I guess the theme today is something involving surprises, good things, and small packages.
SCHÖNBERG. Looking at my Fringe schedule for something to see tonight, I found that there was nothing that had initially interested me playing, that I hadn't already seen. So I looked at what was playing at convenient times, at the theatres that I know offer comfortable viewing experiences. Well, the only thing that looked somewhat interesting was something called "Schönberg" - which was apparently a conversation between Arnold Schoenberg and Oscar Levant. I had seen a reading of a play (probably a play with music) about Levant a few years ago that I didn't much like, but I figured how bad could this be. Well, shock of shocks, this was one of the most interesting shows I've seen at the Fringe. I was sort of tired going in, and figured if it wasn't really good I was going to nod off, but I was really riveted. Maybe it did require a little effort on my part to keep my mind on the show, and not let it wander after hearing so much interesting philosophy. But there was time for that later. Who knew Arnold Schoenberg was so interesting? The obvious answer to that question is 'everyone but me.' Knowing him just as a composer of atonal music whose very name strikes fear in the hearts of most music lovers, I was shocked to find out what an interesting man he was. The play includes anecdotes about his opera "Moses und Aron," and how he started it before the war, writing about the folk and the fuhrer (referring to the Jewish people and Moses), but after Hitler took those names and re-purposed them for the his regime, he felt like his opera was dated even before it was finished, and that was part of why he never finished the third act for it (there are other reasons discussed for the incomplete opera as well). I mean, this show has everything - fascinating thoughts on war, religion, and music. The Fringe guide labels this as 90 minutes, but when we get to the inevitable "I met with Schoenberg one last time..." line from Levant, and I saw it was only around 53 minutes in, this both shocked me that time had flown by so fast, but also made me wonder if the last scenes was going to be kind of long. Turns out, the whole play is only around 55 minutes long. To be perfectly honest, I found the ending to be extremely unsatisfying. I guess it ended where the teacher-student relationship between Schoenberg and Levant actually did end, so I guess it was the only was to end it, but I was sort of sad to see the play end. I wanted more. The acting is excellent - Schoenberg is played by John Fisher (who also wrote the play, based on four books listed in the program - at least one of which I am going to have to seek out to read more on Mr. S), and Levant is played by Matt Weimer (who is just as annoying as the last guy I saw play Oscar Levant, but I guess that's the way he was - and I sort of got used to him this time, with the character of Schoenberg, being the total opposite of him personality-wise, and therefore a fine foil). This only runs for three more performances (Wednesday, Thursday and Friday), but I think it's well worth checking out. It's like a philosophy lecture made entertaining. It even made me pull out the cd of Schoenberg's "Verklarte Nacht" that I think I bought after seeing "Aunt Dan and Lemon," and listened to maybe once. I plan on putting it on after I post this. I'm assuming it won't be very good as background music.
Such a pleasant surprise. Something that could have been a tedious bore, was actually both entertaining educational. I feel smarter now!
Showing posts with label fringe festival. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fringe festival. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Monday, August 18, 2008
Fringe Festival: Days 10-11
It's the last week of "The Festival." This time next week I think I may be going through withdrawal.
THE GRECIAN FORMULA. I'd call this show mildly amusing. Certainly not the laugh riot the creators were likely aiming for, but I laughed enough. This is a comedy about the creation of drama in ancient Greece. The funniest parts of the show are the ones that refer to the current state of theatre (like when the seer starts channeling the musicals currently playing on Broadway), and the ruler organizing the first theatrical festival starts planning on premium seating, and theatre restoration charges. Another hilarious highlight, is one of the shows of the festival that combines "Death of a Salesman," "The Glass Menagerie," "Long Days Journey Into Night" and "August: Osage County" into one lump dysfunctional family drama. When the judges were picking the winning play at the end, I was sort of rooting for that one to win - even though we're supposed to be rooting for the mediocre "Orpheus and Eurydice" adaptation that we've been watching the creation of the entire time. That show's presentation - the longest of the ones we're shown, is really kind of flat, other than a positively hilarious gospel song they throw in at the end. One problem with the show as a whole, was that it seemed to drag on for too long after the "Orpheus" production was presented. Enough quibbles though, the show is pleasant and fun enough, especially for a Fringe show.
WALLS. A really awful premise made into a fine drama. The show is about a couple who discover a wall has popped up between them, dividing their home in two, and on the day of their anniversary. I'd think I'm sort of stating the obvious by revealing that the wall represents the problems in their marriage, and it only slowly comes down as they tell each other their deep dark secrets. Even if this sounds like a lame example of just taking a metaphor literally, thanks to two excellent performances from the actors playing the couple, and some quite fine playwriting, the show manages to really be fascinating to watch. And kudos to the set designer for figuring out an interesting way - especially on a Fringe budget - of finding a creative way to represent the wall and it's reaction to each revealed secret. A pleasant surprise.
USHER. "The Grecian Formula" ended up cutting its intermission due to an "emergency" that caused them to start ten minutes late, and as I was sitting there, I was thinking how amazed I was that I hadn't left any shows an intermission, at this year's Fringe, after having lost patience with no many last year. Well, that would all change with "Usher," a dreadful musical based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." The show felt like a college production of a moldy 80s pop-opera. Well, it is technically a college production - it's both written and performed by Yale students. The show was written as a senior project by an undergrad student, and I will say that someone so young could have written something like this is impressive. Not that it makes the show good, but that it's as accomplished as it is, is pretty surprising. The show sort of feels like a cross between the musicals of "Jane Eyre" (by Paul Gordon) and "The Secret Garden" (by Lucy Simon), except combining the worst aspects of each. The songs, while all fairly pretty and melodic, are just so repetitive. I felt like the choruses were just repeated over and over again, with the central melody and lyric of each song, just pounded into my head. And though admittedly I've never read "The Fall of the House of Usher," the show didn't really feel Poe like at all - it felt much more like a Charlotte Bronte soap opera, full of cheesy romance, and the voice of the mysterious woman hidden in the house. I found the show absolutely excruciating to sit through, and with the intermission coming at a random point in the story, leaving absolutely nothing in the story to entice an audience member to want to suffer through a second hour, I just left. I was especially annoyed, as I was debating between picking this show or "Krapp 39." "Krapp 39" had been getting rave reviews, and I knew nothing about "Usher" other than the music on the website that intrigued me. But I only had room in my schedule to pick one, and well, I obviously chose wrong. C'est la vie. I can always hope "Krapp 39" will be part of the Fringe Encores series.
THE GOLDEN AURORA. A play about a man who falls in love with a dog. And when I say "falls in love," I really mean love. Like he has sex with the dog. Bestiality is a touchy subject, and I think it takes a careful playwriting not to let it fall into unintentional camp. It's the difference between Albee's fabulous "The Goat or Who is Sylvia" and that awful play, "Prymate" that played on Broadway a few seasons ago. This show starts out promisingly enough, and I think if the playwright had perhaps stuck just to the subject of the man-dog romance, it might have worked. But instead, he gives all but one character really bizarre neuroses, so that the whole thing just turns into some sort of awful freak show, causing unintentional laughter from the audience, and expressions that likely resembled those of the audience for "Springtime for Hitler." In the plays defense, I was at least never bored when watching it. It was almost impossible to tear my eyes away, but more in the way of watching an oncoming train wreck than a fine drama. Not necessarily an awful idea, just a bit too wacky for an audience to stomach.
BLANCHE SURVIVES KATRINA IN A FEMA TRAILER NAMED DESIRE. There was lots of great buzz on this, so I had high hopes. I just didn't get the appeal at all. The people around me were laughing hysterically at every little thing, so maybe it's because I'm not a Southerner (I did hear a lot of non-native New Yorker accents around me), but I just didn't find this at all funny. The premise, as far as I could tell, was this guy goes to his wreck of a home in New Orleans, and every time he puts on a wig, he turns into Blanche DuBois (of "A Streetcar Named Desire"), and (s)he recounts the post-Katrina experience, through the eyes of Miss DuBois, from life in the Superdome, to a seedy motel, to working at a Popeyes in Phoenix. I just didn't find this at all amusing or intersting. As far as I'm concerned, Tennessee Williams should be rolling his grave.
