Review- A Short Wake (1st Irish)

The Fab Marquee review by Diánna Martin.

Family dysfunction comes in all shapes and sizes, from all cultures. However, something can be definitely be said for the type of relationships that are cultivated in an Irish-American household that includes drinking and physical abuse. Siblings can either stick together to keep secrets or escape to other sides of the country - or the world - as they struggle to get away from their past (and each other)... although we all know that our pasts never leave us, they just have a way of sticking to us, like gum on the bottom of our shoes; or, in some cases, can be re-routed into positive outlets such as the arts.

A Short Wake, by Derek Murphy, a Dubliner, brings us into the funeral parlor for the wake of the father of Teddy (Peter Bradbury) and Jimmy (Brandon Williams). The main centerpiece of the set is a huge casket and a few chairs - perfect, really. Held in New York, the wake is a rather pitiful affair - both sons make note of the lack of anyone coming to mourn the man in the coffin and the flower arrangements looking a bit tired. Murphy's continuous hilarious dialogue allows Bradbury, even alone, to flourish as the two-bit con in a nice suit (and greasy hair), following in his bookie father's footsteps, having moments between cracking jokes to quiet his own sadness and unease as well as conflicting feelings of the final weeks of the father's cancer as he stood by his bedside. Conflicted because dear ol' dad actually thought it was the younger brother, Jimmy, the whole time, holding his hand - Jimmy, who has not been around in ten years and hates his father with a fiery passion.

As Bradbury sips from his flask and clutches his stomach from acid reflux, we see Williams finally enter, reluctantly, into the parlour. A successful lawyer in California - as far away from New York as he can get without leaving the country - Jimmy emanates a powerful wave of tension from the moment he enters the room. He can't even get past the first few chairs in the parlour, and it's Bradbury who is making all the effort to try to get a hug and pull him into the room - to try to find a common ground and a way to get past their years of dealing with abusive parents and be brothers again.

But it's not so easy. Jimmy can't understand why Teddy is even in mourning for the man that he considers to be a horrible father, human being, and abusive alcoholic; and Teddy can't understand why Jimmy can't let it go now that the man is dead - and why his younger brother's selective memory seems to have forgotten some important points about what their mother was really like as well; her alcoholism, her abusive behavior, and what really went on during one particular night that changed all of their lives forever.

And so we have a brilliantly written and acted two-character play that is really a four-character play; because the man in the coffin and the woman that we learn more about as the play goes on become as important as the two brothers on stage who, as they sip their whiskey and gin, begin to open up to each other more and more. Is this about a couple of drunk Irishmen going over old times? NO. This is a play about family, about how memories can be completely different depending on who is telling the story, and how 30-year-old grudges can become mantras for no reason other than they exist.

Bradbury had me from the beginning. From his New York bookie attitude combined with his actual pain about his father - and the hilarious monologue he has before Williams comes on, I was delightfully absorbed. When Williams first entered, and for the first fifteen minutes after his entrance, I thought the actor had some tics and was holding onto his prep to the point where it was interfering with his relating to his brother, and his ability to take in this brother he hadn't seen in 10 years (even though we know our siblings and sometimes have to only glance at them even after that long). His anger was so consuming that it almost became a fifth character in the room. But as they began to talk more, and as he accepted his brother's gift of fine whiskey in a flask, I began to see some of the prep drop, and just see a character who was in tremendous emotional pain dealing with his smart-ass brother, and vice-versa; and once he got cooking with Bradbury, then the show took off, I felt, for him and for me. Both actors should be applauded for holding this critic in the palm of their hand, simply following along as the two wove tales tall and true about their lives and loves and their relationship with each other - and the pain they were trying to get past.

Combine truly gifted actors, with fantastic direction from Ludovica Villar-Hauser and this amazing rich, darkly comedic dialogue, and you are left afterwards simply wanting to see it again. I thought the staging was great (I never saw the director's hand, and so it goes in a well-directed piece); however, one thing I would have tried was to not open the casket so that we saw the figure inside. To open it upstage would have been better, I think; for although the acting was so good that it kept my mind off of what was in that coffin, I still kept having to block it out, especially when I had a view, it took me out of the play momentarily.

