2008 New York International Fringe Festival Reviews
Wish We Were Here
reviewed by Martin Denton
Aug 10, 2008
Playwright/actor Michael Phillis says, in the nytheatre.com preview for his FringeNYC entry Wish We Were Here, that he wrote this play specifically for his friend and co-star, Christine Corpuz. He's done well by her—she gives a delicious comic performance in this light-hearted comedy, portraying a tough, smart, sexy genie that leaves Barbara Eden's '60s sitcom bimbo/siren in her dust.
The premise of this two-character show is that Phillis—a striving young actor/possible slacker—is performing this show for us because his Genie has granted it to him as a wish. Apparently, he asked to star in a show of his own but he wasn't specific enough; he was hoping for something on Broadway but she has instead booked him in a fringe festival, more in line with her assessment of his capabilities at this time.
We learn, through flashbacks and conversations, that Phillis's first wish was for infinite wishes, and that when that wish was granted, the standard three-wish arrangement was abrogated in favor of a much more complicated "contract" (a giant loose leaf binder at least three inches thick is brought on stage, containing the "addendum"). (This is much funnier on stage than it sounds here, trust me.) And so Wish We Were Here turns out to be a duel between Man and Genie, played out in front of the paying audience. Who really is the Master in this relationship?
The interplay between Phillis and Corpuz is charming and possesses an underlying warmth that belies the presumed adversarial relationship between their characters; clearly both of these actors are having fun presenting this trifle for us. Corpuz gets the lion's share of comic opportunities, with Phillis generously serving as straight man for Corpuz's clowning as the manipulative, sometimes bullying Genie.
A simple, earnest life lesson is not-so-hidden within the text, but mostly Wish We Were Here goes for laughs. Phillis eschews an obvious or neat ending-with-a-moral in favor of a silly and crowd-pleasing dance-off. Marc E. Shaw's staging of the piece is generally quite successful. The uncredited costumes are definitely a mixed bag, though: for her, there's a snazzy update of Eden's I Dream of Jeannie outfit that's both witty and very flattering to Corpuz; for him, though, there's a problematic bath towel that he wears for much of the show that needs better fastening—too much of Phillis's energy on stage is spent keeping it in place (hiding another costume that's supposed to be a surprise at the show's finale).
But that can be fixed, and when it is, Wish We Were Here will be a entirely seamless and pleasant addition to this year's FringeNYC.
Written/created by: Michael Phillis
Directed by Marc E. Shaw
Presented by Bowdashoot Productions
I Heart Hamas: And Other Things I'm Afraid to Tell You
reviewed by Gyda Arber
Aug 8, 2008
For Jennifer Jajeh, it's tough being Palestinian-American. People start political conversations with her as soon as she reveals her heritage. Dating can be complicated, especially when her New Year's kiss reveals himself to be Jewish. Her friend's family has trouble letting her keep a cat she's been cat sitting for months, afraid she's going to change the cat's name to something Palestinian. So what's a girl to do? Move to Palestine, of course!
I Heart Hamas: And Other Things I'm Afraid to Tell You is Jajeh's one-woman show about her life as a Palestinian-American, and more importantly, her time spent living in the West Bank. Jajeh's transformation from pampered American to checkpoint videographer to Hamas sympathizer engages us every step of the way. As the situation in Ramallah gets worse and worse, with bombings and clash points and children being shot in the streets, Jajeh finds herself denouncing the actions of Israeli soldiers more and more, culminating with an inadvertent cheer at the news of soldiers' deaths, and some serious self-reflection afterwards that leads her to leave Palestine for good.
Jajeh is a charming narrator and provides us with a cornucopia of characters to tell her story, including the deli owner around the corner, a terrified checkpoint observer, and her Palestinian boyfriend's overbearing mother. A favorite moment is her fantasy sequence at the start of the show, "It's Great To Be a Palestinian-American Day," in which Jajeh is granted a day of reprieve from all the political conversations and attacks she encounters on a daily basis.