THE LONGEST RUNNING JOKE OF THE 20TH CENTURY. This was a reminder that all Fringe shows don't get packed houses.I think everything else I'd seen at this year's festival, had been fairly crowded, if not close to sold out. But this one had I think around twelve people in the audience. Which I found kind of sad, because I sort of liked the show. I guess that's what happens when you don't have a cast of twenty, to bring all of their friends and family to see your show. This is a solo play about written by and starring a playwright who went from working at Eddie Bauer to a seventeen year job as a social worker, in a program what I guess was sort of a halfway-house type program mentally disturbed individuals. The premise is good, and the stories were interesting and sometimes moving, but I found it a bit to be just story after story, with not enough connective material in-between each. I mean, the stories of the patients were somewhat interesting, but after a while I started to wonder whether the play was ever going to come to a point, or if it was just a random selection of snapshots. I think the raw ideas for a good play are definitely there, but it could use some work. Also Stephen O'Rourke (the actor/playwright) is not really much of an actor, and future productions could probably benefit from either a more experienced actor performing the play, or perhaps some acting lessons for Mr.O'Rourke. The play may not be perfect, but I found quite a few of the stories to be really quite funny or touching, and if I read about a future revised production, I would certainly be curious to give it a second chance. This was certainly better than some of the other bigger buzz shows I've seen at this year's festival.
THE GRECIAN FORMULA. I'd call this show mildly amusing. Certainly not the laugh riot the creators were likely aiming for, but I laughed enough. This is a comedy about the creation of drama in ancient Greece. The funniest parts of the show are the ones that refer to the current state of theatre (like when the seer starts channeling the musicals currently playing on Broadway), and the ruler organizing the first theatrical festival starts planning on premium seating, and theatre restoration charges. Another hilarious highlight, is one of the shows of the festival that combines "Death of a Salesman," "The Glass Menagerie," "Long Days Journey Into Night" and "August: Osage County" into one lump dysfunctional family drama. When the judges were picking the winning play at the end, I was sort of rooting for that one to win - even though we're supposed to be rooting for the mediocre "Orpheus and Eurydice" adaptation that we've been watching the creation of the entire time. That show's presentation - the longest of the ones we're shown, is really kind of flat, other than a positively hilarious gospel song they throw in at the end. One problem with the show as a whole, was that it seemed to drag on for too long after the "Orpheus" production was presented. Enough quibbles though, the show is pleasant and fun enough, especially for a Fringe show.
WALLS. A really awful premise made into a fine drama. The show is about a couple who discover a wall has popped up between them, dividing their home in two, and on the day of their anniversary. I'd think I'm sort of stating the obvious by revealing that the wall represents the problems in their marriage, and it only slowly comes down as they tell each other their deep dark secrets. Even if this sounds like a lame example of just taking a metaphor literally, thanks to two excellent performances from the actors playing the couple, and some quite fine playwriting, the show manages to really be fascinating to watch. And kudos to the set designer for figuring out an interesting way - especially on a Fringe budget - of finding a creative way to represent the wall and it's reaction to each revealed secret. A pleasant surprise.
USHER. "The Grecian Formula" ended up cutting its intermission due to an "emergency" that caused them to start ten minutes late, and as I was sitting there, I was thinking how amazed I was that I hadn't left any shows an intermission, at this year's Fringe, after having lost patience with no many last year. Well, that would all change with "Usher," a dreadful musical based on Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher." The show felt like a college production of a moldy 80s pop-opera. Well, it is technically a college production - it's both written and performed by Yale students. The show was written as a senior project by an undergrad student, and I will say that someone so young could have written something like this is impressive. Not that it makes the show good, but that it's as accomplished as it is, is pretty surprising. The show sort of feels like a cross between the musicals of "Jane Eyre" (by Paul Gordon) and "The Secret Garden" (by Lucy Simon), except combining the worst aspects of each. The songs, while all fairly pretty and melodic, are just so repetitive. I felt like the choruses were just repeated over and over again, with the central melody and lyric of each song, just pounded into my head. And though admittedly I've never read "The Fall of the House of Usher," the show didn't really feel Poe like at all - it felt much more like a Charlotte Bronte soap opera, full of cheesy romance, and the voice of the mysterious woman hidden in the house. I found the show absolutely excruciating to sit through, and with the intermission coming at a random point in the story, leaving absolutely nothing in the story to entice an audience member to want to suffer through a second hour, I just left. I was especially annoyed, as I was debating between picking this show or "Krapp 39." "Krapp 39" had been getting rave reviews, and I knew nothing about "Usher" other than the music on the website that intrigued me. But I only had room in my schedule to pick one, and well, I obviously chose wrong. C'est la vie. I can always hope "Krapp 39" will be part of the Fringe Encores series.
THE GOLDEN AURORA. A play about a man who falls in love with a dog. And when I say "falls in love," I really mean love. Like he has sex with the dog. Bestiality is a touchy subject, and I think it takes a careful playwriting not to let it fall into unintentional camp. It's the difference between Albee's fabulous "The Goat or Who is Sylvia" and that awful play, "Prymate" that played on Broadway a few seasons ago. This show starts out promisingly enough, and I think if the playwright had perhaps stuck just to the subject of the man-dog romance, it might have worked. But instead, he gives all but one character really bizarre neuroses, so that the whole thing just turns into some sort of awful freak show, causing unintentional laughter from the audience, and expressions that likely resembled those of the audience for "Springtime for Hitler." In the plays defense, I was at least never bored when watching it. It was almost impossible to tear my eyes away, but more in the way of watching an oncoming train wreck than a fine drama. Not necessarily an awful idea, just a bit too wacky for an audience to stomach.
BLANCHE SURVIVES KATRINA IN A FEMA TRAILER NAMED DESIRE. There was lots of great buzz on this, so I had high hopes. I just didn't get the appeal at all. The people around me were laughing hysterically at every little thing, so maybe it's because I'm not a Southerner (I did hear a lot of non-native New Yorker accents around me), but I just didn't find this at all funny. The premise, as far as I could tell, was this guy goes to his wreck of a home in New Orleans, and every time he puts on a wig, he turns into Blanche DuBois (of "A Streetcar Named Desire"), and (s)he recounts the post-Katrina experience, through the eyes of Miss DuBois, from life in the Superdome, to a seedy motel, to working at a Popeyes in Phoenix. I just didn't find this at all amusing or intersting. As far as I'm concerned, Tennessee Williams should be rolling his grave.
THE LONGEST RUNNING JOKE OF THE 20TH CENTURY. This was a reminder that all Fringe shows don't get packed houses.I think everything else I'd seen at this year's festival, had been fairly crowded, if not close to sold out. But this one had I think around twelve people in the audience. Which I found kind of sad, because I sort of liked the show. I guess that's what happens when you don't have a cast of twenty, to bring all of their friends and family to see your show. This is a solo play about written by and starring a playwright who went from working at Eddie Bauer to a seventeen year job as a social worker, in a program what I guess was sort of a halfway-house type program mentally disturbed individuals. The premise is good, and the stories were interesting and sometimes moving, but I found it a bit to be just story after story, with not enough connective material in-between each. I mean, the stories of the patients were somewhat interesting, but after a while I started to wonder whether the play was ever going to come to a point, or if it was just a random selection of snapshots. I think the raw ideas for a good play are definitely there, but it could use some work. Also Stephen O'Rourke (the actor/playwright) is not really much of an actor, and future productions could probably benefit from either a more experienced actor performing the play, or perhaps some acting lessons for Mr.O'Rourke. The play may not be perfect, but I found quite a few of the stories to be really quite funny or touching, and if I read about a future revised production, I would certainly be curious to give it a second chance. This was certainly better than some of the other bigger buzz shows I've seen at this year's festival.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Fringe Festival: Days 7-9
Long time, no Fringe update. But I'm back. And I haven't cut down on my Fringe going yet. Though I am going to cheat on the Festival twice next week - once for the second preview of "A Tale of Two Cities" and then later in the week for some or other else that I can't remember the name of.
Anyway...
THE FABULOUS KANE SISTERS IN 'BOX OFFICE POISON'. I went to see this a second time basically because I convinced my parents that they should see it (I don't think they'd forgiven me yet for the one I dragged them to last week) and I figured it couldn't hurt to go a second time. The show is still lives up to the "fabulous" of its title, though it wasn't quite as roll on the floor funny as the first time - partly I guess because I knew the jokes already, and partly because the audience wasn't quite as into it this time. My parents said they liked it, so I guess I'm in the clear now...
CREENA DEFOOUIE. (edit - 8/19/08) - An odd little show written by and starring a sister and brother team from the UK (she wrote the script and he wrote the music). I can't say I really liked it all that much, except for a couple of the scenes right at the end, which were admittedly quite funny. Apparently this has a bit of a cult following back in England, which I can certainly understand.
BOUND IN A NUTSHELL. This is Shakespeare's "Hamlet," re-set in a modern day prison, and hacked down to 90 minutes. This version of the play opens with Hamlet being interrogated for the murder of Polonius, and then later shows him in his cell, at the trial, and even talking to Ophelia, through a glass partition via phones. While I found the premise of the production interesting, I think it may be one of those ideas that worked better in theory than in practice. By cutting away so much of the play, the characters really felt very two-dimensional, and Hamlet especially just became increasingly annoying to the point where I was happy to see him finally die. The only character who really came to life for me was Monique Vukovic's beautifully fragile Ophelia, and considering the role was really rather small, I think it was due more to Ms. Vukovic than anything else. I had heard a lot of good buzz on this show, which is why I went, but I just felt it to be really unsatisfying. Very disappointing.
