FringeNYC 2004 Reviews - Page 5

Welcome to My Nightmary
reviewed by Gyda Arber

At first glance, it's difficult to tell where Welcome to my Nightmary is headed. As we enter the small theatre, we are presented with a messy bedroom inhabited by a woman who appears to be mentally disturbed, drawing pictures and talking to herself. When the play begins, it takes some time to figure out that the show is, in fact, a comedy, but when the shift occurs, we are rewarded with some very funny stuff.

Mary (played by writer/performer Mary Crosbie), the only character on stage, is a recovering alcoholic, having a great deal of difficulty with both her recovery and her annoying and very audible neighbors (off-stage voices by Mary Q. Archias and Jason Sutherland). The situation isn't helped by her nightmares (presented on a nearby TV screen) in which her twin brother instructs her to "kill." Despite this disturbing premise, Mary lightens things up when she talks to the audience, providing humorous anecdotes about her life as a drunk. Some of the most rewarding moments in the show occur when her AA sponsor calls (we see him on the TV screen as well), who has a few things to ask Mary.

Crosbie is a gifted actress, committing to both the drama and the humor of her character's plight. It is clear, however, that she has been blessed with great comedic talents—I would have liked to have seen the comedy emerge much earlier in the show. Archias and Sutherland do good work as a multitude of loud neighbors, Norm Rosen's videos blend seamlessly into the performance (kudos to Crosbie for interacting so well with them), and Andy Boorman, seen only on video, provides a hysterically funny characterization as Mary's AA sponsor.

Though Welcome to my Nightmary may not be the most fully realized show at FringeNYC, Crosbie’s performance is well worth the price of admission. The program notes indicate that she is a comedienne and appears on the MNN channel—I look forward to seeing her work again in the near future.

Harvey Finklestein's Sock Puppet Showgirls
reviewed by Hope Cartelli

August 13, 10:15pm: The Studio at Cherry Lane Theatre was packed like an overfull underwear drawer. The audience was barely able to contain their excitement at the prospect of reliving the wonder, the beauty, the supposed  hidden genius of the 1995 movie Showgirls, as seen through the sock puppet stylings of Harvey Finklestein’s Institute of Whimsical, Fantastical, and Marvelous Puppet Masterage. The HFI is making a career of unleashing its cavalcade of costumed tube socks on pop culture and classics alike, having already tackled such parody-friendly fare as Charles Dickens (A Puppet Christmas Carol) and American Idol (Uber American Poser). It is no wonder, then, that Finklestein and company have decided to set their sights on conquering the plot-light, sub-“B” story of one girl’s rise to a certain trashy fame—with socks, lots of socks.

Don’t know the anorexically thin plot of Showgirls? Don’t fret. Finklestein has provided a synopsis in the program. Still, the experience probably isn't nearly as fulfilling for those who haven’t witnessed the grand cinematic feat beforehand. I know it wasn’t for me. Nevertheless, the Friday night audience was reduced to guffaws in seconds with the mere first appearance of the sock puppet heroine of the story, Nomi Malone.

The HFI puppeteers are a fantastic ball of energy and humor. I had an overwhelming sense that the piece was developed by committee and that a hell of a lot of fun was had in the development. Nonetheless, the socks walk the easy route more often than not—the piece is rife with easy in-jokes and lame cameo appearances, including some easily recognizable denizens of Sesame Street at the strip club and the illustrious good girl puppet Lambchop as Nomi's best friend.

Despite the laughter I produced at the show, though, I left feeling nowhere near as satisfied as I hoped I would be, but instead that this simple rehashing of an already ridiculously simple story was not bound to remain fresh in my mind for the remainder of the festival. I even thought (okay, perhaps imagined, selfishly) I sensed a general tone from the audience along the lines of “Well, that was that…”

Maybe HFI will find the fame they seek with this by-the-books fringe crowd-pleaser. I just hope they use the attention to fill their socks with more challenging fare next time around.