Despite a few directorial missteps (frequent miming feels out-of-place here, transitions between scenes are weak, and there's a bit too much head-swiveling as Jajeh portrays both sides of every conversation when in most cases only one side is necessary), I Heart Hamas provides a fascinating look into a world we don't often see or hear about. Jajeh inspires the audience to empathize with the Palestinian plight via her portrayal of the hardship of day-to-day life in the West Bank. Kudos to Jajeh and her production team for bringing this important conversation to FringeNYC.
Written/created by: Jennifer Jajeh
Directed by W. Kamau Bell
Presented by Jajeh & Co.
XY(T)
reviewed by Jason Jacobs
Aug 10, 2008
Gender is simple. A person is either female or male. Agreed? Okay, maybe it can sometimes get a bit more complicated. Say a person born as a female identifies, in her mind, as a male. As our society slowly becomes more enlightened, we begin to become more comfortable with transsexuals—individuals who undergo the biological and psychological transformation of their body and sex role from female to male, or vice versa. Ultimately, a person will end up one or the other, so that's easy enough to understand, right?
Uhm, wrong. Gender identification, we are coming to learn, becomes more personalized and more difficult to pin down the more we look at it. Kestryl Cael Lowrey's solo show XY(T) challenges us to embrace, or at least understand, the complexities of the issue. Lowrey identifies himself (using the male pronoun) as a transgender butch, and upon his first appearance onstage in an oversized suit, he gives the impression of a puckish young man still going through puberty. The piece is about unlayering—literally and intellectually—and over the next 50 minutes, as Lowrey reveals his story and sheds layers of clothing, we understand that from an oversimplified, "either/or" schema of gender, Lowrey simply can't be defined. Testosterone, the central focus of the piece, is an elixir of masculinity that offers power, aggression, strength, and intense sexual drive, and Lowrey has taken the hormone to explore embodying these feelings without actually being (or wanting to become) an anatomical man.
These may not be easy concepts to grasp, but Lowrey accepts the contradictions and admirably meets his audience where we are. The show is a production of Lowrey's company, PoMo Freakshow, which looks to the spirit of the sideshow (and the concept of "freaks") to elaborate the limits of humanity. Undoubtedly it's a raw and unpolished performance, resulting in a very direct experience for the audience. With a stool, layers of clothing, and a few prop items employed when needed, then dropped on the floor, most of the performance consists of direct narrative to the audience.
Lowrey sometimes plays other characters. This works very well when another individual sheds some light on the matter. Mily (formerly Emily), a butch lesbian who makes Arnold Schwarzenegger look puny, expresses her disdain towards women (like Amanda, Lowrey's previous female identity) who take testosterone to make themselves more butch, as opposed to women who choose to express their masculinity naturally. Lowrey also uses physical performance to highlight key events, with varied impact. A slow-motion, heightened moment of injecting his very first testosterone shot is arresting and important, while a satyr-dance illustrating his use of a strap-on dildo with his boyfriend may overstate the obvious.
As the "freak" at the center of the show, Lowrey maintains a likeable, sympathetic persona which helps us digest his challenging ideas. However, I wonder if this user-friendly facade may block some emotional vulnerability from coming out in his performance. While he bravely employs his body to express himself, he brushes over opportunities to engage emotionally with the story. A director's eye to help him delve into the this aspect of his performance—and provide more imaginative ways to handle the props/costumes that litter the stage—could make the impact of the piece even stronger. (Sassafras Lowrey is the one billed collaborator, serving as production manager for the show.) Still, Lowrey's voice makes a vital contribution to an evolving understanding of gender, prods us to transcend labels of "freakishness," and reminds us that whether male, female, or transgender, under the clothes and the flesh we're all human.