It's my understanding that many, if not all, of the 21 plays in this festival are of high caliber; however, if you see any of them, please add A Short Wake to your list. Anyone who has ever had difficulty talking to a family member, and anyone who has ever wondered what it was like (are there families like that out there?) will be taken on an emotional roller-coaster, with laughter filling in the spots where it sometimes hits too close to the bone. 



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1st Irish 2009 and Tweiss Productions present
A Short Wake
Sept 10-26, 2009
Manhattan Theatre Source


For more information and tickets, visit www.firstirish.org.


Manhattan Theatre Source | 177 MacDougal Street | Manhattan.

Review- Tales from Rainwater Pond (1st Irish)

The Fab Marquee review by Peyton Wise.

When Americans think of Ireland, amidst the clutter of misty green fields, vaguely Celtic druids and freedom fighters, one image seems eternal: an older man telling a wistful story in a lilting voice.  Tales From Rainwater Pond at 1^st Irish is a radiant embodiment of that image.  1^st Irish, a festival of Irish theatre currently playing twelve venues throughout the city, has a wide range of styles and theatre companies, based both in America and in Ireland.  Wexford Arts Center, the presenter ofTales From Rainwater Pond, feels like an Irish cross between BAM and a regional theatre, presenting outside productions as well as self-produced plays, along with a wide range of music, cabaret, visual arts and an elegant café. 

Tales From Rainwater Pond is written and performed by Billy Roche, a playwright and novelist whose work often centers on his hometown of Wexford, a coastal community of just under 20,000.  Actually, what is presented at 1^st Irish is Mr. Roche performing two short stories, “Maggie Angre” and “Haberdashery” from a book of short stories by the same name.  And what stories they are. 

Mr. Roche has the rare gift of richness of detail without superfluity of emotion.  His brief hints at the grief of a father or the burden of a long-burning love are stunning because we are given merely a suggestion and the foundation to fill in the rest.  While the stories are uniquely small-town Irish, the humor and loss they describe are universally human.  There is something that happens during this show that is quite larger than its individual pieces.

Although an actor of some experience, Mr. Roche has the slow delivery and wry amusement of a writer reading his own work.  At the beginning of the piece, there seems to be a firm fourth wall despite the direct address, although that breaks down by the end of the show.  While Mr. Roche occasionally enacts an action in the first story and portrays the narrator of the second story, there seems to be no reason why this should be a play as well as a book.  However, Mr. Roche and the production possess some ineffable magic of storytelling that makes the stories breathe in a way no reading could.  The simple act of one man telling an intricate story of lonely people he cared about became a community meditation.

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Wexford Arts Center and 1st Irish 2009 present

Tales from Rainwater Pond

Sept 3-13, 2009

Irish Repertory Theatre

This show has now closed. For more information on 1st Irish, visit www.firstirish.org

Irish Repertory Theatre | 132 West 22nd St | Manhattan.

Review- The Pride of Parnell Street (1st Irish 2009)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

It isn't always the big tragedies that can destroy a marriage, sometimes it's the small heartbreaks that can fracture a man's spirit and set off a domino effect that leaves a marriage in shambles. Welcome to Parnell Street, Dublin, where jobs are of the odd variety, entertainment comes in the form of pints of ale, love starts young and tragedy even younger. Welcome to people who find their redemption or their ruin in a game of football (or, of course, what the rest of the world calls Football... and what the Americans call Soccer).

The Pride of Parnell Street by Sebastian Barry (directed by Jim Culleton) starts off softly, with Janet Brady (the hauntingly earnest Mary Murray) waxing dreamily about "In them days..." back in 1990 when her marriage was new and her boys were little; when her husband Joe (played by Aidan Kelly with the sadness of a man who lost everything but still remembers how happy his everything once made him) was what they called a Midday Man. Which is to say he was nothing more than a simple crook, waking at midday and robbing small items from cars in the street, then selling what he found to the Afternoon Man. Sure, it sounds a little sketchy and even a little dodgy, but to hear Janet tell of it, it's almost noble.

Tragedy strikes when their oldest of three sons, little six year old Billy, is run over by a truck and killed. And here, where another family might break apart, or tear each other to pieces, laying blame or finding fault, all that happens is they mourn and move on, secure in their relationship and in their love.