The Pet Goat Convention
reviewed by David Johnston

After watching The Pet Goat Convention, I read the press release and realized I had just seen “an outrageous farce.” I was surprised to read this, as I found this play wretchedly unfunny and incomprehensible to boot. I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with something constructive, some redeeming facet to the evening. But what can I say? Everyone tried? The actors knew their lines? It started on time? I can’t even figure out what the title means.

The Pet Goat Convention seems to be about a really bad New Year’s Eve party. Jay (Philip Burke), a young music industry executive, is the host. It seems Jay’s friend Ray (Jeff Auer), a musician without a record contract, has made a boor of himself at the party. This charmless blowhard then decides to sit under a couch-pillow fort until someone gives him a record contract, which doesn’t exactly make for gripping theatre.

In the meantime, Dave and Deb, refugees from a nameless country, arrive at the apartment in the middle of the night—to clean. Cleaning consists of pretending to wash many, many beer cans, which also does not make for gripping theatre. At this point, I began to feel genuine sympathy for the actors.

Before the end, I found out this is really some sort of post-apocalyptic world. I think. There’s a strange pitch for American Express and a Brechtian rock song about how crappy everything is. Oh, and an implied gang rape of a woman gagged with duct tape, which also failed to strike me as a laugh riot.

Responsibility for this appalling time-waster lands squarely on the head of writer/director John Del Signore. The dialogue has all the comedic sparkle of a trip to the laundromat, and the characters just make no damn sense. (If Ray wants a record contract, then why is he particularly nasty to Cal, the one guy at the party who could—uh—get him a record contract?) As a director, Del Signore falls flat, too. The actors behave as if they’re in different plays and the pacing is deadly.

As far as the actors go, Philip Burke and Neil Butterfield strive bravely. Larry Weeks is interesting as a sleazy, coked-up rock photographer. The other actors may be competent. There’s just no way to tell.

The Jammer: a Roller Derby Love Story
reviewed by J Jordan & Don Jordan

The Jammer!, by Rolin Jones arrives at this year’s FringeNYC Festival promising a performance that is “half sport, half show, all action,” as well as calling itself “the King Lear of roller derby plays”. The sport in question is, of course, roller derby and the show centers around a young man working in a cardboard factory with the God-given talents of speed and style that propel him into the sport’s seedy underworld. With the luxury of a very professional (i.e., well-heeled) production team, all of whom graduated from Yale School of Drama and have worked together in the past, The Jammer! certainly does its best to fulfill these goals.

On some levels the show is very successful, including a very talented cast, especially Jeanine Serrales as a madcap named Lindy. The creative use of space was very simple yet specific, and set designer Sandra Goldmark deserves accolades for fitting a rollerdome-sized show into a small rehearsal space. The roller derby choreography, seamlessly created by Tim Acito, is sharp and clever. The story, while contrived and predictable, is fun and well-paced and the writing is tight if not original.

It was obvious, however, that this was not the first venue in which the show had appeared, and for this reason The Jammer! seems out of place. Why is such a slick production appearing as part of the Fringe and playing in a dinky little rehearsal room? Additionally, everyone on stage and in the audience seemed to be from Yale except for the two of us, and we felt like there was an inside joke we had been left out of. (J felt like she was crashing the party rather than being invited to it.)

In the end, though, The Jammer! is hard not to like—a fine piece of theater that lived up to one of its promises. We’re not so sure about the King Lear thing, but we’ll ‘roll’ with it.

The Adams Conglomerate High School Drama Club
reviewed by Hope Cartelli

If you were between the ages of 11 and 17 in 1987 (actually, even if you weren't), WonderElastic Productions wants to help you remember those formative years for all the acid wash jeans and Keds sneakers they’re worth. Go on: relive the glory days of CBS after school specials and NBC One to Grow On Public Service Announcements, reread your volumes upon volumes of Sweet Valley High and be sure to check out The Adams Conglomerate High School Drama Club Presents: Tales of the 8th Grade!! You won’t regret taking this darkly comedic trip down memory lane.