UNTITLED MASTERPIECE. Once again, let down by buzz. I think I was doing better on instinct than listening to reviews. This is a series of unfunny sketches about a man who has just graduated from college and must face the real world, with the scenes styled after various genres of television show (sitcom, game show, talk show, etc). Really not at all funny. This felt like an overlong Saturday Night Live skit gone terribly wrong.
ALL HAIL THE GREAT SERPENT! I don't know what to say about this one. It's a series of fairly offensive sketches, with a bit of one, and all of another really making me crack up. I'm sort of embarrassed to admit what made me laugh at this show, considering it was all in such poor taste, but it was the rubber dildo (once again used to the best of its comic potential by a Fringe production), along with a naked (and I'm talking he's only wearing one sock, naked) fat man onstage for an extended period of time, that made me crack up. The rest just really made be cringe without laughing (offensive or disgusting, just for the sake of it). I mean, do I really need to see grown men chew some spaghetti in marinara sauce and then stand over one of their colleagues and drop it in his mouth? I'm kind of laughing as I type that, but at the time, I think I was watching it I was getting slightly nauseous. I will say the woman taking flash photography with her disposable camera through much of the show (I'm guessing one of the actors' mothers) seemed to be having a grand ol time.
TINY FEATS OF COWARDICE. A woman stands on stage and whines -both in speech and in song - for 90 minutes about how she's afraid of everything. The show sort of felt like the result of a therapy session. Like she told her shrink she had stage fright, so the shrink tells her to write and perform a musical to conquer her fear. Does this make for good therapy? Perhaps. Does it make for good theatre? Not likely. There was one moving section about 9-11, but that's about it for interesting stuff.
THE AMISH PROJECT. Fabulous. A solo, documentary style play, written and performed by Jessica Dickey, about the shooting at the Amish schoolhouse that occurred in October 2006. The piece is presented as if based on interviews with those involved, though considering there are sections spoken by the shooter who committed suicide, as well as one of the girls who was murdered, I'm guessing this was historical fiction. Not that that takes away from the power of the production at all. Really moving, and absolutely riveting. I was almost sorry to see it end, because I wanted to see more. If I have any criticism, it's that every now and then I would have trouble differentiating between characters. But that's a minor quibble, and I'm sure with more practice from a longer run, could be improved up. This is definitely worth seeing.
UNDERWEAR: A SPACE MUSICAL. Typical fluff Fringe musical. Not as consistently entertaining as "Perez Hilton..." or "Love is Dead," two of the other big Fringe musical comedies which I really enjoyed, though I'll say this one probably had the strongest score of the three. The musical is set in the future, and a girl from the planet Ohio named Dorothy comes to Earth to work at an underwear factory where the evil owner has started production of mind-control underwear. I can't say the story made all that much sense. Dorothy (called "Dottie" for short) falls in love with an underwear model named Andi, and I found the scenes about their relationship to be quite entertaining, while the scenes between the evil head of the company and her models or her servant robot to be far less interesting. Still, I left happy and humming, and especially at the Fringe Festival, one doesn't really need to ask much more from a musical.
That's it till tomorrow. Actually, it's now technically really early Sunday morning, so that's all until later today. Eek.
Anyway...
THE FABULOUS KANE SISTERS IN 'BOX OFFICE POISON'. I went to see this a second time basically because I convinced my parents that they should see it (I don't think they'd forgiven me yet for the one I dragged them to last week) and I figured it couldn't hurt to go a second time. The show is still lives up to the "fabulous" of its title, though it wasn't quite as roll on the floor funny as the first time - partly I guess because I knew the jokes already, and partly because the audience wasn't quite as into it this time. My parents said they liked it, so I guess I'm in the clear now...
CREENA DEFOOUIE. (edit - 8/19/08) - An odd little show written by and starring a sister and brother team from the UK (she wrote the script and he wrote the music). I can't say I really liked it all that much, except for a couple of the scenes right at the end, which were admittedly quite funny. Apparently this has a bit of a cult following back in England, which I can certainly understand.
BOUND IN A NUTSHELL. This is Shakespeare's "Hamlet," re-set in a modern day prison, and hacked down to 90 minutes. This version of the play opens with Hamlet being interrogated for the murder of Polonius, and then later shows him in his cell, at the trial, and even talking to Ophelia, through a glass partition via phones. While I found the premise of the production interesting, I think it may be one of those ideas that worked better in theory than in practice. By cutting away so much of the play, the characters really felt very two-dimensional, and Hamlet especially just became increasingly annoying to the point where I was happy to see him finally die. The only character who really came to life for me was Monique Vukovic's beautifully fragile Ophelia, and considering the role was really rather small, I think it was due more to Ms. Vukovic than anything else. I had heard a lot of good buzz on this show, which is why I went, but I just felt it to be really unsatisfying. Very disappointing.
UNTITLED MASTERPIECE. Once again, let down by buzz. I think I was doing better on instinct than listening to reviews. This is a series of unfunny sketches about a man who has just graduated from college and must face the real world, with the scenes styled after various genres of television show (sitcom, game show, talk show, etc). Really not at all funny. This felt like an overlong Saturday Night Live skit gone terribly wrong.
ALL HAIL THE GREAT SERPENT! I don't know what to say about this one. It's a series of fairly offensive sketches, with a bit of one, and all of another really making me crack up. I'm sort of embarrassed to admit what made me laugh at this show, considering it was all in such poor taste, but it was the rubber dildo (once again used to the best of its comic potential by a Fringe production), along with a naked (and I'm talking he's only wearing one sock, naked) fat man onstage for an extended period of time, that made me crack up. The rest just really made be cringe without laughing (offensive or disgusting, just for the sake of it). I mean, do I really need to see grown men chew some spaghetti in marinara sauce and then stand over one of their colleagues and drop it in his mouth? I'm kind of laughing as I type that, but at the time, I think I was watching it I was getting slightly nauseous. I will say the woman taking flash photography with her disposable camera through much of the show (I'm guessing one of the actors' mothers) seemed to be having a grand ol time.
TINY FEATS OF COWARDICE. A woman stands on stage and whines -both in speech and in song - for 90 minutes about how she's afraid of everything. The show sort of felt like the result of a therapy session. Like she told her shrink she had stage fright, so the shrink tells her to write and perform a musical to conquer her fear. Does this make for good therapy? Perhaps. Does it make for good theatre? Not likely. There was one moving section about 9-11, but that's about it for interesting stuff.
THE AMISH PROJECT. Fabulous. A solo, documentary style play, written and performed by Jessica Dickey, about the shooting at the Amish schoolhouse that occurred in October 2006. The piece is presented as if based on interviews with those involved, though considering there are sections spoken by the shooter who committed suicide, as well as one of the girls who was murdered, I'm guessing this was historical fiction. Not that that takes away from the power of the production at all. Really moving, and absolutely riveting. I was almost sorry to see it end, because I wanted to see more. If I have any criticism, it's that every now and then I would have trouble differentiating between characters. But that's a minor quibble, and I'm sure with more practice from a longer run, could be improved up. This is definitely worth seeing.
UNDERWEAR: A SPACE MUSICAL. Typical fluff Fringe musical. Not as consistently entertaining as "Perez Hilton..." or "Love is Dead," two of the other big Fringe musical comedies which I really enjoyed, though I'll say this one probably had the strongest score of the three. The musical is set in the future, and a girl from the planet Ohio named Dorothy comes to Earth to work at an underwear factory where the evil owner has started production of mind-control underwear. I can't say the story made all that much sense. Dorothy (called "Dottie" for short) falls in love with an underwear model named Andi, and I found the scenes about their relationship to be quite entertaining, while the scenes between the evil head of the company and her models or her servant robot to be far less interesting. Still, I left happy and humming, and especially at the Fringe Festival, one doesn't really need to ask much more from a musical.
That's it till tomorrow. Actually, it's now technically really early Sunday morning, so that's all until later today. Eek.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Fringe Festival: Day 6
Today's show, I'm sort of embarrassed to say was the one I was most looking forward to at this year's festival.