Perhaps in a delayed reaction, however, when Ireland loses the World Cup to Italy that year Joe loses his mind; they all did... "When the Irish team lost, the lads suddenly knew what was what. When the Irish team were winning they could pretend they were winning, but when they lost, they knew they were losers too -- had never been winners in the first place." Joe comes home and in the early sunlight of daybreak he beats Janet, blind with a sort of rage that had never been a part of his nature before, and breaks something deep inside her... something more precious than blood vessels or bones. He breaks her trust in him. He breaks her heart.

From that moment on, Janet's life and Joe's life never connect again, though on some sub cellular level there's no breaking them apart. Even the fact that Joe is dying (something that's both obvious from his demeanor, dress and countenance, as well as something he addresses almost the minute we meet him) can not create enough of a chasm to keep their bond from stretching over the years, although even the fact that he is dying can't absolve him of his worst sin. Not in Janet's eyes. Not in his own. "I wrote a hundred times... and said a hundred times I loved her and I was sorry... but you know, a hundred letters can't wipe out a sin... but also even the worst sin can't wipe out a love..."

The story of Janet and Joe, of Parnell Street, of pride - Irish pride, family pride, too much pride to stay, too much pride to beg - is told in contrasting and sequential monologues. As Janet and Joe trade off their 20 minutes their time with the audience grows more personal, more honest, deeper, more tragic. Sunny moments are sprinkled among the sadness in rare bursts; both Janet and Joe never stop loving each other, they never stop idealizing the "good old days" but neither of them look away from what circumstances brought them to the present day.

Sebastian Barry's writing is so honest, so intimate, that there are moments when Janet could be talking to her priest, or her psychiatrist (if they had enough money to afford one). Just because they are simple people with simple ways doesn't mean their emotions are simple. Barry layers in the heart and soul of the characters in the smallest ways; Janet recalling a moment when Joe used to wheel his young son along singing Thin Lizzie songs, or when Joe talks about how patient he was when Janet was overwhelmed and frustrated when she didn't understand how to breastfeed her firstborn. It's these little glimpses, these memories, that flesh out Janet and Joe till we see them from the inside out.

Keeping the two characters apart from each other, yet always talking about each other, creates an affinity between Janet and Joe that runs deeper than if they'd spent the whole play talking directly to each other.

The Pride of Parnell Street's two stars, Mary Murray and Aidan Kelly, are so invested in their characters, and so brave in their honesty that they can take you from laughter to tears in a very short span of time. They both gave dignity and even breeding to two very regular Dubliners who probably represent a thousand others just like them. On the surface, there's nothing spectacular about either of them. And told second hand he's a petty thief who beats his wife, turns to drugs, and now lays dying, while she's a single mother of two scrubbing out rooms to keep her boys in school. Very ordinary. But scratch that surface, and sit face to face, and there is no doubt who or what the Pride of Parnell Street is.

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1st Irish 2009 and fishamble present
The Pride of Parnell Street
Sept 1- Oct 4, 2009
59E59 Theaters

For tickets, schedule and more information on the 1st Irish Festival, visit www.firstirish.org

59E59 Theaters | 59 East 59th St | Manhattan.

It's a Wrap! The Fab Marquee's coverage of FringeNYC

With some shows having their last performances today, we wanted to compile our FringeNYC coverage in one post with a direct link to each review. We only covered a handful of the festival, for reviews of all 201 shows, visit our friends at nytheatre.com. Happy last day of Fringing!

CIRCUITS

DON'T STEP ON THE CRACKS

POPULATION: 8

FAB PICK: THE K OF D: AN URBAN LEGEND

SADIE, SADIE

FAB PICK: PIE FACE! THE ADVENTURES OF ANITA BRYANT

REMISSION

FAB PICK: THE OFFICE AND THE METAL BLOB

TELL IT TO ME SLOWLY

AND THEN YOU DIE (HOW I RAN A MARATHON IN 26.2 YEARS)

ELI AND CHERYL JUMP

####

Review- Circuits (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Antonio Minino.

Have you ever walked passed the beautiful Alvin Ailey building on 55th Street and seen the dancers through the clear windows pirouetting in front of your very eyes? If you've ever wanted to sit in a dance class of that caliber, and see how the teachers guide their students, you need to change your brunch plans and head down to the Robert Moss Theatre for Circuits.

