Review- Fire Island (3-Legged Dog)

The Fab Marquee review by Antonio Miniño.

First thing you think when you walk into the 3LD Art & Technology Center is, you are in for a hi-tech show, and then you notice you are in for a party. A party in a multimedia fire island, with two boardwalks, 4 ginormous screens, “all you can eat” hamburgers, hot dogs, and booze galore! You are surrounded by tempting buckets full of beer all over the “beach” floor, and there’s wine and soda if beer’s not your thing. Oh yeah, and a fantastic live cover band lead by Albert Kuvezi. You take a cushion, or a beach chair and pick a spot between the boardwalks and the screens, two hours later “the show begins” (doors open at 6pm so you can enjoy the bash).

Catherine Yeager, Gautham Prasad,
Allison Keating & David Tirosh

Charles Mee is best known for his plays of history and love, and I have to mention Big Love because you will be revisiting this masterpiece in Fire Island, just be sure to have a relaxed neck, you will be twisting left to right to figure out where the action is coming from. The actors are gliding through the crowd, they are part of the live band, they are… well, they are Fire Island. At first you are fully aware of what is going on, you are intrigued, engaged on the actions that happen on the screens, that are reenacted or completed by the actors around you. But the lack of narrative, of that ‘magic glue’ that puts all the pieces together in a play, was not there.

A cry to social love and understanding, a cry to things that must be left behind, or of moving on, but it might as well have been a night of monologues or scenes. I had a hard time trying to figure out if this was a play or not. Fire Island was missing Mee’s high stakes, battles of wit and bloody situations. Fire Island fell a little behind, but that didn’t stop it from being a memorable evening. This is a must for theatergoers that are more into the casual and free approach to the art form.

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3-Legged Dog Productions presents
Charles Mee’s
Fire Island
April 10 - May 3, 2008
3LD Art & Technology Center
Tickets are $30.00 and $15.00 for Students, visit www.3ldnyc.org.

3LD Art & Technology Center | 80 Greenwich Street | Manhattan.