TIM GUNN'S PODCAST (A REALITY CHAMBER OPERA). This is one of those shows that you can tell from the title whether you'll like or not. If you're a "Project Runway" junkie - or at least watched season 3 of the show, then you'll probably enjoy this, at least to a certain extent. If you've never seen the show before, you'll be bored out of your mind. I am, I admit, a huge "Project Runway" fan, and I remember always being really excited during season 3, the day after the show would air, to get to work and download and listen to the new Tim Gunn podcast of the week. Sadly, Tim Gunn has since stopped podcasting, but we will always have the memories. And now, apparently, an opera. This show is pretty self explanatory - it's one of Tim Gunn's podcasts (specifically, the episode that challenge the contestants to design a dress for Miss USA to wear to the Miss Universe pageant), set to music - specifically opera. I can't say I really found the music really added anything to the text. For the first minute or so, it is of course hilarious, but the novelty soon wears off. After that, every now and then a particularly silly image would be made more amusing because it was because of the seriousness of the delivery (things like the a dress being compared to fudge or a yule log), but more often than not I the music really just slowed things down. I found I kind of missed the original delivery and wondered if it might not have been more entertaining if the show was instead something like "Gunn's Last Tape," with Tim Gunn sitting and listening to a recording of his podcast, a ala Beckett and "Krapp." The piece is performed by baritone John Schenkel (who looks nothing like Tim Gunn, although some of the movements were perhaps slightly reminiscent) and pianist Jeffrey Lependorf. It's playing at The Jazz Gallery, which technically is air conditioned (I think), but the air conditioner is so noisy, that it's turned off once the show begins, and we have to deal with just a ceiling fan, which doesn't help. The stage is only a few inches off the ground, and the seats are just folding chair set up on a flat floor, so the sightlines are unfortunately pretty poor. Especially when Schenkel sits in the chair, it's quite hard to see him, and that's unfortunate because his facial expressions definitely add to the humor of the piece. So overall, while the show may not have lived up to the comic brilliance I would have hoped, I'd say this is worth seeing for the diehard Tim Gunn/Project Runway fans. As a piece of musical theatre, it's really not all that interesting, but as an hour long trip down the memory lane... or rather memory runway, it's good enough.
I wonder if this show will inspire a musical version of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse's "Lost" podcast at next year's festival. Presumably scored for voice and banjo.
TIM GUNN'S PODCAST (A REALITY CHAMBER OPERA). This is one of those shows that you can tell from the title whether you'll like or not. If you're a "Project Runway" junkie - or at least watched season 3 of the show, then you'll probably enjoy this, at least to a certain extent. If you've never seen the show before, you'll be bored out of your mind. I am, I admit, a huge "Project Runway" fan, and I remember always being really excited during season 3, the day after the show would air, to get to work and download and listen to the new Tim Gunn podcast of the week. Sadly, Tim Gunn has since stopped podcasting, but we will always have the memories. And now, apparently, an opera. This show is pretty self explanatory - it's one of Tim Gunn's podcasts (specifically, the episode that challenge the contestants to design a dress for Miss USA to wear to the Miss Universe pageant), set to music - specifically opera. I can't say I really found the music really added anything to the text. For the first minute or so, it is of course hilarious, but the novelty soon wears off. After that, every now and then a particularly silly image would be made more amusing because it was because of the seriousness of the delivery (things like the a dress being compared to fudge or a yule log), but more often than not I the music really just slowed things down. I found I kind of missed the original delivery and wondered if it might not have been more entertaining if the show was instead something like "Gunn's Last Tape," with Tim Gunn sitting and listening to a recording of his podcast, a ala Beckett and "Krapp." The piece is performed by baritone John Schenkel (who looks nothing like Tim Gunn, although some of the movements were perhaps slightly reminiscent) and pianist Jeffrey Lependorf. It's playing at The Jazz Gallery, which technically is air conditioned (I think), but the air conditioner is so noisy, that it's turned off once the show begins, and we have to deal with just a ceiling fan, which doesn't help. The stage is only a few inches off the ground, and the seats are just folding chair set up on a flat floor, so the sightlines are unfortunately pretty poor. Especially when Schenkel sits in the chair, it's quite hard to see him, and that's unfortunate because his facial expressions definitely add to the humor of the piece. So overall, while the show may not have lived up to the comic brilliance I would have hoped, I'd say this is worth seeing for the diehard Tim Gunn/Project Runway fans. As a piece of musical theatre, it's really not all that interesting, but as an hour long trip down the memory lane... or rather memory runway, it's good enough.
I wonder if this show will inspire a musical version of Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse's "Lost" podcast at next year's festival. Presumably scored for voice and banjo.
Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Fringe Festival: Day 5
Another day, another show at the Fringe.
THE ALICE COMPLEX. As far as I can tell, this is the starriest of the Fringe shows this year, featuring Tony-nominee Xanthe Elbrick (of "Coram Boy") and Lisa Banes (of about a zillion play, movies and television roles, very few of which I've seen). There's a reference to "Mrs. Dalloway" near the beginning of the play (luckily it's a quote from the first page of the novel, because that's about as far as I ever got through it), and that brought Michael Cunnigham's "The Hours" to mind, a novel (and movie) that seemed sort of similar in structure to this play. Instead flipping between scenes that in some way have to do with "Mrs Dalloway," the play flips between scenes that have to "The Alice Complex," which is both the name of the play within the play (which we see rehearsed, acted out, and referred to be disgruntled audience members who left before it was over), and also a feminist manifesto (the writer of which is the subject of the play within the play). For good measure, there's even a passage from "Alice in Wonderland" thrown in near the end. I can't say I found the play to be all that satisfying. The scenes from the play within the play tended to be the most interesting, with the other scenes I guess thrown in with the theory that they would make the play seem more intellectual and daring, though I personally found they just made it seem pretentious. The saving grace of the production, and really why I'd actually recommend seeing it, is for the fantastic performance from Lisa Banes. She's one of those actresses who's name vaguely rings a bell, but I would never have been able to pick her out of a lineup. Still, her performance is the kind that made me think that I wouldn't mind seeing her read from the phonebook (which may or may not be more exciting than "The Alice Complex). For some reason, her voice reminded me quite a bit of Kathleen Chalfant (another actress who's saved many an awful play). Anyway, I found whenever she would speak, I would be absolutely riveted to her. Xanthe Elbrick on the other hand, was okay, though not really up to the level of Banes. I think part of it may have been that her parts weren't nearly as interesting - Banes gets to play characters like the professor and playwright, while Elbrick plays mostly just whiny, annoying students. The entire play is thankfully only a little over an hour long, and I recommend checking it out for Banes alone. It may be extremely unsatisfying as a piece of drama, but it does feature what is surely some of the finest acting at this year's Fringe.
THE ALICE COMPLEX. As far as I can tell, this is the starriest of the Fringe shows this year, featuring Tony-nominee Xanthe Elbrick (of "Coram Boy") and Lisa Banes (of about a zillion play, movies and television roles, very few of which I've seen). There's a reference to "Mrs. Dalloway" near the beginning of the play (luckily it's a quote from the first page of the novel, because that's about as far as I ever got through it), and that brought Michael Cunnigham's "The Hours" to mind, a novel (and movie) that seemed sort of similar in structure to this play. Instead flipping between scenes that in some way have to do with "Mrs Dalloway," the play flips between scenes that have to "The Alice Complex," which is both the name of the play within the play (which we see rehearsed, acted out, and referred to be disgruntled audience members who left before it was over), and also a feminist manifesto (the writer of which is the subject of the play within the play). For good measure, there's even a passage from "Alice in Wonderland" thrown in near the end. I can't say I found the play to be all that satisfying. The scenes from the play within the play tended to be the most interesting, with the other scenes I guess thrown in with the theory that they would make the play seem more intellectual and daring, though I personally found they just made it seem pretentious. The saving grace of the production, and really why I'd actually recommend seeing it, is for the fantastic performance from Lisa Banes. She's one of those actresses who's name vaguely rings a bell, but I would never have been able to pick her out of a lineup. Still, her performance is the kind that made me think that I wouldn't mind seeing her read from the phonebook (which may or may not be more exciting than "The Alice Complex). For some reason, her voice reminded me quite a bit of Kathleen Chalfant (another actress who's saved many an awful play). Anyway, I found whenever she would speak, I would be absolutely riveted to her. Xanthe Elbrick on the other hand, was okay, though not really up to the level of Banes. I think part of it may have been that her parts weren't nearly as interesting - Banes gets to play characters like the professor and playwright, while Elbrick plays mostly just whiny, annoying students. The entire play is thankfully only a little over an hour long, and I recommend checking it out for Banes alone. It may be extremely unsatisfying as a piece of drama, but it does feature what is surely some of the finest acting at this year's Fringe.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Fringe Festival: Day 4
Just one show today. Thank goodness.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN PLAY. This show has the misfortune to have been assigned the CSV Center's Milagro Theatre. Which has no air conditioning. If you can stand the thought of baking for an hour and a half (including intermission), the show is cute enough - though maybe a little better in concept than execution. The concept is that the audience chooses what the main character - named "You" - does, with voting decided by which option gets the loudest yells and applause from the audience. Each time the little bell would chime to indicate it was time to vote, I would perk up and cross my fingers that my choice would win (which didn't happen as often as I would have liked). The problem I had was that while the voting was a lot of fun, there were long stretches when we had to watch the action play out with no voting to indicate which decisions "You" would make, and those tended to get a little boring, as they weren't quite as funny as they should have been. We get to see the play three times, and each time my audience (as I assume most audiences would) chose a different starting action (answer a phone, answer the door, or a surprise extra choice for the third time around), with the first time getting ending up with a trip to Booktopia with Waldo (of "Where's Waldo" fame), the second having us a crash a plane on a desert island with "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown, and the third time taking us back in time to high school. There are apparently eighty different possible endings, and based on the credits in the program, it's possible to even get some songs in your story - though our audience didn't get any. The show isn't really entertaining enough to warrant a second visit to see what else can happen, and to be perfectly honest even just a third story started to try my increasingly overheated patience. If you can spare the time and the fifteen bucks - and maybe do 'hot yoga' and are therefore used to unpleasantly hot temperatures - it's probably worth seeing at least the first act, just for the novelty of it all.