Nicholas Bruder, Christina Noel Reaves, Matthew Oaks
©JP Sevillano

Uniquely choreographed by Patricia Norowol, 7 dancers (Chelsea Bonosky, Nicholas Bruder, Patricia Norowol, Matthew Oaks, Christina Noel Reaves, Elliot Reiland, Mika Yanagihara) share their torments, struggles, hopes and dreams as artists (through dance of course). Circuits reminds me of a reality show, in that you don't know what is staged and scripted and what is improvised and in the moment. So much so, that when we walked in the space and waited for the show to start, we weren't sure if it had in fact commenced. Patricia thanked her dancers, and her donors, and the fringe festival and proceeded to warm-up. She then... thanked her dancers, and her donors, and the fringe festival and proceeded to warm-up, she then... about three times. Accompanied by a dancer putting on make-up, and another walking upstage from one side to the next. Bizarre? a little - intriguing, very.

We are used to seeing dancers express themselves through their bodies and movements. In Circuits, they incorporate their thoughts and voices. Norowol has a microphone connected to a long cord, and walks by the dancers, guiding them, coaching them, and handing the microphone to them, as they share their vulnerabilities as artists. The "artist struggle" has been captured and done over and over again. For some reason it is still intriguing to us, we are still interested and invested, and this is made possible by the individuality of the artist. Because experiences may be the same, but the way we react to them and how they affect us will always be different, and Circuits does it beautifully and with bountiful energy.

We are used to nudity at the Fringe, some shows use it as a formula to success in ticket sales, and others as an element of pure artistry (Leaves of Grass which is not part of the Fringe for example, incorporates it excellently), and this is the case with Circuits, bringing us the most compelling moment of the show when two of the female dancers take their tops off and Norowol compares their body parts and how one is better than the other, exposing the ridiculous pressure dancers need to withstand to be part of "a bigger -not better- company".

A beautiful and intriguing ensemble piece, if you are a structure freak, improvisation and repetition might drive you up the wall, but just a little, the dancers will bring your feet back to the ground and your attention back to them.

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The New York International Fringe Festival
Patricia Norowol Dance Company, present
Circuits
The Robert Moss Theatre

Remaining Performance: Sun, Aug 30 @1:45pm. For more information visit www.PNorowolDance.com.

The Robert Moss Theatre | 440 Lafayette, 3rd Floor | Manhattan.

Review- Don't Step On The Cracks (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

Don't Step on the Cracks starring, written and created by the Five Flights Theater Company (Jake Bartush, Laurel Casillo, Colby Cecca, Adam Delia, Nick Hepsoe, Carlyn Kautz, Will Lacker, Sara Lukasiewicz, and Claire McGinley) and directed by Eryck Tait was not written for me, or anyone over the age of 25 for the simple fact that expecting a group of young 20somethings to enlighten you about what it feels like to grow up is like expecting to glean pearls of wisdom from the Miley Cirus autobiography.

Overall, the premise seems good on paper. Take beloved childhood stories and update them with an adult voice. Avenue Q did a similar thing brilliantly... and in a way that spoke to me long after it was over. But Don't Step on the Cracks suffers from too much content, not enough focus, and no main theme aside from "growing up" which is so diverse a theme that it might be easier to harness the theme "the color blue". Of the 14 scenes a few stories resurface as a developing plot, but the rest are stand-alone pieces.

The Shel Silverstein poem Ickle Me, Pickle Me, Tickle Me Too is updated to reflect the three eponymous characters as annoying frat boys who languish about, sleep a lot, whine about how flying around in a shoe isn't as great as they thought it would be, and how the whole world is coming to an end. The ensemble seem to have felt there was enough for 3 separate skits involving this trio which makes me think that at some point this might have been the guts of the show but then somehow they couldn't come up with enough material to flesh it out and the result is this.

Amelia Bedelia (based on the book by Peggy Parish) is there too, taking everything literally as always, only now it's whether or not to believe her fortune cookie and do as it directs. Very promising was a skit based on Puff, the Magic Dragon (song written by Leonard Lipton and Peter Yarrow and made popular by the group Peter, Paul and Mary) where Puff is being interrogated by police officers and it comes to light that he is a stalker of young boys -- all that frolicking wasn't as innocent as the song made it seemed.

Unfortunately a Goodnight Moon (title taken from the Margaret Wise Brown book) piece which, I'm sure was heartfelt, about a young man recounting the suicide of his young friend seemed 1) misplaced between two funny skits 2) like an acting exercise. ("Tell us about a moment that was painful to you" you can imagine the acting teacher saying). It came out of the blue, almost like a non sequitur, which is unfortunate since under other circumstance it might have been very moving.

