FringeNYC 2004 Reviews - Page 13

Jonestown, The Musical
reviewed by Riley MacLeod

Writing about religion is never easy, especially when the religion one is writing about is the mystery of the Peoples’ Temple, a devoted group of followers of the Reverend Jim Jones who committed a mass suicide in Jonestown, Guyana in 1978. Yet it is this mess of unanswered questions and divided loyalties that Jonestown: The Musical boldly attempts to take on.

Written by Brian Silliman and Larry Lees, Jonestown: The Musical is, at the outset, your usual musical. Matt Cavenaugh does an exceptional job as protagonist Samuel Foreman, a lost young man selected to be Reverend Jones’ lieutenant. His charismatic stage presence and effortless voice bring depth and vitality to his role. His performance is complemented by the powerful voice and unabashed performance of J. Mark McVey as Jones. These two actors portray the fascinating relationship between Jones and Samuel, culminating in Samuel giving the order to the rest of the followers to drink the cyanide-spiked Kool-Aid which ends their lives.

Robert Creighton is energetic and exciting as Congressman Leo Ryan, whose assassination during his visit to Jonestown prompted the suicide of 913 of the Temple’s 1100 members. Backed up by his assistant Hedge (Howard Emanuel) and reporter Bill Ship (Neal Young), Ryan is aware that he is in a musical and acts accordingly. But as he hits the high notes and kick-dances his way through deception, brainwashing, and eventual murder, I could only ask myself: should I be laughing at this? Ryan and company are a bit daft straight through to the end, easily duped by the transparent lies of Jones’ followers. They are hilariously clueless, but also unbelievably so, and there were moments when I wondered if we had crossed the line from humor into sacrilege. I admire efforts to walk that line, but I know it should be walked carefully.

As a musical comedy, Jonestown succeeds. Though the lyrics are occasionally simple and the character development and motivation are a bit weak, the show is engaging and fun. Serious numbers such as “I Remember” and “What He’s Done” are offset by exuberant comedic gems like “Church and State” and “Don’t Mess with the USA.” The book is witty, the music singable, and the musicians highly talented.

I left the theatre humming the music but feeling uneasy. The hurt and love in Samuel’s eyes as he follows doggedly in Jones’ footsteps are fascinating and, to me, the true heart of the Jonestown tragedy. I came in assuming Jonestown was a comedy, but along the way serious issues of religion, belonging, and responsibility were spiked into the mix. Jonestown skips along the surface of Jonestown, a subject which I believe it is impossible to do justice to without going in-depth. I went home full of questions that the show perhaps unintentionally raised and spent the next three days wondering what I would have done in such a situation. It’s easy to make caricatures out of the Peoples’ Temple followers, but I believe it is vital that we realize that they were living people, people who were seeking something that many of them found. Efforts to create humor out of such a tragedy are brave and most welcome, but they need to be done with the appropriate depth and respect.

High Cotton
reviewed by Jonathan Warman

I know enough about script dynamics to know that High Cotton is lightweight fun.  This parody/farce takes Shakespeare’s story of King Lear and his daughters and crosses it with several of Tennessee Williams' many Southern epics. The three daughters could stand to be campier still, but the two performers in High Cotton with the most gay appeal hit just the right notes. Legendary downtown drag queen Flotilla De Barge plays the saucy maid Partition, undercutting stereotypes with dry sarcasm (still, when will somebody cast Flo as something other than a hooker or a maid!). And the hunky Peter Maris wryly spoofs William’s manly leading male characters; when Maris swaggers on brandishing bourbon and a crutch, he's a far better Brick than Broadway’s Jason Patric ever was, and Maris is just kidding around here.

The FringeNYC theatre where it's playing had failing air conditioning (still a cut above the non-existent AC of the early Lower East Side years of the Fringe!); comedy is the first thing to wilt in the summer heat.  I intellectually knew that most of playwright Lance Werth’s jokes would “land” (get a laugh, that is) with a less sweaty audience, but the Fringe audience I was with was too overheated to properly appreciate Werth’s comic gifts. This light-hearted romp deserves some love in a colder climate.

Armless
reviewed by Joe LaRue

In Armless, Sam Turich plays John, a man who, because of a rare disorder, feels that he must cut off his arms in order to “feel complete.” So, perhaps it is intentional that I left the show feeling that the experience was, well, missing something.