Unfortunately, I will be crossing off the other shows on my 'to see' list that are playing at the CSV Milagro, just because I can't imagine sitting through another show in that space.
CHOOSE YOUR OWN PLAY. This show has the misfortune to have been assigned the CSV Center's Milagro Theatre. Which has no air conditioning. If you can stand the thought of baking for an hour and a half (including intermission), the show is cute enough - though maybe a little better in concept than execution. The concept is that the audience chooses what the main character - named "You" - does, with voting decided by which option gets the loudest yells and applause from the audience. Each time the little bell would chime to indicate it was time to vote, I would perk up and cross my fingers that my choice would win (which didn't happen as often as I would have liked). The problem I had was that while the voting was a lot of fun, there were long stretches when we had to watch the action play out with no voting to indicate which decisions "You" would make, and those tended to get a little boring, as they weren't quite as funny as they should have been. We get to see the play three times, and each time my audience (as I assume most audiences would) chose a different starting action (answer a phone, answer the door, or a surprise extra choice for the third time around), with the first time getting ending up with a trip to Booktopia with Waldo (of "Where's Waldo" fame), the second having us a crash a plane on a desert island with "Da Vinci Code" author Dan Brown, and the third time taking us back in time to high school. There are apparently eighty different possible endings, and based on the credits in the program, it's possible to even get some songs in your story - though our audience didn't get any. The show isn't really entertaining enough to warrant a second visit to see what else can happen, and to be perfectly honest even just a third story started to try my increasingly overheated patience. If you can spare the time and the fifteen bucks - and maybe do 'hot yoga' and are therefore used to unpleasantly hot temperatures - it's probably worth seeing at least the first act, just for the novelty of it all.
Unfortunately, I will be crossing off the other shows on my 'to see' list that are playing at the CSV Milagro, just because I can't imagine sitting through another show in that space.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Fringe Festival: Day 3
I only managed four shows today, before I felt like I was going to keel over and die. The fact that the last show I saw was my least favorite of the day probably didn't help matters. Anyway, here's my Day 3 roundup:
VELVET SCRATCH: VOYAGE TO NOWHERE. This one definitely goes into the category of "weird." I guess it's best described as a series of macabre tales, as seen through a Tim Burton-esque lens. When the audience enters, there are three women on stage (with one caught in a spider's web), all dressed in torn, dirty white dresses, and with heavy white makeup on, and fairly large black rings around their eyes... looking not dissimilar to Mrs. Lovett in the "Sweeney Todd" movie. So, over the course of an hour, one of the women narrates a slew of stories about how various women met untimely deaths and ended up in the underworld. The scenes are mostly acted out by the two other women (who have very little dialogue assigned to them), and all accompanied by a lone guitar player onstage. There are also songs thrown in every now and the then. The stories go something like... there was a girl who wanted to be a ballet dancer, but she couldn't fit her feet in her ballet shoes, so she cut her toes of, and bled to death. Or, there was a girl who liked to read, but one day while reaching for some high books, she fell off the ladder, broke her glasses which she needed to read, and drowned in her tears. The stories are of course more detailed, but that's the general gist. I'm glad the show was only an hour long, because I don't think I could have sat through much more of the show. But what there was was interesting enough, though I found I really had to concentrate, because it wasn't the most riveting stuff I've seen - though I did find my concentration was rewarded. Not the most amazing thing I've seen, but a nice change from the other goofy stuff I'd seen so far, for though there is a certain amount of pitch black humor in here, it is not at all what I would term "goofy.:
LOVE IS DEAD. A musical comedy about a mortician who talks to, and has sex with his corpses. I know it sounds bizarre, but it was really quite entertaining. Thankfully the sex with the corpses is only mentioned, never actually demonstrated, thought the dead people are all played by living actors, so I guess it wouldn't have been that disturbing anyway. The story in a nutshell is about how three women - a dead one, an obsessive compulsive one, and a DNA analyst who's investigating a series of murders - all fall in love with the mortician. The music is pleasant enough - not so melodic that you leave humming, but not atonal either. And the actors do a wonderful job of bringing their characters to life. My only quibble was that in some sections of the songs that required harmony, there were some frightening sounding notes hitting my ears, because certain singers' voices either weren't singing the right notes, or just didn't blend all that well together. But that really only caused me to cringe I think twice, so it wasn't too terrible. Anyway, I found this show to be quite entertaining - not blown away, but certainly an extremely enjoyable two hours or so.
GARGOYLE GARDEN. This is one of those shows that is so not being marketed properly. Based on its description, I figured it was going to be a happy little kiddy musical about a kid who hangs around with gargoyles - I was thinking like Quasimodo in the Disney version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," or maybe something a little more macabre. This one is labeled as Fringe Jr after all. And it's by the people who brought us "Minimum Wage," which I didn't see, but I assumed was your typical silly Fringe satire, I think of fast food workers. Anyway, "Gargoyle Garden" is not some happy silly little musical. This is a chamber opera that sounded like it wouldn't be out of place on the stage of City Opera (note, that is not necessarily a compliment, because the new American operas they present there are almost universally awful). And though it's less than an hour long, I don't know how many children could stand listening to something with such melody-free, and serious minded music for even that long. And to be perfectly honest, with the exception of a couple of silly lines referring to gargoyles pooing out pebbles, this could easily have been marketed solely to adults. I did note that there were very few children in the audience today, despite the "Fringe Jr" rating in the guide. That all said, I did begin to enjoy the show by the end, and I think this may be one of those pieces of music that is better enjoyed on multiple hearings. It's definitely not what I would call a particularly accessible piece of writing. Well, at least it's something unlike most of the other musicals at the Fringe. And though it takes a long time to warm up to, especially to get over the shock that it's almost entirely sung through, I will say that thanks to a particularly strong final few arias, I left fairly satisfied. I'd be curious to maybe get a hold of a cd of this to see if it's less painful on second listen.
TIME, ET AL. I was really looking forward to this, based on it being co-written by Gil Varod, of the hilarious Broadway Abridged blog, and the equally hilarious "Oedipus for Kids" that was presented at NYMF a year or two ago. Well, this time he's left the comedy behind for a serious minded, extremely depressing science fiction play. It's about a guy in the present day who starts corresponding with a girl from 1925 via her diary, and eventually falls in love with her, and tries to figure out how to meet her, and then to marry her. It's the sort of thing that might have made a fine short story, but as a full length play - I think it ran an hour and forty-five minutes, including intermission - it seemed interminable, especially in the second act. There are only three characters (the guy in present day, the gal in 1925, and the brother and roommate of the present day guy), and I can't say I really found any of them all that interesting. The first act details the meeting of the two lovers, and the second looks at their awful relationship, once they're together. It could probably use a bit of trimming, but it wasn't awful - though I was thinking the premise didn't seem all that original. In the second act, where we find out the pitfalls of permanently leaving your time to live in the future, just moves at a glacial pace, with scene after scene just showing us how miserable the couple is together. I found myself thinking this could have made a fairly decent play if it were a 45 minute one act. But there as just not enough interesting material to make for an compelling full length play. In the defense of the writers, this was the first performance of a new play, and I would think even by the second performance, they'll have made changes - well, one can only hope, anyway. Still, with so many other far more enjoyable Fringe shows out there, I really can't recommend seeing this.
For the rest of the week, I'm just planning on seeing one show a night, so hopefully that will allow me to recover in time for some more theatre marathons next weekend. I'm already getting burnt out and it's only the first weekend of the festival. Oy.