Written/created by: Kestryl Cael Lowrey
Presented by Pomo Freakshow Productions
Pawnshop Accordions
reviewed by Julie Congress
Aug 9, 2008
Everyday, a paranoid schizophrenic, an egg sandwich salesman, an EMT, and a mute gypsy accordionist sit around Port Authority. They are the residents of their own country, named Port Authoritas. Though perhaps a little dirty, a little crazy, and a little crooked, they are nonetheless a loving family of misfits. With time, they are joined by a washed-up journalist who never outgrew the '70s. The journalist wants to write an article about Zaida, the mysterious accordionist. Egg Sandwich wants to buy a real cart to sell his wares from. Roche the EMT wants to get an illegal birth certificate for his immigrant wife. And they all want, more or less, to be around one another.
The ensemble of Pawnshop Accordions is very, very strong. Brian D. Coats gives a heartbreaking performance as Godlyman, the schizophrenic who sees God get on the bus everyday and knows the devil is always present. Gina Samardge, who plays Zaida, appears not to be acting, but to be possessed. If I were told that Samardge actually was a haunted homeless woman, I would completely believe it. Shpend Xani, David Tawil, and Tim Cain complete the group of Port Authority regulars. Every one of these characters is complex, disturbed, and excellently portrayed. There's also an evil detective named Develin, but the part isn't fleshed out enough to make us understand why he's so despicable.
Pawnshop Accordions is a new play, and writer Jonathan Wallace has done an excellent job in giving each character a unique voice and some very interesting, unusual material to work with (from Godlyman's repetitive rants, warnings, and off-the-wall comments to Egg Sandwich's confessions of his disturbing past in the Albanian Special Forces). Director Aaron Gonzalez has created a very rich, lively world with only a few folding chairs and a makeshift cart. Most of the action takes place in this area outside Port Authority, with the exception of a dream sequence for each of the main characters. These dreams sometimes give us a new light into the souls of these people (Zaida's particularly), but at other points feel like they are done for the benefit of the audience, rather than what the character would actually be dreaming (as for Roche).
Pawnshop Accordions is not a perfect play, but it is a very good one. This play has a lot of potential, a terrific cast, and, most significantly, heart and humanity.
Written/created by: Jonathan Wallace
Directed by Aaron Gonzalez
Presented by Howling Moon Cab Company
Lucila's Story: a play for Gabriela Mistral
reviewed by Jessica McVea
Aug 9, 2008
Lucila's Story is a charming hour-long play about a little girl in late-19th century Spain. Lucila, surrounded by the rest of the cast sitting on colorful stools, begins by selling candies in her little town of Montegrande. We meet her discontented sister and her loyal but conflicted mother and soon learn that Lucila will be traveling to another village in Chile to go an actual school. We also meet Lucila's best friend, The Queen of Truth, a tree spirit in the forest of the Valley of Elqui. Remember her—she's quite important within the plot.
The set is very sparse—the aforementioned colorful stools are the only set dressing on the stage—and all the actors sit in a semi-circle and watch the play unfold. While I enjoyed watching the actors react to scenes they weren't in (Annalise Derr, who plays Lucila, was particularly good at this), I felt that much more of the stage could have been used. Some scenes were cramped into corners, some overlapped into others so I wasn't quite sure what village or even what scene we were in.
I felt the actors tried hard to work within the confines of this small world, but ultimately didn't quite overcome it. Granted, I went on opening night, which always brings its own set of problems. But because the play is set in three different villages, and yet no differentiation between these worlds is made, the play is harder to follow and the characters not quite as commanding as they could be. Annalise Derr, our little girl heroine, and Elena Araozuse, Lucila's big sister Emmelina, are two exceptions. I could see their world when they stepped into it, as I couldn't see it with other actors. I really enjoyed their characters and wish I could have seen more of a story between the two of them.
Another slight problem that I had with the overall script was that I wasn't sure who Lucila was or why her story needed to be told. The program tells us that Gabriela Mistral (Lucila's pseudonym when she became an adult) was a "Chilean poet, educator, diplomat, and feminist," but none of this is even touched upon in the play until the very end with a few nondescript monologues. Not knowing much about Chilean culture or politics, I would have loved to see this in the play and then gone back to watch her childhood story. True, some of her poems are read in the play, but what about her work as an educator or a diplomat? What about her Nobel Prize in Literature? With a show that runs about an hour, there is ample opportunity to give us a few highlights on why she is so important to Chilean culture and then take us back into the struggles that ultimately define her as a person.