Based on Untitled: A Bad Teen Novel, written by Tara Ariano when she was but 13 years of age, this spot-on parody of a typical high school drama club offering centers around Ariano’s sincere tale of the oh-so-melodramatic trials and tribulations of a group of girlfriends entering their high school years. The novel, explains the ACHS drama teacher (played to a funny yet all too terrifyingly real level by Laurel Felt), has inspired four of her talented young thespians (the dizzyingly talented group of Lauren Ludwig, Diane Mair, Haley Powell, and Martha Marion) to put on a show for their fellow students and attending parents. “This show is a window into your children’s souls,” the teacher exclaims before the girls unleash upon us their opening number about the first day of school, a wondrous mix of suburban dance school and watered-down ‘80s music video dance moves.

As the girls’ freshman adventures unfold, it becomes obvious what a perfect balance is struck between knowing winks at the subject matter and a die-hard love for it by the actors and adaptor/director Brad Akin. Diane is hot for her science teacher, Brandon is worried that she’s too ugly to find a boyfriend (relayed in the brilliant song “You!!”, which sounds like a classic Heart tune), Sonya really wants to smoke cigarettes despite her mother’s protests, and Nina is so wrapped up in school that she doesn’t hang out with her older brother anymore. But this is only the beginning as the story takes utterly soap operatic turns that I just can’t bring myself to divulge here. Suffice to say that the coda for each of these characters kicks the coda for the crew in the classic teen film American Graffiti’s ass.

Helped by a stellar supporting cast, including Jeremy Jones as the quintessential stiff high school actor who has to play the part of the dashing science teacher and Nick Thomas who, as Nina’s older brother, is more interested in the fact that he gets to hug his “sister” during their scenes than playing his part., …Tales of the 8th Grade deserves to live long after FringeNYC is over and the new school year has begun.

Cane's Bayou
reviewed by Terri Galvin

“How do you deal with all your pain, Luther? How do you deal with all the horrible stuff?” So inquires the beautiful and fragile Lila, one of the more appealing “crippled adults” featured in the Matchbook Theatre Company’s latest contribution to FringeNYC. Although poor Lila’s solution to her plangent query usually involves little more than a six-pack, Matthew Holtzclaw’s layered, complicated drama refuses to let the audience off the hook so easily.

Cane’s Bayou opens with the increasingly untenable situation of Luther Adams, an admittedly lonesome “nice guy” in his mid-twenties whose lifelong responsibility of caring for his retarded brother, Cane, is approaching a critical juncture. Encouraged by his kindly boss to “meet a pretty girl,” Luther‘s entanglement with the alluringly vulnerable Lila, however, precipitates concerns far more tortuous than a basic need to connect. As Lila, along with her abusive, redneck brother and his brain-dead crony, descends on the brothers’ tidy trailer park home, the previously rued status quo abruptly swirls into entropy. Familiar domestic patterns skew into unsettling new configurations, and dormant family secrets emerge almost literally from the mucky Florida marshland Cane persists in wading through.

This thoughtful, ambitious work shows considerable depth, but would benefit from some judicious streamlining. As sympathetic as we find Luther’s plight, once he and the self-destructive Lila discover that love and/or sex cannot salve long-festering wounds, the play tends to lose focus. Issues like racism, fraternal obligation, personal free will, and the effects of family history are all tackled with varying degrees of success, but several theoretical speeches (and one achingly lovely, but ultimately distracting, dance interlude) impede the momentum, feeling almost arbitrarily tucked into scenes that have stalled. The program credits the entire seven-member cast for direction—an enviable collaboration manifested by their remarkable ensemble performance, but one that may have precluded a more sharply defined production.

Still, the characters’ insistence on asking the tough questions keeps us pulling for them. And their nuanced, seriocomic struggle provides a splendid showcase for this dexterous cast, particularly Michael McElroy, whose meticulous embodiment of Cane’s vocal and physical tics never eclipses the grounded emotional authenticity granted him by the playwright. If, by play’s end, we’re unsure of how Luther—or any or us, really—will resolve all of life’s “horrible stuff,” we remain inspired by his anguished foray into murky existential swamps. Holtzclaw’s accomplished, poignant depiction of this quest emboldens us to accompany him.