VELVET SCRATCH: VOYAGE TO NOWHERE. This one definitely goes into the category of "weird." I guess it's best described as a series of macabre tales, as seen through a Tim Burton-esque lens. When the audience enters, there are three women on stage (with one caught in a spider's web), all dressed in torn, dirty white dresses, and with heavy white makeup on, and fairly large black rings around their eyes... looking not dissimilar to Mrs. Lovett in the "Sweeney Todd" movie. So, over the course of an hour, one of the women narrates a slew of stories about how various women met untimely deaths and ended up in the underworld. The scenes are mostly acted out by the two other women (who have very little dialogue assigned to them), and all accompanied by a lone guitar player onstage. There are also songs thrown in every now and the then. The stories go something like... there was a girl who wanted to be a ballet dancer, but she couldn't fit her feet in her ballet shoes, so she cut her toes of, and bled to death. Or, there was a girl who liked to read, but one day while reaching for some high books, she fell off the ladder, broke her glasses which she needed to read, and drowned in her tears. The stories are of course more detailed, but that's the general gist. I'm glad the show was only an hour long, because I don't think I could have sat through much more of the show. But what there was was interesting enough, though I found I really had to concentrate, because it wasn't the most riveting stuff I've seen - though I did find my concentration was rewarded. Not the most amazing thing I've seen, but a nice change from the other goofy stuff I'd seen so far, for though there is a certain amount of pitch black humor in here, it is not at all what I would term "goofy.:
LOVE IS DEAD. A musical comedy about a mortician who talks to, and has sex with his corpses. I know it sounds bizarre, but it was really quite entertaining. Thankfully the sex with the corpses is only mentioned, never actually demonstrated, thought the dead people are all played by living actors, so I guess it wouldn't have been that disturbing anyway. The story in a nutshell is about how three women - a dead one, an obsessive compulsive one, and a DNA analyst who's investigating a series of murders - all fall in love with the mortician. The music is pleasant enough - not so melodic that you leave humming, but not atonal either. And the actors do a wonderful job of bringing their characters to life. My only quibble was that in some sections of the songs that required harmony, there were some frightening sounding notes hitting my ears, because certain singers' voices either weren't singing the right notes, or just didn't blend all that well together. But that really only caused me to cringe I think twice, so it wasn't too terrible. Anyway, I found this show to be quite entertaining - not blown away, but certainly an extremely enjoyable two hours or so.
GARGOYLE GARDEN. This is one of those shows that is so not being marketed properly. Based on its description, I figured it was going to be a happy little kiddy musical about a kid who hangs around with gargoyles - I was thinking like Quasimodo in the Disney version of "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," or maybe something a little more macabre. This one is labeled as Fringe Jr after all. And it's by the people who brought us "Minimum Wage," which I didn't see, but I assumed was your typical silly Fringe satire, I think of fast food workers. Anyway, "Gargoyle Garden" is not some happy silly little musical. This is a chamber opera that sounded like it wouldn't be out of place on the stage of City Opera (note, that is not necessarily a compliment, because the new American operas they present there are almost universally awful). And though it's less than an hour long, I don't know how many children could stand listening to something with such melody-free, and serious minded music for even that long. And to be perfectly honest, with the exception of a couple of silly lines referring to gargoyles pooing out pebbles, this could easily have been marketed solely to adults. I did note that there were very few children in the audience today, despite the "Fringe Jr" rating in the guide. That all said, I did begin to enjoy the show by the end, and I think this may be one of those pieces of music that is better enjoyed on multiple hearings. It's definitely not what I would call a particularly accessible piece of writing. Well, at least it's something unlike most of the other musicals at the Fringe. And though it takes a long time to warm up to, especially to get over the shock that it's almost entirely sung through, I will say that thanks to a particularly strong final few arias, I left fairly satisfied. I'd be curious to maybe get a hold of a cd of this to see if it's less painful on second listen.
TIME, ET AL. I was really looking forward to this, based on it being co-written by Gil Varod, of the hilarious Broadway Abridged blog, and the equally hilarious "Oedipus for Kids" that was presented at NYMF a year or two ago. Well, this time he's left the comedy behind for a serious minded, extremely depressing science fiction play. It's about a guy in the present day who starts corresponding with a girl from 1925 via her diary, and eventually falls in love with her, and tries to figure out how to meet her, and then to marry her. It's the sort of thing that might have made a fine short story, but as a full length play - I think it ran an hour and forty-five minutes, including intermission - it seemed interminable, especially in the second act. There are only three characters (the guy in present day, the gal in 1925, and the brother and roommate of the present day guy), and I can't say I really found any of them all that interesting. The first act details the meeting of the two lovers, and the second looks at their awful relationship, once they're together. It could probably use a bit of trimming, but it wasn't awful - though I was thinking the premise didn't seem all that original. In the second act, where we find out the pitfalls of permanently leaving your time to live in the future, just moves at a glacial pace, with scene after scene just showing us how miserable the couple is together. I found myself thinking this could have made a fairly decent play if it were a 45 minute one act. But there as just not enough interesting material to make for an compelling full length play. In the defense of the writers, this was the first performance of a new play, and I would think even by the second performance, they'll have made changes - well, one can only hope, anyway. Still, with so many other far more enjoyable Fringe shows out there, I really can't recommend seeing this.
For the rest of the week, I'm just planning on seeing one show a night, so hopefully that will allow me to recover in time for some more theatre marathons next weekend. I'm already getting burnt out and it's only the first weekend of the festival. Oy.
The Fringe Festival: Days 1 and 2
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.
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.
Monday, August 13, 2007
The Fringe Festival: Days 2-3-4
First, a totally random celebrity siting: I was walking home from Fringe show #13 down 5th Ave and I passed Hunter and Susan from [title of show]. Maybe I should have asked them about the recent blog entry that claims the show is moving to Broadway. Not like we haven't heard that before. And not like my fingers aren't crossed. Anyway, I know no one cares about the siting, but I'm excited.
And now, even though my behind is terribly sore from the last show I saw (in an un-air conditioned theatre, with hard wooden seats), my days 2-3-4 Fringe Festival Roundup:
FARMTRUCKS. This show had a problem that I've had with many of the shows I've seen so far at the Festival - it's a good idea, that is initially very funny, but that fizzles out before the end. The premise of the crazy people who work at and visit Starbu... I mean Farmtrucks coffee shops is a very good one. And for the first two thirds or so, the show is really really funny. But at some point, I found the concept had just been milked dry, and I started to lose interest. There are only so many times I can laugh about the almighty district office, and the snooty workers at the rival franchise, and the competition for the number one shop. Things were pretty steady though, until the final section - namely the Barista Olympics, which wasn't particularly well executed. The section starts off with an overlong (and fairly random) musical number. And then we hear about the results of the competition, but we don't actually see any of it enacted. I think I would have liked that section to be a bit more like (forgive me for the comparison) the Fry Cook Games on "Spongebob Squarepants" - that, albeit obviously in cartoon form, was a well executed food Olympic parody. The writer of "Farmtrucks" would be well served to study the delightful yellow sponge. Anyway, I overall did really enjoy the show. Even with the weak ending, there was enough that was really funny and that had me chuckling when I reminisced about it to make me think this is definitely worth seeing.
DIRT. This is a solo play performed in English, but originally written in German. The original German title, according to the program, was "Dreck," and that about sums up my feelings on the play. Dreck. An Iraqi rambles either named Sad (short of Saddam) and or Ahmed, and somewhere around the age of 30, rambles on and on about... I think life in America. I kept waiting for there to be a point, but it just never came. The actor was pretty likeable, so it wasn't quite as painful as it could have been, but that's not saying much.
ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES. The Fringe guide classified this and "Farmtrucks" as "musicals. Farmtrucks had a handful of songs; this show had... I think two. The Fringe guide classification system is truly a mystery. That said, this show was a campy campy hoot. The plot, if I were to try to explain it, would sound like a generic lame murder mystery. But performed by an extremely talented cast - including a drag queen in the leading roll of the woman in the wheelchair, this was really hilarious.
BUKOWSICAL. This has commercial hit written all over it. Get your tickets while they last. The premise is that we are watching a backers audition for a musical about writer Charles Bukowski. The show is perfectly polished, with an extremely talented cast, tuneful hilarious songs, and loads of insider musical theatre references that theatre geeks just love. Not to give too much away, but my favorite section was in the middle, when the audience is randomly treated to a song from an all African-American musical version of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" - set in the 1960s in a barbershop The song is called "Sistah Sistah Sistah" and it had me falling out of my chair laughing. When a show has a line like "I hope your musical is as successful as "Jane Eyre," well... it just can't be bad!