All this being said, it is a charming play, and one of the reasons for this that I haven't touched upon yet is the hauntingly beautiful music that floats throughout the piece. Three musicians join the cast on the stools and play throughout the piece. I found myself wishing for more, especially when Lucila's mother starts crooning to her—Elizabeth Acosta has a gorgeous voice and I wanted so much more of it!
On the whole, I stand by my beginning statement—Lucila's Story is a charming little piece with beautiful music and a few very effective moments.
Written/created by: Sylvia Ann Manning (SilviCol)
Directed by Joe Franchini and Leecia Manning
Presented by Me You & Eli
All Hail the Great Serpent!
reviewed by Mark DeFrancis
Aug 8, 2008
"Yes!" is all that my friend could say at the end of the show. There really isn't much more to say and it would be very hard to capture the effects of All Hail the Great Serpent! without using many capitalized expletives, but I will try my best. Serpent is an assault on all decent and meaningful theatre in the fringe, maybe the world. The 11-man squad that constitutes the sketch comedy group Murderfist is easily the most vulgar, tasteless, and offensive pack of young hooligans you are ever going to find at FringeNYC. Which is awesome. Murderfist, which has been prowling the New York sketch comedy scene for two years, brings seven of their favorite sketches to the festival, each one more disturbing than the last. I will say this though, I have never laughed so hard at a FringeNYC show, and may never laugh so hard again. Go see it.
The show itself is a quick and dirty series of sketches coupled together with furious set changes that feature a Chinese dragon (that would be Kripnor the Serpent Emperor), bizarre masks, and something similar to dancing. The Fist attacks each of these moments with an enthusiasm that makes other sketch groups look positively catatonic and shows their passion for their crazy, crazy show. The audience is fully involved in the event and gets treated to candies and baby snakes as gifts. The sketches themselves deal with such important and topical issues as killing your parents, spitting in a dead man's ear, good body swapping, bad body swapping, and the plight of young soldiers returning from the Iraq war. Again, it was hilarious.
That being said, it is important to note that behind all of the irreverence and offense is a talented troupe of performers. Henry Zebrowski stands out as a force to be reckoned with as he leads off the show in the role of a bearded, over-the-hill actress before closing the show in a fashion which will never leave my brain. Timothy Dean, Ed Larson, and John Moreno also have great moments, but the truth is that the entire cast is on point throughout. Catch this show or, if you miss it, seek out Murderfist anytime you are in the mood for some seriously deranged hilarity.
Written/created by: MURDERFIST
Directed by Krobos the Eternal
Presented by Murderfist
That Dorothy Parker
reviewed by Jo Ann Rosen
Aug 10, 2008
It’s always a pleasure to hear the quick wit of Dorothy Parker. There’s a lot of it in Carol Lempert’s That Dorothy Parker, Lempert’s one-woman biographical drama of the prolific author and reviewer. The monologue begins when Parker learns of the death of her friend and fellow Round Table cohort Alexander Woollcott. She is asked to give a eulogy, which leads to reminiscing about her life.
There’s a lot to talk about. Parker was an author, a theatre critic, a book reviewer, poet, and screenwriter, and many of the people she interacted with are mentioned along the way. As a famous wit, her one-liners are readily available, and Lempert delivers many of the lines with finesse. Some of the best moments are when Lempert faces the audience and delivers Parker’s verse. It’s a warm connection with the audience that I missed in other parts, such as in the ample use of a telephone where the audience can only feel left out, or in hints at dialogue with friends who are not there to respond.
Still, Lempert makes clear Parker’s affection for Woollcott, her admiration for Hemingway, and her comfort with a bottle. Lempert handles Parker’s drinking habit adeptly and delivers a three-dimensional Dorothy Parker, who is not only witty, but increasingly frantic, depressed, and needy as the day wears on and her onerous writing obligation calls.