The play begins on a strong note, taking John’s disorder seriously, and finding comedy within that seriousness. John tries desperately to leave a revealing message on the answering machine for his wife to find—his inability to speak the words, his frustration and horror at his own desires fuel the scene. Playwright Kyle Jarrow is able to wrench a good amount of suspense by holding his cards close: twenty minutes pass before we actually hear specifics about John’s disorder, or of his violent intentions.

Unfortunately the suspense only lasts so long—the show’s program contains detailed notes explaining the finer points of Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID), and it is disappointing to see those same points performed on stage without greater exploration.

Turich’s performance as John is nicely modulated and well grounded, though we often find his character playing the same actions and saying the same things to his cast-mates over and over again. Colleen Quinlan does the best job of finding truthfulness in the show’s outlandish comic setups. As “The Doctor” and “The Receptionist,” Robert Carr and Gabrielle Reznek do the best they can with a standard “boss chasing the secretary around the desk” scenario.

Armless takes a dive into slapstick in its latter half, especially during the big, potentially gory final scene. I could see what director Ian Tresselt was going for: a heightened state of reality in which comic moments would arise out of the honesty of the character’s desires. Tresselt is also giving us supporting characters who are over-the-top, and who are intended to “match” John in their outlandish pursuits, but it is a disservice to the play, and to a very real disorder that the comic elements take over and yank the emotional truth from John’s struggle.

The Imaginary, All-True Leni Riefenstahl Show
reviewed by Paul Hagen

The life story of Leni Riefenstahl is a fascinating one, from her early career as a dancer to her controversial work as a director (her film Triumph of Will is often accused of being Nazi propaganda). Jen Ryan’s The Imaginary, All-True Leni Riefenstahl Show is at its best when exploring this material. Scenes in which Leni encounters Nazi big boys Adolph Hitler and Joseph Goebbels or Hollywood greats like Marlene Dietrich and Clark Gable are particularly intriguing.

The problem is that there’s so much that has little to do with Leni’s life. Much of the show’s “humor” relies on slapstick, anachronistic pop culture references and overenthusiastic “making out.” The humor that’s more specific to the material, in particular an appearance by a stuffed animal in the role of Hitler, is much funnier.

Ryan has also chosen to make her struggle to write the play part of the play. It serves as yet another distraction from the life of Leni. Ryan, the character, faces no particularly grim struggles, just people who are vaguely opposed to Naziism wondering, “Why would you want to write a show about her?” These questions prompt passionate answers from Ryan about how great Leni was and how she wasn’t a Nazi. The parts of the show that actually tell the story of Riefenstahl’s life have already accomplished this; so welcome to redundancy.

Playwright Ryan also acts, portraying Leni as a sort of perpetually optimistic ingénue. Rik Sansone plays a dizzying array of characters Leni encounters, and, to his credit, very rarely looks dizzy from the effort. The same cannot be said for director Franz Liebkind, who all too often lets this production spin out of control—at times sacrificing clarity to blend scenes together, at other times leaving the audience sitting in the dark, listening to the actors struggle and curse their way through difficult costume changes. Visual designer Brendan Roche has designed an impressive series of vintage photo projections as a backdrop, although sometimes they serve as an interesting counterpoint while at others they simply seem to be killing time.

At the performance I saw, after a frantic curtain call, Ryan exhorted the audience to tell their friends to see “that funny show about the Nazis.” A great many more audience members would be telling their friends to come see this show if it wasn’t trying so hard to be a funny show about Nazis, but instead a really solid show about the life of Leni Riefenstahl.

No Such Roses
reviewed by Terri Galvin

Official disclaimer: I am a Sonnet-holic. I adore, revere, and exalt in all 154 of Shakespeare’s anguished musings on love, mortality, and time. For Halloween I dress up as the Dark Lady, and if I had a slogan it might be “You give me three quatrains and a couplet, and I’ll give you the world.” And since I have no desire to be in recovery, one can only imagine how enthusiastically I anticipated this show.