THE OTHER SIDE OF DARKNESS. The Fringe guide strikes again. Apparently, if there is at least one song in a show, it's a musical, and if there's at least one joke, it's a comedy. This one was labeled "Drama Comedy." After the first line, I wanted to leave. And I still had an hour to go. This is an extremely depressing soap opera, completely with drippy flowery language, and (unintentionally) over the top acting. If I had been closer to the door, I would have left before intermission. As it was, as soon as the lights were up, I grabbed my bag and ran to the door. Beware.
WILLIAMSBURG: THE MUSICAL. I was sold out of this one on Saturday night, but luckily Sunday at noon is a less popular time. Well, maybe not luckily. The show is pretty mediocre. Half of it consists of random musical numbers about how great a place Williamsburg is for hipsters. Those songs, while entertaining, seemed like they might have come from a real estate promotional event. The other half was a dreary mix of a story about an evil real estate agent (I guess that came from the desire to not make the show look to obviously like a commercial) and a really dull love story between a hipster and a Hassid. The girl who played the hipster in the romance, gave a particularly impressive performance, but not enough to make this show enjoyable. It was just a total mess, rarely funny, and not very enjoyable.
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. I was excited when I got my program for this, because I found out, to my surprise, that it was written and directed by Dan Fogler, and featured Sarah Saltzburg (Logainne Shwartzandgrubinierre in "Spelling Bee") as well as the original Brian in "Avenue Q." The show is an adaptation of Ionesco's "The Rhinoceros." It's not bad, but I found it far too long. This was another show where a good idea just went on too long. The entire cast was really very good, and the set - made of trunks (get it? Elephants? a set of "trunks"? ha ha) with multiple rolls of backdrops in each was quite creative. Enjoyable, but needs major cutting.
WINTER'S TALE PROJECT. Imagine if Andrew Lloyd Webber's cat wrote a musical of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale." It might have sounded something like this. Really really awful. The whole thing is set to an 80s pop-rockish score that sounds like a bunch of ALW's reject songs. The lyrics are ghastly (lots of false rhymes). There is one song in the middle that the narrator sings about how random it is that there is a bear in the show. At that point, I wished a real bear would run on stage and slash my throat so I wouldn't have to sit through any more of this sad excuse for entertainment. Really awful.
GAMERS. A total total surprise, but one of my favorites. This is a solo show about a guy who is playing an online role playing game at work. This particular day, his group of characters is planning a major war on the elves to steal back their stolen relic. This, while he needs to deal with answering tech support questions (his job), as well as his cubicle neighbor, wife, mother, and worst of all... wife. Maybe it's just the part of me that's always enjoyed watching other people playing video games (of course here, there isn't actually a game to watch - it's all play-by-play commentary) but I was absolutely riveted and couldn't wait to hear what happened in the war. It's total fluff (duh), but I loved every minute of it. And get this - it was only 55 minutes long. Finally a show that knows how long it needs to be and doesn't try to be a full length play when it's not. I'm perfectly aware that my own particular quirks probably contributed to my extreme enjoyment of this, but there you go. AND, this was in the ghastly Independent Theatre on 8th Street - it had maybe 35 hard wooden seats, and fans instead of air conditioning. And I didn't even mind.
THE LADIES OF EOLA, HEIGHTS. Very much worthwhile. Three sisters (all played by drag queens) come together after the death of their father. And while home, they find out that their brother Jackson is now their sister June, who can only speak by lipsynching to appropriate songs from the stereo. Though the musical numbers are definitely the highlight (did I mention that she has a totally different costume each time she enters?), the whole show is really enjoyable. It starts out funny, then becomes a bit sad, and then finally had a very touching ending. So you laugh, you cry, you have a good time. I didn't really know what to expect from this, but I really enjoyed it, and definitely recommend it. You'll never think of the song "It's My Life" again in the same way again.
LOST IN HOLLYWOODLAND OR THE SLUGWOMAN FROM URANUS. Awful awful awful. At intermission, when the lights came up, no one in the audience uttered a word, but there was a mass exodus toward the stairs (at least half the audience) to escape. Part of the problem is that the show is plagued with performing in the Our Lady Of Pompeii Demo Hall (aka a musty church basement) and my chair was one of the most uncomfortable I have ever sat it. There were three types of chairs: the first three rows had cushioned chairs with no armrests, then a few rows of hard plastic chairs also with no armrests, and then finally cloth-covered chairs with armrests. I thought the cloth ones might have a little cushioning but no, the were hard as can be. Of course, if the show had been any good, I might not have mattered. But it was really lousy. A generic musical score, and the story was just some lame Faust rehash. The last musical number before intermission was about chicken croquettes. And that had been the best one so far. And you wonder why people were rushing to the door?
PRINCESS SUNSHINE'S BITTER PILL OF TRUTH FUNHOUSE. Eh. I thought this was going to be a sort of "Avenue Q"-like adult kiddie show. Which is was to an extent, but it was really very bitter and angry. And on top of that, I thought most of the jokes fell pretty flat (though the audience seemed to enjoy it). Also, this was once again in the Independent Theatre (home of "Gamers") but it seemed really warm and the chairs seemed extra hard this time. Maybe if it was in a less stuffy theatre I would have enjoyed it more. A good concept, but I guess my sense of humor was right for this show.
And now I'm all caught up. Whew. Tomorrow is the non-Fringe "Iphigenia 2.0" and then hopefully a Fringe show after that, if my butt isn't too too sore....
And now, even though my behind is terribly sore from the last show I saw (in an un-air conditioned theatre, with hard wooden seats), my days 2-3-4 Fringe Festival Roundup:
FARMTRUCKS. This show had a problem that I've had with many of the shows I've seen so far at the Festival - it's a good idea, that is initially very funny, but that fizzles out before the end. The premise of the crazy people who work at and visit Starbu... I mean Farmtrucks coffee shops is a very good one. And for the first two thirds or so, the show is really really funny. But at some point, I found the concept had just been milked dry, and I started to lose interest. There are only so many times I can laugh about the almighty district office, and the snooty workers at the rival franchise, and the competition for the number one shop. Things were pretty steady though, until the final section - namely the Barista Olympics, which wasn't particularly well executed. The section starts off with an overlong (and fairly random) musical number. And then we hear about the results of the competition, but we don't actually see any of it enacted. I think I would have liked that section to be a bit more like (forgive me for the comparison) the Fry Cook Games on "Spongebob Squarepants" - that, albeit obviously in cartoon form, was a well executed food Olympic parody. The writer of "Farmtrucks" would be well served to study the delightful yellow sponge. Anyway, I overall did really enjoy the show. Even with the weak ending, there was enough that was really funny and that had me chuckling when I reminisced about it to make me think this is definitely worth seeing.
DIRT. This is a solo play performed in English, but originally written in German. The original German title, according to the program, was "Dreck," and that about sums up my feelings on the play. Dreck. An Iraqi rambles either named Sad (short of Saddam) and or Ahmed, and somewhere around the age of 30, rambles on and on about... I think life in America. I kept waiting for there to be a point, but it just never came. The actor was pretty likeable, so it wasn't quite as painful as it could have been, but that's not saying much.
ROLL WITH THE PUNCHES. The Fringe guide classified this and "Farmtrucks" as "musicals. Farmtrucks had a handful of songs; this show had... I think two. The Fringe guide classification system is truly a mystery. That said, this show was a campy campy hoot. The plot, if I were to try to explain it, would sound like a generic lame murder mystery. But performed by an extremely talented cast - including a drag queen in the leading roll of the woman in the wheelchair, this was really hilarious.
BUKOWSICAL. This has commercial hit written all over it. Get your tickets while they last. The premise is that we are watching a backers audition for a musical about writer Charles Bukowski. The show is perfectly polished, with an extremely talented cast, tuneful hilarious songs, and loads of insider musical theatre references that theatre geeks just love. Not to give too much away, but my favorite section was in the middle, when the audience is randomly treated to a song from an all African-American musical version of Chekhov's "The Three Sisters" - set in the 1960s in a barbershop The song is called "Sistah Sistah Sistah" and it had me falling out of my chair laughing. When a show has a line like "I hope your musical is as successful as "Jane Eyre," well... it just can't be bad!
THE OTHER SIDE OF DARKNESS. The Fringe guide strikes again. Apparently, if there is at least one song in a show, it's a musical, and if there's at least one joke, it's a comedy. This one was labeled "Drama Comedy." After the first line, I wanted to leave. And I still had an hour to go. This is an extremely depressing soap opera, completely with drippy flowery language, and (unintentionally) over the top acting. If I had been closer to the door, I would have left before intermission. As it was, as soon as the lights were up, I grabbed my bag and ran to the door. Beware.
