Another year, another New York International Fringe Festival. After seeing so many shows last year that I was burned out on theatre for a while, I wasn't really thinking about this year's festival with all that much glee. In an attempt not to repeat last year's overdose, I told myself I would cut back this year. Unfortunately I have exactly no will power, and though I only saw one show on Friday (well, I saw something else at 4, but it wasn't a Fringe show, so I'm not counting it), I saw five today. So much for cutting back. The thing is, when I see a bad show, I find myself having to really drag myself to the next one, optimistic that it will be better. I think later in the festival, it becomes harder and harder to get excited after a stinker, as I increasingly lose patience and leave at intermission. Ah, but a great show is like a drug, and with the excited buzz it instills in me, I can't wait to see just one more. Such are ups and downs in the life of a festival goer.
Anywho, here are - in brief - my thoughts on the six shows I've seen so far, and whether or not I think they're worth bothering with.
Let's see if I get any hate mail this year from disgruntled Fringe folk, angry that I didn't like their play...
SANDY THE DANDY AND CHARLIE McGEE. It's not this show's fault, but it was really saddled with what is probably the worst venue for a Fringe show - The Deluxe at Spiegelworld. For seating, you can choose from either hard wooden chairs set up in rows on the floor (with no slope), or you can sit around the perimeter (the theatre is a round tent), in cushioned booths, most of which offer a rather unpleasant angle for your neck to see the stage from. On top of that, it is directly next door to another of the big Spiegeltent where "Absinthe" is playing, and which must surely be sponsored by a maker of hearing aides, because we could hear everything going on over there from our tent, so I can't imagine how much hearing loss was caused by sitting in the tent where the show was actually going on. Oh, and it's at the South Street Seaport, which is a bit of shlep from the closest subway, and not all that near any of the other Fringe theatres (the theatres at Pace are probably the closest, but still...). So what I mean to say was, conditions weren't really in the favor of the show. That said, the show was really awful, but I sort of have a soft spot for it anyway. I imagine it's like one of those shows that played in dirty bars in East Village back when it was still sketchy - like maybe when Charles Busch was getting his start. It's extremely campy, somewhat funny, but really too long and too big of a mess for its own good. Still, I think it's kind of the perfect show to play at the Fringe. It'll get its five night run, adventurous theatergoers will go, and get one of those "OMG, that was one of the strangest things I've ever seen" type experiences, and then move on. As much as I was looking at my watch every two minutes, it seemed to me to be exactly the sort of thing I would expect to see at a Fringe Festival, if I had never been before. It's written and performed by two the actors who protested the poor work conditions at the American Girl store's show - and it's a satire of the horrors of working there, and the bizarre little fans of the dolls. After the show was over, I thought to myself that it was the strangest thing I'd seen at the Fringe since the show i saw last year that ended with a guy in the panda suit trying to eat a hot dog. Really, there are just no words.
PEREZ HILTON SAVES THE UNIVERSE. This is one of those shows that got tons of pre-festival hype, because of its title, and which is usually a let down. But surprisingly, I found the show to be extremely entertaining. It has an amazing cast, most of who have appeared either on Broadway or in major off-Broadway or regional productions. And I though it wasn't necessarily laugh out loud funny, I almost always had a smile on my face, because it was just really entertaining. The music is very pleasant to listen to, and the story - though obviously ridiculous, never bored me - and considering my increasingly short attention span, I consider that impressive. The show is about celebrity blogger Perez Hilton on the day of Britney Spears' wake, and his very long day having to deal with evil terrorists plotting to bomb the secret event... and the completely insane Kathy Griffin. The show features hilariously impersonated celebrities including Zac Efron, Jonathan Taylor Thomas, Amy Winehouse, Jaleel White (aka the guy who played Urkel), and Paris Hilton - just to name a few. Definitely a pleasant surprise to start the day.
PAWNSHOP ACCORDIONS. I don't know why I picked this - I guess something about a mute accordion players being one of the characters intrigued me. Unfortunately, I found the play to just really dull and depressing. The performances were mostly quite good, but the script was just so long and slow. It's about a group of people who spend their days outside Port Authority (and I guess some who spend their nights there too), and a journalist who comes along to interview one of them. The show is peppered with bizarre dream sequences that didn't make all that much sense, and honestly, I didn't find the stories of the characters all that compelling.