In No Such Roses: Sonnets that are Nothing Like the Sun, co-writers Michelle O’Connor and Akyiaa Wilson offer a series of vignettes wherein contemporary American English alternates with gems like Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? as characters confront themes that have plagued lovers since the days of Elizabeth I and her errant Lord Devereaux. From a control-freak Bride-zilla and her cold-footed fiancé, (not to mention her best friend, pining for the groom), to a songwriter with trust issues, there’s ample ground here for the wealth of infatuation, betrayal, and despair expressed so divinely by the Bard four centuries ago. A sonnet-phile’s dream, no?

Alack! Beshrew my heart, if I didst not most prodigiously desire it to be so.

The sad (or brilliant, depending on your perspective) reality is that the sonnets are, by nature, inwardly contemplative, rather than externally dynamic. It’s hardly that they lack drama, but that the dramatic tension unfolds within a self-contained deliberation, one that’s asserted, debated, and resolved (however tenuously) in a scant fourteen lines. True, the narrator addresses his beloved, but the dialogue he conducts is with himself, never requiring a reply from the Young Man or Dark Lady to be complete.

Given such constraints, it’s heartening that many of this play’s scripted scenarios do succeed. When wooing or reproaching, a well-chosen sonnet conveys the same ardent vigor of Shakespeare’s dramatic dialogue, and when the characters lament or reflect, the inherently meditative sonnets are mined for all their resonant eloquence. Other scenes, however, feel decidedly forced, as if the poor, elegantly square poem were rammed into an awkwardly round set of naturalistic circumstances. And while Anna McHugh’s stylized direction produces appealing tableaux, she doesn’t seem to have helped her cast in structuring their verse.

And yet, I can’t help but admire this courageous experiment and applaud FringeNYC in providing a forum for such interesting, creative risks. As the cast gathered in the final scene for a spellbinding, perfectly executed rendition of Sonnet 29 (When in disgrace with Fortune and men’s eyes) I concluded that one could do far worse with one’s FringePass than spend an hour luxuriating in such exquisite imagery and romantic ruminations.

After all, Lean penury within that pen doth dwell / That to his subject lends not some small glory.

Young, Sexy, and Talented
reviewed by Dan Asher

Are you Young, Sexy, and, Talented? If so, you need not apply to the New Rochelle Academy of Dramatic Excellence, the fictional drama school at the center of the play of the same name, Swimtrun Productions' entry at this year's FringeNYC. You see, these three winning characteristics that historically have been needed if an actor or actress dreams of stardom will not necessarily guarantee you enrollment to theis school. For the only true requirement is ability—the ability, that is, to come up with the $166,000 tuition. Blind ambition and a warped sense of self, while not required, are common among all the students. And, if you don’t measure up to the others in terms of horrifically low self esteem? No worries. The instructor will cultivate and nurture it for you.

The tuition requirement has effectively eliminated the 97 percent of the 84 percent of the 2,000 people who were “vigorously screened and auditioned” three years ago for the drama school’s inaugural class. That class is having its graduation/ industry showcase this evening  (in Act Two; the first act takes place at the final rehearsal, the evening before). Ah…the industry showcase. That magical evening when the students choose that perfect scene. The one that shows off their range, the one that requires a costume that shows enough skin, and most importantly a scene partner who won’t steal any thunder or get in the way... literally.

It’s the also the chance for founder/curator/master teacher of the school, Simon Brook (Robin Bloodworth), to show off his students' final work to the industry guests, all the while scheming to drum up some more business. He has even created an evaluation sheet so that the agents can distinguish between the students they will sign right away, or the ones they wait a few days and then decide to sign. (Good stuff, huh?)

All this wonderful delusion feeds this zany send-up of the business of acting schools and their inhabitants. Writer/director Richard Cavan has accurately, truthfully, hilariously, and painfully captured the neuroses and cutthroat atmosphere of acting schools. There is one sequence where the students perform the standard warm-up exercises. If you’ve ever attended an acting school, be prepared to laugh hysterically. The entire cast does a great job, embodying the array of students found in these places. I laughed out loud for the majority of the show, and when I wasn’t laughing I was remembering when I attended such a school, all the while thinking... “I remember that guy,” and also asking myself “Was I that nutty too?” Kudos to the entire company.

Cows Gone Wild
reviewed by Alexander Zalben

Bitches Funny, a bi-coastal comedy group, is bringing their slick, LA-style sketch comedy to FringeNYC, with pretty positive results.