Janice L. Goldberg directs, moving Lempert around the stage in a comfortable, languid manner. Robin A. Paterson designed lighting and Craig Lenti designed sound.Written/created by: Carol Lempert
Directed by Janice Goldberg
Presented by Artistic New Directions
Sex, Cellulite and Large Farm Equipment: One Girls Guide To Living and Dying
reviewed by Shannon Thomason
Aug 9, 2008
Sex, Cellulite & Large Farm Equipment: One Girl's Guide to Living & Dying is a smart, funny, one-hour, one-woman show. Something that's not easy to come by. Three words guaranteed to strike terror in my heart are: one-woman show. I want them to be good, but I usually find myself trapped in a space that's a little too intimate being yelled at by someone who talks a lot but doesn't say anything.
River Huston has plenty to say and does so with a delivery that doesn't intimidate or manipulate her audience. And the stories are good. Sitting in the audience, we want to know what's going to happen next. During the course of the show, we visit different moments in the author/performer's life. It is not a linear telling; time shifts around to include the moments she learned she was HIV positive, met her first husband, was arrested for obscenity, was a fitness trainer, became a poet, and many others. It's a lot to keep track of. Some of the transitions are a little off-balance and could include more detail (what was it like being arrested? how did she get to Mexico in the first place?). However, not all the explicit details are left out. There is a section that deals with safe sex and the tools it requires. But the subject isn't there to anger or shock. It simply is what it is. It's part of her story.
Cheryl King's direction gives the show a good pace and strikes a lovely balance between the monologues, re-creations, and poetry. The poems are extensions of the stories and are woven in well. Moments when River's mother appears as she sinks into her hip and puffs an ever-present cigarette are used to great effect without being overdone.
Huston is a storyteller. Like the best of her kind, she lets the story do the work, without trying to force it into becoming something else. She offers up her tales and lets the audience decide what to do with them. In the end, we sympathize with Huston as we laugh with her and get angry with her, but never at her.
Written/created by: River Huston
Directed by Cheryl King
Presented by River Huston
More Than Pants
reviewed by Stan Richardson
Aug 9, 2008
More Than Pants is also more than typical sketch comedy, which seems to be the background of writer-performers Brigid Boyle and Jennifer Subrin. This is to say that the sketches, while largely comic, add up to something more meaningful and satisfying than a series of jokes.
Taking place in the existential wing of a home for underprivileged boys, More Than Pants concerns two young orphans, both named Willy. (Think Beckett writing a parody of Dickens for The Carol Burnett Show, and then make that world goofier than Beckett, more relaxed than Dickens, and at times much stranger than The Carol Burnett Show.) One Willy—the tall, bossy, petulant, gently-paranoid Boyle—has pants and the other Willy—the short, wan, unflappable, partially-absent-always Subrin—does not. This difference is more existential than consequential and is, thankfully, not a contentious source of discussion. Instead, the hot topics include: puberty, adoption, mortality, and the ambiguous rules of a self-created role-playing game about tax evasion in the American South.
The twosome have a kind of love-hate relationship: the shorter, less-clothed Willy holds a sweet brotherly affection for his roommate, which the taller, trousered Willy regards with suspicion, contempt, and familial longing. It is much easier to find the "hate" in such relationships; it is much funnier to explore the "love." And this latter achievement, in addition to an unapologetic oddness, is what I found so intriguing about this piece.
Under the deft direction of Abby Sher, these performers are wonderful foils—Subrin, who walks and talks like a lightly-bludgeoned wren, needs a very strong straight man, and Boyle, as though a squeamish veterinarian who does not specialize in birds, is just that. At times, their writing meanders a bit: the scenes could be more taut in terms of timing, and the semi-satirical jabs (say, the anachronistic Self-Help-speak) could be more pointed and precise. But ultimately, the generous and deep affection the creators have for this pair of scamps makes More Than Pants so winning that the shortcomings seem not so far off the mark.