Tinh Ruot Thit
reviewed by Richard Hinojosa

It’s so easy to forget where we come from and those who have come before us. We look at ourselves in the mirror everyday and forget that our nose has been passed down for many generations. What is it about our heritage that makes us a unique part of an assimilating society? Playwright/director Giang Pham has put some thought into this subject in her debut one-woman show, Tinh Ruot Thit. (Translates as “kinsmen,” or “kinfolk” as I would put it.)

The play tells us a few pinnacle stories in the lives of four Vietnamese women of the same family. We hear a story told entirely in Vietnamese by the grandmother and matriarch of the family about her childhood training as a healer and a good reason not to eat pork ever again. (There’s a translation in the program.) Her eldest daughter and mother of the youngest character in the play speaks with a thick accent of her scandalous divorce and how she likes to say sorry with food. The mother’s sister opens the show with a moving monologue that stabs into the emotional meat of the play. At first, I thought Giang would have nowhere to go from this peak but she holds the intensity to the climatic ending monologue given by the youngest of the women, who is struggling to find her identity.

Overall, I was impressed with Giang’s acting. She creates the four distinct characters using her voice and body with ease and confidence. I feel the piece could have benefited from a little direction. It’s tough to direct yourself in a one-person show. For example, a director may have been able to help smooth over the transitions between characters, and may have helped Giang walk the fine line between direct audience address and soliloquy.

Giang’s writing is wonderful. I was intrigued by her characters and their stories. But I wanted more. The play, at less than 30 minutes, merely whet my appetite. I found myself reluctant to start clapping because I was hoping she would return to the stage with more. Her performance and storytelling abilities are so compelling that I thought for a moment that if I sat there long enough maybe she’d do it again. But alas, only one performance per show. This could be a problem for some people. I feel the show is worthwhile, but is it worth a full price ticket? I leave that up to you. In my opinion, it’s always worth it to see a young actor with such amazing commitment to her roles and, through these roles, to her heritage as well. Tinh Ruot Thit possesses value beyond the measure of money.

Head Over Heels and Away
reviewed by Steve Chasey

Head Over Heels and Away focuses on, as so many performances do, an exploration in introspection. While the variety in this type of performance usually comes from the content under examination, Mita Ghosal and Kron Vollmer instead attempt to change the entire method of searching. They define their personal introspections through projection, taking the inside events of a life and casting them out into the world in their most extreme manifestations. The pair of performers alternate scenes onstage in self-created pieces, in which they present us with (among other things) an Oakley-clad dancing cow, a country whose borders are defined by Vollmer's body, lofty plastic high heels, handcuffs, gold-sequined dresses, Jewish Yoga; in essence, an entire rowdy circus of the mind tossed onstage in the form of dance and dramatic monologues.

Ghosal's performances embody this approach in their widely varied themes. Her constant costume changes, from business suit to cow, are only the physical markers of the ground she covers. Her dances strike out at the audience, not only because of their variety but also their content. In the first half of the show, Ghosal uses voiceovers and monologues to emphasize her themes, yet the dances stand alone, and the additions only distract the audience. Fortunately, Ghosal’s performances in the second half drop the voiceovers and focus solely on the dance.

Vollmer posits herself as a country called Mykronesia, containing diverse populations and ethics, though her adherence to that idea trips up the overall effectiveness of her performance. For example, in discussing self-mutilation, she holds court over whether or not burning her arm could be held up as genocide to a part of Mykronesia's population—Vollmer seems to get more involved in the actual creation of her metaphor than in explicating what the metaphors stand for. The rest of her monologues, though performed with sincerity and evocative emotion, suffer from a similar pitfall.