Overall there was no (dare I say) rhyme or reason to the 14 skits save one of two criteria 1) be about growing up 2) have a children's book thing in it. I'd have just as easily expected to see some odd boy-monkey hybrid named George chasing around a man in a yellow hat, or a cat in a hat, or an old woman who lives in a shoe. Oh, wait, they already have people living in a shoe.

Past all the children's stories, and the "oh-I'm-a-waitress-and-I-hate-my-job-and-I'm-sad-because-my-cat-died" and the "hey-big-sis-you're-moving-out-when-did-we-get-so-old!" blubbering there was one standout piece that I wish the cast had patterned more of the rest of the show on. A girl and her boyfriend, with the use of 4 other actors acting as all the conflicting voices inside their head, talk through the moments a couple goes through when, after the condom breaks, they flash through what their relationship means, what they silently expect from each other, and what it means for the rest of their relationship. This was the one piece that spoke with a true voice, a unique perspective, and didn't come off as childishly whiny.

It's not that I didn't get what the Five Flights Theater Company ensemble was trying to do with this show. I got it. I got it the way a mom "gets" that she's ruined her daughter's life when she won't let her go meet that "really sweet guy" who propositioned her in an Internet chat room. In other words, yes, little ones, these enormous life lessons you've just learned are enormous. To you. Right now. And I'm sure they've affected you deeply, so you want to write it all down and put it in a play and make it MATTER. But you're not telling me (i.e. the non-college aged audience) anything new, especially not in a way that I haven't heard (or experienced) many times before. Because what this series of skits lacks is the perspective of distance. What the young writers are still finding profound is what everyone else already has an idiom and a shorthand for. Yes, not being carefree anymore is a real bummer (pouty face). But try some more grown up problems on for size in a few years and the ones spouted in Don't Step on the Cracks will sound about as devastating as a kindergartner writing about losing their first box of Crayolas. It's very hard to watch a coming of age show written by people who are still coming of age. These are young twenty somethings who are all discovering hurt, loss, fear of grown-up proportions, and they're having a bit of a mid life crisis over it. Or... what do you call a crisis that happens in the first fourth of your life? If I had to, I'd call it a tantrum.

Ultimately, I think the germs of ideas here were good, and this could have been a lot of fun. But the skits were too diverse, the writing lacked depth, the "ah-ha" moments where more like "yeah, so?" moments. I think the book was better.

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The New York International Fringe Festival
Five Flights Theater Company, present
Don't Step On The Cracks
The Connelly Theater

Remaining Performance: Sun, Aug 30th @12pm. For more information visit www.FiveFlightsTheaterCompany.org.

The Connelly Theater | 220 East 4th St | Manhattan

Review- Population: 8 (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

There are a lot of things that will drive people to despair in this world; loss of love... loss of hope... loss of innocence. Having someone to confide in during these bleak times, or even better - having a community (a church group, a support group, even a softball team) can provide a balm to your wounds as you navigate through your sorrow. But what if your loss is of community itself? What if your town has been whittled away to a meager eight people? What if, even though there is kinship and blood relations to tie you all together you still can't fine your balance anymore in this microscopic town? What if you're just sinking deeper and deeper into this isolation, rattling around this god-(and man)-forsaken town, waiting for the next person to leave? Welcome to Loki, North Dakota. Population: 8.
We come upon writer Nicholas Gray's small town mid-step, literally, as two towns people soberly make their way to the City Limits so they can change the marker on the sign post; with Jacob gone off their population has moved from 9 to 8. There is no long drawn out exposition of who these two people are, though we come to find that they are Man (David Goldberg) and Ugly (apparently named on opposite day, for Shoda Leigh Robbins is lovely) and Jacob is Ugly's now-lost love.

We can't tell right away how this town got to be like this; in fact there's very little explanation of anything at first, including who is who - Mother and daughter? Sister and brother? Good friends? Married? Very soon, however, patterns start emerging, and through repetition we begin to find the rhythm of this small town, and its eight inhabitants. There's a Fiddler on the Roof type echo here: the town may be small, and the future may be unsure, but there is one thing that weaves though each person's fiber and keeps them aware of what their role is: Tradition.