Written/created by: Jennifer Subrin and Brigid Boyle
Directed by Abby Sher
Presented by Jennifer and Brigid
Kaboom!
reviewed by Kristin Skye Hoffmann
Aug 9, 2008
Kaboom! is a poor man's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels and it is too bad. It's set in San Francisco, tomorrow, where we meet a group of quirky characters with the potential for hilarity, the cornerstone being Rodney. Having made a deal with the corporation that is "Hell," Rodney has returned from the dead (he was shot in the head by the cops 11 years prior) to continue to scam the good, clueless, fame-hungry citizens of San Fran. He gathers up his flunky, Bobo, and concocts a scheme.
He has obtained the recipe for a new drug called Krokk, that is sort of a cross of Viagra and Ecstasy. (Actually, I wondered why the play was titled Kaboom! and not "Krokk.") Like any typical villain he leaves to round up his usual suckers—Kandy, the talentless California Bike Messenger who is looking for her big break, and Judy, a California housewife who uses holistic techniques to hopefully obtain material possessions—and his bumbling sidekick is left to mix the potentially explosive ingredients that make up the drug, which of course, explode, blinding poor Bobo. Yet, throughout the course of the show, the actor portraying the character could not seem to play BLIND. He even had sunglasses on and it was painfully obvious that he could see.
Those kinds of small details can make or break a show like this. Sometimes, when performing a farcical comedy theatre artists can forget what makes up good theatre and the things that make the characters human are left by the wayside. This was absolutely the case with Kaboom! At some points the actors actually seemed to be mocking themselves.
Part of this could be due to the dated script by Michael W. Small. With countless pop references including political figures, notable natural disasters, hyped-up fads, and of course Britney Spears, this show has actually made itself a period piece. In a year, even the best jokes will not be funny any more. Another problem could have been the weak attempt at social commentary. Pop culture is always ripe for ridicule, but really what is the point? Anyone who reads an AM New York newspaper on the train once a week has heard all these jabs before.
The set design by Travis McHale left me wanting. There were lots of opportunities to use the boxy, cartoonish background with different positioning and use of space. The part of the show that I most appreciated was the costuming by Ren LaDassor. His use of detail on each costume piece helped the design really stand out. Sparkles on the glasses, wear and tear after an explosion, and best of all Kandy's helmet were the tiny things that showed LaDassor's integrity as an artist.
Overall it seemed as if director BT McNicoll wasn't paying close enough attention. Even with a weak script a good show could go on, especially with this cast! Although there are solid performances from Kristen Cirelli as Judy, Laura Daniel as Kandy, and the very skilled craftsman Ray Willis, it simply wasn't enough to save the show.
Written/created by: Michael W. Small
Directed by BT McNicholl
Presented by Red House Group and Joan Cullman Productions
Heaven Forbid (s)!
reviewed by Nat Cassidy
Aug 9, 2008
Unlike the intermediate level of the afterlife imagined by Dante, a quasi-hell filled with both grueling punishments and a persistent feeling of hope trapped beneath the frozen nether-regions of Satan himself, the FringeNYC production of Heaven Forbid(s)! imagines Purgatory as the area right outside of the gates of Heaven. Perhaps this is even more torturous than the excoriating environment Dante imagined: the semi-damned souls are tantalizingly close to where they want to be, within shouting distance of a God whom they don't understand, or who doesn't understand them. It's an interesting idea, but, unfortunately, Marco Antonio Rodriguez's play finds itself hanging in the same perilous state: close to what it wants to be, but not quite there yet.
Gamely and confidently performed by Rodriguez and actress Rhianna Mack, Heaven Forbid(s)! is essentially a series of character-based vignettes, usually performed solo by one of the two actors, about the souls trapped outside of the pearly gates. We hear their life and death stories: how they were outcasts in life, and how they are (almost all of them) not surprised to find themselves outcasts in the afterlife, as well. The performance style is loose, close to improv at times, with a fair amount of audience interaction thrown in. (Only once was an audience member taken onstage, but there's a lot of call-and-response, and a tiny bit of jostling, so if that's not your cup of tea, sit towards the back.)