The show, called Cows Gone Wild, is really just a series of unrelated sketches, with occasionally punny cow bits thrown in for connective fiber. In between, we get a few well choreographed dance numbers, riffs on everything from anorexia to the origin of the phrase “fork in the road,” and, as promised by the shows tagline, just a little bit of T&A.

So how does this all mesh together? Generally, okay. Of the few sketch groups I’ve seen from LA, all seem to have a large focus on props and costumes, as well as slick production values. Which is a refreshing change from NYC sketch, actually, because even as a practitioner of the form, I get tired of the “cardboard boxes for costumes” most of us can afford.

Besides some pretty costumes, the BF’s give us a lot of SNL/MadTV-ready celebrity impersonations, and easily digestible ideas spewed out in two- to three-minute bits. While not every idea works very well, and some of them fall down flat, there’s enough good, smart writing, and savvy turns of phrase to make the Bitches Funny group worth checking out.

I particularly enjoyed a sketch combining kiddie pageants and the repugnant TV show The Swan, which is the closest the group comes to making some honest commentary. And the aforementioned “Fork in the Road sketch” combines great costumes, a strong idea, and sharp writing, though it does end a little abruptly.

More importantly, how are the… umm… Bitches, themselves? Pretty damn good. All five members of the group are multi-talented performers, easily at home with character acting, dancing, or belting out a Reba McEntire tune.

Of particular note is Eileen O’Connell. Recently added to the cast, she manages to turn in a star-worthy and hilarious performance. Whether performing as a straight man in most of her scenes, a woozy Anna Nicole-Smith, or even as herself, almost every line Ms. O’Connell says gets a huge laugh from the audience. And a side-splitting monologue she performs, offering to do anything to get a deal with any industry folks in the audience, should hopefully convince one of said industry folks to pick her up right away.

Reminiscence of the Ghetto
reviewed by Spencer Chandler

It’s hard to know where to begin when writing about Reminiscence of the Ghetto & Other Things that Raized Me, a new solo-performance piece written and performed by the outstanding anGela kaRIOTis (unique capitalization hers). Until now, I have not had the pleasure and challenge of writing a rave review, so I’m not quite certain how to tell you enough about it to persuade you to see it, yet still guard the surprise of the insights, humor, and musicality in the many brilliant moments of her 85-minute performance. But here goes...

anGela is a Greek-American young woman who grew up in Irvington, New Jersey in lower-class environs commonly known as “the Ghetto.” Recalling a pint-sized Will Power (and comparing favorably to his powerhouse talent and range as both Hip-Hop artist and serious actor), anGela communicates a personal and very true story: inspiring, enlightening, funny, heart-breaking and boundary-breaking. She succeeds in defying stereotypes, transcending the definition of “Ghetto” and can move an entire audience—judging from the hearty applause and copious laughter—to rethink a major portion of life. She crystallizes the essence of what it means not to give up, and her performance, as well as her very life force, entertains and uplifts. With a powerful voice and body, robust and poetic writing, and fiercely precise multi-character portrayals, Reminiscence leaves you with the powerful insight of a new paradigm for underdogs everywhere.

To try to give you more detail strikes me rather like trying to describe the dramatic moments of a great football game after it has occurred. Instead, let me simply say that Reminiscence is something that everyone can and should see.

Director Paul Bonin-Rodriguez, has either helped anGela shape her performance, or wisely stayed out of the way. In either case, he’s done a great service, in the simplicity of a lone three-step platform, a few well-placed music tracks, and thoughtful movement making complete use of the small stage. A cleverly named ‘Old School Crew’ offers support to the worthy cause.

In the intimate setting of the current venue, you have the full benefit of anGela’s intimacy and power, and it’s a pleasure to enjoy the proximity. I look forward to seeing this vital performer, and this performance, again soon.

Save the Goondocks!
reviewed by Amy Rhodes

Save The Goondocks! purports to be a musical parody of the 1985 movie The Goonies. While the show pays homage to the childhood classic, it falls short of its own aspirations.

