor are commonplace. Fed up with the government's shabby treatment of them, a small group of friends band together for dissent, resistance, and change.
Despite an intriguing premise, Taylor bites off more than he can chew. His writing is too sloppy and general for Exodus to be edifying. For starters, the play's religious symbolism—i.e., in the town is called Paradise, the prison is referred to as Repentance, and the cops are known as shepherds—is a little obvious. The overly earnest characters veer closer to stereotype than archetype, and their relationships to each other are never clearly defined. Other details fall through the cracks as well, such as a prominent female character who goes through the entire play inexplicably disguised as a man. Huh?
Unfortunately, director Jessica McVea isn't able to help matters much. She dials the show's level of urgency up to 10 right at the start, leaving Exodus nowhere to go. The actors are often blocked too close to each other, thereby erasing any chance of building tension. And any momentum the show gains is ground to a halt every few minutes with an unnecessarily slow set change.
Exodus boasts a young and energetic cast, but most of the actors possess only limited range and depth. By and large, this is not a good showcase for them. Only Ciera Payton, as a wrongly imprisoned woman, and Adam Swiderski, as the resident wise old sage, leave a lasting and positive impression.
Despite its high and well-intentioned aspirations, Exodus misses the mark and offers little enlightenment. Hopefully, these young upstart theatre artists will have better luck the next time out.
Written/created by: Daren Taylor
Directed by Jessica McVea
Presented by The Awakening Project
The Refugee Girls Revue: A Musical Parody
reviewed by Emily Otto
Aug 17, 2008
In The Refugee Girls Revue, playwright/comedian Jena Friedman takes satirical aim at so many targets that it would be easy for her to miss the mark here and there. Yet somehow, improbably and fantastically, she hits them all dead-on. Rampant consumerism? Check. Pious political correctness? Check. Earnest, simplistic definitions of global crises? Check. The self-centered determinism of both the U.S. government and teenage girls? Check. I could go on and on. With The Refugee Girls Revue, Friedman and her creative team offer a razor-sharp satire that joyfully skewers the American Dream in all of its commercialized glory.
The Refugee Dolls are, of course, a wicked parody of the American Girl Dolls. For anyone who's been fortunate enough to miss the American Girl phenomenon, here's a nutshell explanation. These dolls, all of which have a name, a historical or contemporary setting, and a full story, come from varied ethnic and socioeconomic backgrounds, but they're all plucky young heroines meant to inspire an independent spirit and an inclusive world view in young girls. A noble goal, certainly, but since each doll costs close to $100, not including the arsenal of books, furniture, clothing, and accessories (which could easily total $1000 for each doll), the products are really only accessible to girls far more wealthy than those American Girl claims to represent.
In The Refugee Girls Revue, a group of teenage girls gather regularly to tell the stories of their favorite Refugee Girl Dolls, complete with songs and role-playing. The dolls include various girls who have come to America to escape disaster in their home countries (such as Fallujah Jones from Iraq, Bahati Smith from Darfur, and Payne Gone from Indonesia, who rode the wave of a tsunami all the way to a better life in America), as well as girls struggling right here in the U.S. (Lily Lakota No Last Name from Illinois, sisters Katrina and Rita Brown from Louisiana, and Kyoto Kanary, an Alaskan Inuit whose igloo melted due to global warming.)
The cast's performances of these stories are simultaneously wide-eyed and knowing. One recurring bit, in which a girl introduces her doll with respectful seriousness and then flings it carelessly offstage, never gets old. The actors' combination of sweetness and cruelty maximizes laughs by shrewdly wrapping incisive political commentary in a sugary coating. The entire cast brings great comic timing and endless energy to the production. Special mention must be made of Ruth Gamble, who can wring belly laughs out of the audience whether she's playing Kyoto Kanary, the hearing-impaired Native American Whatchusay, or just regular girl Katie, with braces, a slight lisp, and the enthusiasm of a steam train. I was also impressed by Lauren Van Kurin, who portrays a veritable menagerie of incidental adult characters with the manic ferocity of a female Jack Black, and Dave Hill, who, as the "Token Male" (his character name), is cleverly clueless as a half-dozen different impotent male characters.
With all due respect to Hill's performance, it's truly exciting to see a cast of ten (!) fearless and funny women carrying a sharp political show written by a young female comedian. Friedman's brutally funny and unique view of the absurdity of our world makes her a comic force to be reckoned with. Keep an eye out for her standup as well as her future theatrical endeavors. And see this show while you can. I suspect it's the most fun you'll have at FringeNYC this year.
Written/created by: Jena Friedman, with music by Boaz Reisman
Directed by Scott Illingworth
Presented by The UnPleasant Company, LLC
Life... Death... and Entertainment
reviewed by Julie Congress
Aug 17, 2008
Let me first say, I liked this play—it is a very powerful, unique experience. Now let me explain why (and bear with me). In 1930 the poet/playwright Federico García Lorca first spoke of a force in art he called Duende. Here's an explanation (from Wikipedia) of what he said:
Duende is not inspiration, Duende is a struggle, a dark force, having very little to do with outer beauty, a struggle present in the artist's soul, the struggle of knowing that death is imminent...Duende will then color the artist's work with gut-wrenching authenticity, painful hues and tones that produce strong, vibrant art.