Besides this loose and entertaining energy, however, is a pervading sense of arbitrariness. As a dramatic piece, there is a lot about Heaven Forbid(s)! that just doesn't hold up. Several of the character pieces, while engaging and certainly fun, have nothing but an occasionally brief reference to their existential plight, and exist solely as set pieces for some other idea. For instance, one of the characters is a grief counselor who teaches techniques for fake tears—I enjoyed watching her spiel, but I never felt like I was watching a trapped soul stuck outside of her eternal reward. Or Rodriquez's portrayal of God as a "Cholo gang-banger": it was quirky and unique, but I spent the whole time wondering why.
Looking at the program, one of the first things I noticed is that the production doesn't have a director listed. Either the actors directed themselves, or there was some communal helming going on, but it no doubt contributed to the undisciplined feel of the piece. Part of the production's charm is its raw, fringe-y energy, but a push in the other direction would help immensely.
I must say, though, there was one moment of absolute transcendence, and it came from the least likely of places. One of Mack's characters, a pimp with a lost love and an affinity for Edith Piaf, was an unequivocal success in relaying the message and feel it seems Rodriguez is going for. Absurd though it may sound, Percy the Pimp's search for his "bitch" (his preferred nomenclature) in the afterlife is fascinating and terribly moving, and Mack plays him with expert ease and grace. That section alone is worth the price of admission, and it completely confirmed my belief: there is a very serious, very entertaining, and very poignant exploration of what it means to be an outsider inside this production.
Written/created by: Marco Antonio Rodriguez
Directed by Marco Antonio Rodriguez
Presented by Martice Enterprises
CLONE
reviewed by Jack Hanley
Aug 9, 2008
If you are your own worst enemy, then who's the last person you should trust? Your mail-order clone, of course. That's the clever idea revealed unfortunately too early in Christopher Loar's new play. From the beginning the trajectory never veers from a rudimentary, Freudian study of the unconscious mind vs. the conscious.
The play opens with John face-to-face with his just-delivered clone. After a humorous glitch is worked out, we learn that the clone has been encoded with all of John's memories and learned skills. The clone understands his purpose—to be John at his low-level administrative job so that "real" John has time to hang out in his apartment being an aspiring writer. By the playwright's language and Rafael Gallegos's direction, there's little doubt (sorely needed) that the clone is a sentient being, human by all standards, who has little interest in being John's worker bee. He wants his own life.
The clone soon becomes involved with a woman at the office, and far too quickly he sees John as being an ambitionless slob. Such self-loathing deserves a more progressive and hesitant course. He ridicules him as "John 1.0." And, predictably, John 2.0 wants 1.0 erased. There were moments in the play when Loar began to intrigue me with ideas of self-reflection or the warring duality of selfhood, but they were too brief and too few. His psychological explorations seemed stifled and consequently the science fiction lost its essential human element of wonder.
Loar is a rhythmic writer who can compose a memorable tête–à–tête, but with the perfect device he imagined to delve into a rich character study, we learn no more than that John is a bore and his clone (or id) wants to go to swank parties. The woman we never see is ostensibly at the center of the story. The Johns bicker over whose turn it is to have sex with her and they use language that a pubescent boy might find beneath him. Perhaps this was one clue about John—perhaps he's a man stalled somewhere in his childhood development. But crude, sexist language alone is not enough to make me take much interest in a character's state of mind.
Loar performs in the play alongside Aaron Hodges (alternating their roles each performance). They each have a grounded presence, and Gallegos's kinetic staging helps the piece feel swift. With more deliberate character development and perhaps revelations of intrapersonal crisis, Clone could be a captivating play.
Written/created by: Christopher Loar
Directed by Rafael Gallegos
Presented by ConLab