TRIUMPH OF THE UNDERDOG. This will probably be my favorite sleeper of the festival - the show that I went to because it sounded sort of vaguely interesting, but which I totally loved - last year that show was the one about the guy who sits in his cubicle all day playing an online role playing game. This is another one of those extremely nerdy one man shows. It's billed as a lecture on the history of science fiction, and it's impact on today's world, and since the only bio in the program was for the guy giving the lecture - Peter Howell, I'll admit to thinking that the show was really being performed by Peter Howell, and it was a mix of a bit of his real life (which matches his bio in the program) and with a large dose of fantasy. I'm so gullible. It wasn't until later when I got to the subway that I realized that there is no Peter Howell, and he is played by Mitch Montgomery (who also co-wrote the play). D'oh. I just kind of figured he was a professor/wannabe actor (and you all know you've had professor like that) who was using his life as a jumping off point for an example of how he dreamed his life would be like. And it wasn't really until he started talking about his second book ("Anna Carona-na") that I even knew we were in the land of complete fiction, and not just a lecture with some special effects thrown in. That said, the description in the Fringe guide isn't very good: "Geeks! Dorks! Fanboys! Lend your pointed ears! Peter Howell's mind-bending lecture on the history of Science Fiction might save your life... literally. Can the washed-up author really prevent an astronomical catastrophe threating to annihilate the entire solar system?" Maybe in retrospect it makes sense, but when I was reading it when trying to decide what to see, I thought this was going to be a lecture about science fiction, and how it predicted global warming or something. Okay, so I'm not a careful reader AND I'm really gullible. All that said, if you have an inner nerd, this is definitely the show for you. It's not a dry lecture. And it's just totally awesome.
PIECES ON THE BOARD. This one was a bit uneven. The first act had just twist after twist flying fast and furious, and really made me feel like the I was watching a exciting fast game of chess played with humans. Unfortunately , things slow down, and the chess metaphor that may have been cute in the first act, really gets beaten to death. In the first act, we witness or learn about a series of murders. Then in the second act, we find out what happened before, during, and after all of the action in the first act. It's like the first act is just all action, and then the second act is all of the character development. Unfortunately the twists in the second act are much fewer, and so far apart, that I was able to figure out the big one coming near the end of the act before it was revealed (though based on the gasps of the audience, I guess I was in the minority on that one). I think the show has potential, but it needs some serious cutting in the overlong and drawn out second act.
THE FABULOUS KANE SISTERS IN "BOX OFFICE POISON." I don't think I've laughed that much at a show since probably "Boeing-Boeing." Just absolutely hilarious. Like "Sandy the Dandy..." this is high camp, but unlike that show this is very finely polished, and they've had the good fortune of being given the Cherry Lane Theatre, which is the absolutely perfect venue for it: the seats are comfortable, it's air-conditioned, and the beautiful exposed brick walls of the stage are perfect for it, since it all takes place backstage at a theatre. Without any scenery, it managers to look like a show that I could see audience paying full commercial off-Broadway bucks for. And not feeling cheated. They should thank their lucky stars for that theatre. Of course, eye candy alone does not a good show make (though did I mention that we also get both scantily clad men, and a woman with her breasts hanging out?), thanks to a script where it seemed like every sentence was either an especially biting and funny one-liner, or had a double (sexual) meaning - or both. Two of my favorite lines were - and I'm not going to get them quite right, and they're surely not as funny on paper, as on delivered by the fantastic cast, but... (this in reference to one of the characters being dim witted) "The wheel is still spinning, but the hamster is dead," (and this being self explanatory I think), "I lost my virginity long ago, but I still have the box it came in." It's the sort of show where I'm sure everyone in the audience will go back and forth quoting their favorite lines all night after seeing the show. The story, ridiculous as it may be, is about a vaudeville house where the leading acts keep getting murdered, and the aged twin sister act (that used to work at Minsky's, but has long since been washed up), who are hired to work there. Oh, the sisters are named Lana and Nova Kane - to give you an example of the humor (Nova Kane... get it?). And of course, the characters of the sisters are played my men... one tall and thin, one short and plump, and yet no one can tell them apart.... It's the sort of stuff that in the wrong hands would just get a whole evening of groans - but somehow there is magic going on onstage, and every time I thought I would groan, I would fall out my seat laughing instead. Maybe it was because it was the end of a long day, and I was totally exhausted (not to mention the insane rush to get way across town from the Connelly to the Cherry Lane in under thirty minutes), but I found this to just be an absolute ridiculous joy.