Andru's Head
reviewed by Tim Cusack

With all the subtlety of a Saturday morning children’s cartoon and a fraction of the wit, Andru’s Head scribbles a cautionary tale of showbiz stupidity in the theatrical equivalent of florescent broad-tipped markers. This new musical by Mark Dendy (book), Stephen Donovan (book), and Stephen Wilson (music and lyrics) charts the travails of a disembodied head that hosts a children’s television program on public access. Andru (Paul Jason Green), for this is the head’s name, is very popular with the kiddies, despite lacking a torso, arms and legs. How Andru came to be a head (and take a fancy to powder-blue wigs) is never explained—and I can't tell if the fact that Andru is just a cranium means something as a metaphor or if it's just a pointless gesture that is supposed to be funny for its sheer outrageousness. Either way it left me head-achy.

Andru has fallen in love with Calliope (Denise Summerford), who, as it turns out, is the daughter of the evil media tycoon Phineas (Darrel W. Blackburn). Phineas tricks Mr. Stewart (Brad Bradley), Andru’s producer, into signing over the rights to the show to his multinational. He exploits Andru's image for every possible marketing opportunity in an effort to take over the world. Andru is hurt that Calliope didn’t tell the truth about her father’s identity (what intern ever volunteers that Daddy's a billionaire?), but they sing a song and everything is forgiven. Fortunately, Donovan's production design and Dendy's choreography rise several stories above their sub-basement plot.

All of this is hammered home in a musical theatre performance style that amplifies every joke to a mind-numbing level. A notable exception is Summerford who brings a genuine sweetness to her feisty ingénue, but the hands-down show-stealer is Brooke Elliott as Eugenia "Mama" Higgenbottom, a woman whose son wins a contest sponsored by the show. Sprouting a wig that looks pilfered from Harvey Fierstein's dressing room, Elliott's brass-gonads performance delivers the goods. It's so over the top it practically leaves Earth's atmosphere, especially during her fight scene to keep the bad guys from repossessing her television set. She's one cartoon that doesn't make me want to switch the channel.

Lifetime
reviewed by Kelly McAllister

Ah, FringeNYC. It is always bringing surprises, pleasant and otherwise. Lifetime, a modern dance piece from Cyprus, contains surprises of both varieties. On the pleasant side, this young company, founded in 1998, aims to bring contemporary dance to Cyprus, a country where little to none existed before. Their name, Amfidromo Chorotheatro, translates as “moving in two ways: dance and theatre.” I applaud their commitment to such lofty goals, and wish them well. Indeed, any company brave enough to present modern dance in FringeNYC, which seems to excel at presenting shows that thrive on ridiculing that particular art form, deserves a medal.

As for the downside to the production, well, it is not the most exciting thing to see in this festival. In the piece, three women go through many of the stages common to all women in their lifetimes—birth, maturation, sex, marriage, etc. This is done through a series of movements, by donning a few costume pieces, and by manipulating some hanging mirrors. Not too far into the piece, a fourth dancer appears—yet another woman, who seems to bring nothing new to the piece other than a fourth dancer going through the same moves as everyone else.

I kept hoping something would happen that was unexpected, but that was not to be. Not that the dancers aren’t talented—they are. All four move with grace and power, and I was never confused as to what was supposed to be happening. But the choreography, while pretty, is quite repetitive and, after a while, dull. Also, after going through birth, childhood, puberty, sex, and marriage, the piece ends. I was hoping to see how the choreographer tackled some of the more challenging aspects of life, such as getting old and dying.

According to the program, the piece is about time, which “has always been puzzling. It has been hope at times and despair at others. Time is independent. I am grateful of the mundane things of everyday life. In there lies the beauty of life, helping to ease the decay resulting from time ruthlessly moving on, leading each one of us to their end. Without even asking us…” I wasn’t sure how that fit in with what I saw, but I thought it only fair to put it in the review, so that people know what they are striving for. The set is bare, with a large screen at the back of the space where images of women appear, from baby girls to older women. I enjoyed the sparseness of the design, and felt that the video projections added a nice element to the show.