For fans of the movie, there is a lot to love in Save The Goondocks! The young cast is talented and enthusiastic in recreating their film counterparts. Michael Bevins’ costumes are fabulous, dead-on replicas of those in the movie. And most impressive is the set design by Matt Gurry, which finds myriad clever ways to represent complicated special effects in a minimalist way on stage.

The show garners plenty of knowing laughs as the cast recreates scenes from the movie, which follows seven kids on a quest to find hidden treasure. For the most part, the dialogue comes directly from the movie and creates an entertaining trip down memory lane.

Yet the nostalgia wears off after a while. Director/composer Ren Casey attempts to keep the show fresh by adding musical numbers to the mix. But the songs, while often quite funny, do little to further the plot, and do nothing to skewer the original movie.

In fact, there is nothing in Save The Goondocks! that constitutes parody. Simply calling something a parody does not make it one. The show is not a spoof, nor does it find elements of the film to ridicule. The play, while honoring the cult classic movie, is essentially a reenactment and does not have a voice of its own.

Even still, there is a generation of moviegoers who hold a special place in their hearts for Chunk, Data, and the rest of the gang as they try to save the day. For them, Save The Goondocks! is a blast. If nothing else, it will leave '80s pop culture junkies wanting to head to their local Blockbuster and rent The Goonies yet again .

Onion Girl
reviewed by Spencer Chandler

Onion Girl, a new play written by Joye H. Cook-Levy and directed by Scott R.C. Levy, tells the story of Billy, a young woman whose Mother has died and left her the family business: the Tastee Inn & Out in Sioux City, Iowa, a relic of the original fast-food days. Regulars can drive up and place their "usual" orders with a person they know, and “onion chips with an extra container of dip” is a house specialty.

However, something’s rotten in the state of Iowa: Billy’s mother haunts her incessantly, offering play-by-play commentary from her armchair high above the stage. Billy’s heart is torn between preserving the family tradition of loose-meat sandwiches and her dream of a career in photography. When a bank appraiser shows up and offers to help turn things around for the ailing business, things get complicated.

The setup of Onion Girl is pleasing: the kitchen of the Tastee Inn & Out, a more quiet Middle America in the early 80’s, and the intriguing question of intersecting loyalties to family, business, and personal dreams. But some components invite question, chief among them the choice to cast a man as Billy’s mother. The play, save for the one supernatural aspect of a hovering ghost, is traditional kitchen-sink (or in this case, “deep-fryer”) realism, augmented by neatly handled and well-timed projections that snap on and off to represent various kitchen gadgets. It’s never really campy or subversive, so Nathan Halverson’s rendition of Mama—sharp, comic, and reminiscent of Nathan Lane in The Birdcage—strikes a puzzling note.

More integrated a character is Gregg, played by Paul Rhyand. A Heavy Metal short-order cook who works alongside Billy, Gregg manages to plunge several orders into the deep fryer while peppering his goings and comings with the élan of a would-be lover. Ryhand scores with a sweet combination of effortless sex appeal and slobbery, evoking the manner of a levelheaded Jack Black. Joshua P. Gartland, as the bank appraiser, plays the tightly-wound business geek with skill. He also delivers one of Cook-Levy’s best monologues with the fullness of real memory: a lovingly nostalgic tribute to old-time kitchen machinery, and a great example of strong writing and an actor’s deep commitment.

Sheila Carrasco, as Billy, inhabits her character’s struggle with convincing sweetness and indecision. She also handles the challenge of running the kitchen, speaking to off-stage customers, real people, and the ghost of her mother deftly. But Mama’s verbal volleys, while earning several laughs, leave her perpetually interrupted, and deprive Billy’s character of sustained ownership of the play’s heart.

The director has smoothly molded the cast, and their comfort with each other bespeaks a strong, supportive hand. The set design by Marla Shaffer makes the most of FringeNYC limitations. I was sufficiently intrigued by the world of Onion Girl to crave more from the three “real” characters, and the affair left me with a discernable longing for an order of onion chips, and the era, memories, and questions they evoke.

We Are Burning
reviewed by Spencer Chandler

The description in the FringeNYC Program Guide for We Are Burning, a new play written and directed by Aaron Michael Zook, reads “Prometheus, Thief of Fire, returns to the world of Men to witness The End. And serve a mean cappuccino.” Upon reflection, this is a fairly accurate snapshot of a play in which sassy remarks undercut challenging premises, before they have a chance to really take hold.