WILLIAMSBURG: THE MUSICAL. I was sold out of this one on Saturday night, but luckily Sunday at noon is a less popular time. Well, maybe not luckily. The show is pretty mediocre. Half of it consists of random musical numbers about how great a place Williamsburg is for hipsters. Those songs, while entertaining, seemed like they might have come from a real estate promotional event. The other half was a dreary mix of a story about an evil real estate agent (I guess that came from the desire to not make the show look to obviously like a commercial) and a really dull love story between a hipster and a Hassid. The girl who played the hipster in the romance, gave a particularly impressive performance, but not enough to make this show enjoyable. It was just a total mess, rarely funny, and not very enjoyable.
ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. I was excited when I got my program for this, because I found out, to my surprise, that it was written and directed by Dan Fogler, and featured Sarah Saltzburg (Logainne Shwartzandgrubinierre in "Spelling Bee") as well as the original Brian in "Avenue Q." The show is an adaptation of Ionesco's "The Rhinoceros." It's not bad, but I found it far too long. This was another show where a good idea just went on too long. The entire cast was really very good, and the set - made of trunks (get it? Elephants? a set of "trunks"? ha ha) with multiple rolls of backdrops in each was quite creative. Enjoyable, but needs major cutting.
WINTER'S TALE PROJECT. Imagine if Andrew Lloyd Webber's cat wrote a musical of Shakespeare's "Winter's Tale." It might have sounded something like this. Really really awful. The whole thing is set to an 80s pop-rockish score that sounds like a bunch of ALW's reject songs. The lyrics are ghastly (lots of false rhymes). There is one song in the middle that the narrator sings about how random it is that there is a bear in the show. At that point, I wished a real bear would run on stage and slash my throat so I wouldn't have to sit through any more of this sad excuse for entertainment. Really awful.
GAMERS. A total total surprise, but one of my favorites. This is a solo show about a guy who is playing an online role playing game at work. This particular day, his group of characters is planning a major war on the elves to steal back their stolen relic. This, while he needs to deal with answering tech support questions (his job), as well as his cubicle neighbor, wife, mother, and worst of all... wife. Maybe it's just the part of me that's always enjoyed watching other people playing video games (of course here, there isn't actually a game to watch - it's all play-by-play commentary) but I was absolutely riveted and couldn't wait to hear what happened in the war. It's total fluff (duh), but I loved every minute of it. And get this - it was only 55 minutes long. Finally a show that knows how long it needs to be and doesn't try to be a full length play when it's not. I'm perfectly aware that my own particular quirks probably contributed to my extreme enjoyment of this, but there you go. AND, this was in the ghastly Independent Theatre on 8th Street - it had maybe 35 hard wooden seats, and fans instead of air conditioning. And I didn't even mind.
THE LADIES OF EOLA, HEIGHTS. Very much worthwhile. Three sisters (all played by drag queens) come together after the death of their father. And while home, they find out that their brother Jackson is now their sister June, who can only speak by lipsynching to appropriate songs from the stereo. Though the musical numbers are definitely the highlight (did I mention that she has a totally different costume each time she enters?), the whole show is really enjoyable. It starts out funny, then becomes a bit sad, and then finally had a very touching ending. So you laugh, you cry, you have a good time. I didn't really know what to expect from this, but I really enjoyed it, and definitely recommend it. You'll never think of the song "It's My Life" again in the same way again.
LOST IN HOLLYWOODLAND OR THE SLUGWOMAN FROM URANUS. Awful awful awful. At intermission, when the lights came up, no one in the audience uttered a word, but there was a mass exodus toward the stairs (at least half the audience) to escape. Part of the problem is that the show is plagued with performing in the Our Lady Of Pompeii Demo Hall (aka a musty church basement) and my chair was one of the most uncomfortable I have ever sat it. There were three types of chairs: the first three rows had cushioned chairs with no armrests, then a few rows of hard plastic chairs also with no armrests, and then finally cloth-covered chairs with armrests. I thought the cloth ones might have a little cushioning but no, the were hard as can be. Of course, if the show had been any good, I might not have mattered. But it was really lousy. A generic musical score, and the story was just some lame Faust rehash. The last musical number before intermission was about chicken croquettes. And that had been the best one so far. And you wonder why people were rushing to the door?
PRINCESS SUNSHINE'S BITTER PILL OF TRUTH FUNHOUSE. Eh. I thought this was going to be a sort of "Avenue Q"-like adult kiddie show. Which is was to an extent, but it was really very bitter and angry. And on top of that, I thought most of the jokes fell pretty flat (though the audience seemed to enjoy it). Also, this was once again in the Independent Theatre (home of "Gamers") but it seemed really warm and the chairs seemed extra hard this time. Maybe if it was in a less stuffy theatre I would have enjoyed it more. A good concept, but I guess my sense of humor was right for this show.
And now I'm all caught up. Whew. Tomorrow is the non-Fringe "Iphigenia 2.0" and then hopefully a Fringe show after that, if my butt isn't too too sore....
Saturday, August 11, 2007
The Fringe Festival: Day 1
Today was the first day of The New York International Fringe Festival - a 17 day bonanza of low-low-budget theatre, most of which ranges from excruciatingly bad to mediocre, with a very small sample actually being enjoyable. Being a glutton for punishment, I plan on seeing as many shows as possible.
I only went to see one show tonight, but I am happy to report that it was a success. Perhaps this is a sign of good things to come from this year's festival. Tonight's show was "Show Choir: The Musical." Not without it's fair share of problems, I have to say that it was overall very enjoyable. The show is about, as you can probably guess, "the art of show choir." Act I traces the founding and rise to fame of The Symphonic Sensations - a high school show choir that grows into an international sensation. The first act is pretty much just fun, tongue-in-cheek fluff. I will say that I found the story was wearing a little thin by the end of the act (I think it was around an hour and a quarter) and at intermission I found myself wondering why the writers just didn't end the show there, because the silly story seemed to have run its course. But then there's Act II, which is a weird sort of a mess. In the second act, we see how the show choir members deal with their newfound fame (not well), and what that does to the choir. The second act really seemed to drag in the middle, the low point being one of those epilogue scenes where each character steps out and says what ended up happened to him/her... particularly strange because the show wasn't actually over when we were subjected to that scene. Luckily, things picked up near the end and the audience is able to leave satisfied and with a tune stuck in their heads. The whole story is set up as a kind of "Behind the Music" type-story (called "Beyond the Facade") which I can't say really made all that much sense.
The choreography is very impressive - definitely a hoot to watch (lots of show choir "jazz hands"). The cast is very enthusiastic and very very talented.
Considering it's part of the Fringe festival, I didn't really expect a polished, perfect show. So with my rather low expectations, for a show to leave me entertained with a tune stuck in my head, well that's good enough for me. I don't really see this as a breakout hit like "Urinetown" (and lets face it, isn't that really the only reason most anyone really goes to see anything the Fringe Festival?) but it's certainly a fun enough was to pass two and twenty minutes.
And now, back to circling interesting stuff in Fringe Guide - I'm only up to letter 'G'. Oy.
I only went to see one show tonight, but I am happy to report that it was a success. Perhaps this is a sign of good things to come from this year's festival. Tonight's show was "Show Choir: The Musical." Not without it's fair share of problems, I have to say that it was overall very enjoyable. The show is about, as you can probably guess, "the art of show choir." Act I traces the founding and rise to fame of The Symphonic Sensations - a high school show choir that grows into an international sensation. The first act is pretty much just fun, tongue-in-cheek fluff. I will say that I found the story was wearing a little thin by the end of the act (I think it was around an hour and a quarter) and at intermission I found myself wondering why the writers just didn't end the show there, because the silly story seemed to have run its course. But then there's Act II, which is a weird sort of a mess. In the second act, we see how the show choir members deal with their newfound fame (not well), and what that does to the choir. The second act really seemed to drag in the middle, the low point being one of those epilogue scenes where each character steps out and says what ended up happened to him/her... particularly strange because the show wasn't actually over when we were subjected to that scene. Luckily, things picked up near the end and the audience is able to leave satisfied and with a tune stuck in their heads. The whole story is set up as a kind of "Behind the Music" type-story (called "Beyond the Facade") which I can't say really made all that much sense.
The choreography is very impressive - definitely a hoot to watch (lots of show choir "jazz hands"). The cast is very enthusiastic and very very talented.
Considering it's part of the Fringe festival, I didn't really expect a polished, perfect show. So with my rather low expectations, for a show to leave me entertained with a tune stuck in my head, well that's good enough for me. I don't really see this as a breakout hit like "Urinetown" (and lets face it, isn't that really the only reason most anyone really goes to see anything the Fringe Festival?) but it's certainly a fun enough was to pass two and twenty minutes.
And now, back to circling interesting stuff in Fringe Guide - I'm only up to letter 'G'. Oy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)