Golden Prospects: A Los Angeles Melodrama
reviewed by Joe LaRue

In the opening minutes of Golden Prospects: A Los Angeles Melodrama, the audience is prepped by director-writer-narrator (billed as The Barker) Colin Campbell. Campbell struts onto the stage, eyebrow raised, informing us that throughout the performance we may feel the urge to hiss, boo, and cheer, and that we may become so enraged by events that we may “rush the stage.” Campbell reaffirms for us that this is “just a play,” and that we should not, under any circumstances, rush the stage.

All of this is a tongue-in-cheek introduction to an evening of highly stylized, physically and vocally specific comic melodrama, complete with footlights, villainous twisting of moustaches, and gloriously over-the-top exaltations to the gods and demons. The conventions of melodrama are vigilantly held to: live piano accompaniment on stage (provided by David Libby, who delights in a gimmicky cameo as “Edwards”), applause and a bow after each scene, and drawn-out moments of moralistic tension (such as hiring a prostitute or handing over a child into slavery) that give the audience plenty of time to plead with the heroes not to give in.

The plot centers on a young, wide eyed, opportunistic couple (Max Faugno and Rebecca Lowman) who move to Los Angeles in 1901. Through a series of melodramatic (what else?) events, the father dies, their fraternal twins are separated, and seventeen years later, the grown children must piece together their broken lives in the cruel (always spoken as a tremulous two syllable word: cru-el!) city of Los Angeles. Campbell’s script could pass for an authentic melodrama—save for its choice L.A. in-jokes and sly socio-political commentary.

Across the board, the cast turns in manic yet controlled performances of comic brilliance. I laughed the hardest at Rebecca Lowman’s downward spiral of misfortune as Laura Goodman, Max Faugno’s amazing ability to project earnestness to the nth degree (as father and son, Carl and Axel Goodman), Katie Firth as a devious Mother Superior, and Vin Knight's comic virtuosity as Maurice Fairfax, a sleazy movie producer.

During the show I was struck several times with the thought: “This is the way theatre used to be all the time.” Were it as skillfully executed in 1901 as it is here at the Linhart Theatre, it is easy to see how this now antiquated style remained so popular for so long.

Another Cat and Another Moon
reviewed by Maggie Cino

Another Cat and Another Moon is a reinterpretation, by the company Metro Clowns, of W.B. Yeats' 1917 poetic play The Cat and the Moon, which is about two beggars, one blind and the other lame, who go on a journey together. The problems with this production are unfortunately apparent even before the play begins. The program gives short explanations of Noh and Commedia, as well as brief definitions of broad symbols like the trickster and the circle. If explanations of this sort are necessary, it is often the case that the piece is not clear. While Another Cat and Another Moon is spirited and done with heart, it is also unfocused and difficult to follow.

Part of the problem is putting poetry in the mouths of actors who simply don't have the technical expertise to deal with it. The majority of the text is assigned to an actor whose command of English is problematic. He's accompanied by an actor who speaks so energetically that it's difficult to understand what he says. They're backed by a very expressive dancer who has a less-than-expressive voice. Regrettably, the fourth actor, who seems to have a clear, strong voice, is almost entirely mute during the play.

This Yeats play is not well known, so the added subplot of personal clown characters only confused matters. To the group's credit, they are attempting something supremely difficult. Using clown personae in a classical text is challenging. Even Bill Irwin, whose attempts at this are the best known, fails more often than he succeeds.

The play does have a consistent visual aesthetic. The feel is of a 19th century nursery and the costumes suggest children dressing up like cats and ballerinas. There are a few stage tricks, such as a white parasol that becomes the moon, that are subtle and suggestive.  But the confusion of the piece was encapsulated at the end of the performance, which consists of many tiny scenes interspersed with blackouts. The first blackout started the audience's closing applause, which awkwardly stopped as it became clear that the piece was not yet finished.  Several tableaux later, the cast struck their final pose. And held it. And held it. And held it. Realizing our bafflement, the venue director began clapping. And we as the audience gratefully followed suit.