With juxtapositions of banter and philosophical probings, coffee shop “reality” and mythical-Greek destruction, We Are Burning frustrates: the world is indeed burning and the gods are there to see it, yet self-absorbed mortals dismiss the stakes and chatter on. What lingers is a feeling that the writer has brought up important ideas, only to knock them down with breezy dismissals from the mouths of sitcom types.

Prometheus (Greg Horton) possesses the unique quality of being able to see the future, which provides fodder for several gags and an interesting dynamic, but ultimately confines the character to a smug, “I-can-see-this-all-coming” attitude, which tends to rob the innocence and surprise from his scenes. While Horton’s stage presence and vocal control are impressive, they cannot transcend Prometheus’ dubious gift, and the result is a bind for both the play and actor.

The Greek Chorus (Lorinne Lampert and Sarah Garvey-Potvin) display great charm as oddball anachronisms, at times indecipherable in their simultaneous declamations, but powerfully affecting in their gradual breakdown into distinct individuals, the highpoint being a delirious and enchanting slumber-party style fight.

Less effective are the setup and trajectory for the two modern-day characters, Man and Woman (Kris Bratton and Margaret Cross). Their relationship, like their names, is vague. Their musings are often ponderous and diffuse—tough material for any actor to make compelling.

Consequently, it’s hard to care about Mankind’s fate, so one looks elsewhere for engagement, finding it in a string of secondary characters: Jamie Neumann plays Io, a deranged and grieving Greek woman beloved of Zeus, with admirable abandon and depth charge; Will Allison has dignity and comic subtlety in each of his three roles; Ed Avila offers strength and savvy as a leather-clad Bellerophon; and Todd Reichart turns in a commendable appearance as Oceanus, a clever Steve Martin-esque depiction of a forgotten god.

Zook is possessed of a fertile, playful imagination and inspired by some very tough, hard-to-express ideas: “Why at the height of our knowledge are we so unhappy?” and “What happens to us when we die?” (Prometheus, sadly, can’t answer). Some of his choices in staging yield touches of real feeling, yet no one theme or idea ever gets its due, and true momentum rarely develops.

When the play finally builds to a lovely, haunting climax at the end, instead of trusting that last image of a world on fire, the play shifts once again, lurching into a didactic epilogue. It’s the theatrical equivalent of a uprooting a tender young sapling, only to expose its dangling, helpless roots. A deeper involvement in any one of Zook’s interesting ideas would surely yield a fuller, more satisfying result.

Rapt Inside
reviewed by Saviana Stanescu

Barbara King, a graduate from NYU's Experimental Theatre Wing, creates exciting dance-theatre work that revolves around women, without having a heavy activist or feminist edge. Last year in FringeNYC, she conceived and choreographed a brilliant satire called Maiden America, mocking the feminine desire for clothes, make up, and rich husbands.

Rapt Inside, her new one-woman-show, is more text-based than previous performances, which might be why I found it less successful. The script is a collage of excerpts from Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare’s sonnets, Alice in Wonderland, Drinking: A Love Story, “I Am Woman,” The Divine Comedy, The Slovenian National Anthem, “Jet Blue Airways,” and other sources. Having so many words to deliver, King focuses less on her body expression, which is a shame as she is a skilled and gracious dancer/performer.

A dramaturg or a playwright might have helped to give some unity and coherence to a script that has some good moments as well as some confusing and pretentious ones. It is very nice that we get to hear King speaking French, Italian, Slovenian, etc., but I am not sure how relevant that is to the show. OK, it might be that she wants to suggest the universal nature of women with broken hearts and identity issues. That is a powerful message that could have been stronger articulated.

The most touching and authentic moment of the show is the autobiographical one, where King tells the story of her Slovenian mother and the trip she took her children on in 1991, when the former Yugoslavia was still torn apart by the ethnic war’s psychological and material damage. Sequences in which King plays a stewardess with a dark sense of humor are funny; but other vignettes seem quite unnecessary to me, making Rapt Inside feel more like an audition/school exercise than a well-conceived performance.

In any case, King is certainly a talented and inventive performer whose work surprises and incites. A name to be looked for in the downtown performance scene.