Duende is a concept I have studied, but I had never seen it (or truly understood it) until I saw Susan Damante, the writer/performer of Life...Death...and Entertainment. Please note, Damante's play is autobiographical and has nothing remotely to do with Lorca, nor does she ever say Duende. But boy, does she have it.
Damante has had an eventful life, with many ups and downs. When her baby brother died, everyone in Suzy's family found relief in addiction. Her brother turned to heroin, her mother to gin martinis ("which are like gasoline on the brain"), her father to vodka, and little Suzy to porcelain (aka the bathroom). The bathroom was where she could go and have time to herself and make silly faces in the mirror. It also became where she purged herself after binging. Damante won a beauty contest, got married, had two talented daughters, acted in many small films and made-for-TV movies, and found great comfort and strength in Buddhism. She also faced the untimely deaths of her brother and father, got divorced, was held up at gunpoint, and has had many near death experiences due to her long battle with severe Crohn's disease.
Damante shares all of this with us through her stories (which seem to have caricatures rather than characters in them) and through songs, ranging from "It's a Privilege to Pee" (from Urinetown) to "Don't Rain on My Parade" (from Funny Girl). Her voice is gravelly and not traditionally beautiful, but she attacks the songs with so much vigor and ferocity that you listen with total attention. The same is true of her "freak-out" moments in which she'll grab the toilet onstage and just shake it and scream or when she's reenacting her near-death experiences and she'll start chanting Buddhist chants in the angriest, most determined way possible. Andy Fehrenbach is the perfect accompanist for Damante, offering chords and melodies for the songs and discordant, spasmodic key hitting for the freak-outs.
I sat through most of the play with my jaw dropped in shock. Shock at how one middle-aged woman could have gone through so much hardship and shock at the performer in front of me who is so ferocious, so determined, so full of Duende.
Written/created by: Susan Damante (originally co-developed with Gerald White and Sue Hamilton)
Directed by Sue Hamilton (original production)
Presented by Out Our Way Productions
Galatea
reviewed by Kristin Skye Hoffmann
Aug 16, 2008
I was very fortunate to be able to see The Heather Company, Inc's production of Galatea by Frank Tangredi. It has been some time since I was moved by a simply staged, straightforward play that lets the text do all the work.
This is the story of two seemingly different worlds colliding in a way that brings out all their similarities. Lorainne Hill portrays Merle Birmingham, a fairly typical professional artist in search of the muse that will help her bring her latest sculpture, titled "Galatea," to life. Hill plays the part beautifully, accenting the character's vulnerability, insecurity, and staggering blindness to what is right in front of her with total honesty and craft. Hill is smooth and easy to watch. Her past is shadowed by an unhappy relationship with her father and memories of his abuse of her mother. She is afraid of commitment even though she has found an excellent and devoted partner in her lover Adam Levitt, played sublimely by Greg Manion. He delivers Adam's sweet and smart humor in a very relatable way that could easily have been overdone.
Merle's muse comes in the form of Kate Hagen. Kate is an obviously worn housewife who Merle discovers in the supermarket. Merle follows Kate home to invite her to her studio and meets her crass and rough husband, Al. Al, played with staggering realism by Ronald Quigley, is an ex-firefighter with a chip on his shoulder. He is verbally abusive to his wife and doesn't care who is watching. We also meet the Hagen's daughter Barbara (Jacqueline Hickel) who somehow made it out of this house containing a loveless marriage in one piece.
And so the tale has begun to take shape. We have all the players of a typical family drama, but somehow it isn't so typical. We are permitted to witness five characters grow and change in front of us. We see a woman who exists on the idea that she has an open mind but cannot see past her preconceptions and dark memories to the thing she's looking for that's standing right in front of her. We see a woman whom we want to be more than what she is showing us, to reveal her true self. We watch a man who just needed a chance embrace his natural gifts and attempt to salvage a life. This is what good theatre is made of. A slice of life that isn't too showy, but simple and true.
Needless to say, the strongest part of this production is the script. The smart and funny dialogue and brilliantly fleshed-out characters make it clear that Tangredi really made something good and director Alex Sol was smart not to tamper too much with it. In fact, some of the acting took away a bit for me. Although I tried the whole time, I never fully understood if Adrian Lee's disconnected portrayal of Kate, the sad wife, was intentional or not. She did things that didn't make sense alongside the other actors. She didn't take a true bite of food at a table where her husband took bite after bite and "chewed dramatically." She rarely seemed to listen to the people on stage with her and responded dejectedly and in strangely awkward ways. Yet, that is the character. A woman that is impossible to understand unless you place expectations on her and want to see something come out, and nothing ever does. So either Lee is a genius or is in need of quite a bit of work.
To say the least, this show is worth a trip to the Barrow Street Theatre this week. It is rare to find a script so lacking in pops and buzzes that just exists by itself. Tangredi has shown us that he has something to say. He wants us to understand that we can never know anyone's full story no matter what they tell us because there is always something else there. There is always SOMEONE else there, even if we can't see it with our own eyes. We can only see what we want to see. Tangredi is a playwright to watch and The Heather Company, Inc has shown that they have a good eye.
Written/created by: Frank Tangredi
Directed by Alex Sol
Presented by Dreamhouse Ensemble