Frankie (the endearing Gideon Glick, former cast member of Spring Awakening, and a charming oddball here) is giving one of his radio broadcasts of the day, as he does every day... several times a day. He has a penchant for reading old letters he finds, they go back almost 30 years since Loki is so small that it stopped receiving mail in the early 80s. Joining Frankie is his sister Pepper (earnestly portrayed by Dana Berger, endearing in her own right) who sings a song "of her own creation" which turns out to be "Champagne Supernova". Either she's got some freakishly integrated ESP or this girl has a connection that isn't Loki-constrained.

Soon enough we meet the other six of the town: Cree (Jon Krupp) who was once the town's preacher but no longer steps foot in the church; his deaf son McCoy (Garrett Zuercher) who cherishes the hidden layers of life which he feels he experiences as a result of his deafness (yet hates the radio enough to shoot at it); Ruth (Maggie Low) who is Frankie and Pepper's mother and who has a deep bitterness in her since her husband died 3 years ago, but who loves the land with the same degree of fierceness, and finally Sylvie (Kathryn Kates), the matriarch of the town who is so in tune to it, and to its spirits, that she can feel it in her bones, but who didn't miss her chance to travel the world when it beckoned.

While the town is still disputing Jacob's reasons for leaving, his possible death, and exactly what this means to the rest of them, the population gets bumped up again to 9. This time the extra person is Jesse (Arturo Castro), Pepper's secret love who has been meeting with her by the city limits sign and supplying her with gifts from the outside world. A bit of a lost soul himself (he's AWOL from the nearby army base) he fits in perfectly with this town who welcomes him as long as he promises to be good to Pepper.

Life in Loki brings its natural cycles, the greatest challenge of which is trying to maintain a different kind of dignity as people talk of leaving, selling their land, and moving on. Some of the townspeople venture out for a while when hope of Jacob reaches them via a letter left by the city limits sign. Some of those left die. Some of them give up what they have in the hopes of giving their child a brighter future. Some go, some stay until they are forced out. Ultimately, the biggest journey they all make is not the one beyond the Loki city limits, but the one beyond their own limitations.

Nicholas Gray, surprisingly young (the joy of Fringe is being able to see the playwrights, just standing outside, pre-show), has an amazing grasp of the human condition. While the actual production had a little too much rear-projection for my taste (just because you can do an animated dream sequence doesn't mean you should), my distaste doesn't lie with the medium itself but with the way it distracted from the pacing of the story. This haunting tale was wonderful and didn't need the bells and whistles of not one, not two but three character's mental journey's projected on the screen (McCoy day dreaming at clouds and watching them turn into "2 elephants in love" just seemed gratuitous). Aside from that, I was astonished at how deeply I could identify with people who, on the surface, are nothing like me. But Mr. Gray's script deals with the human condition, and at some point, you don't need to be in a town of 8 to feel that isolation. Just try coming off a breakup and going anywhere by yourself in New York City (Population 8 plus another 23 million)... and you'll never be more isolated. This story illuminates that experience beautifully.

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The New York International Fringe Festival
The Process Group and Purple Man Theater Company, present
Population: 8
The SoHo Playhouse

Remaining Performance: Sun, Aug 30 @2:45PM; For more information visit www.theprocessgroup.org.

The SoHo Playhouse | 15 Vandam St | Manhattan.

Review- The K of D, an urban legend (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

The K of D, an urban legend (written by Laura Schellhardt) starts off the way it should, with the lines "I got one! I got one!"  Because really, haven't we all "got one"?  An urban legend of some sort that we swear is true?  Even I have one, but of course it comes by way of my mother, who heard it from her friend, who said it happened to her husband, and while I completely believe that my mother's friend's husband had a strange worm living under his skin, the minute I tell just one other person it becomes the story that happened to "my friend's mother's friend's husband..." which is who it all happened to, so therefore it becomes completely unverifiable, and thus thoroughly unbelievable (although my mother swears that her friend swears it's true).  Just like the story of the puppy in Mexico who turned out to be a rat.  Just like the story of the ghost that haunted the set of Three Men and a Baby.  Just like the story of the girl who watched her brother die and kissed him on the lips and from that moment on couldn't kiss another thing without killing it.  And so starts the urban legend of Charlotte McGraw...

The K of D... Kiss of Death. What a terrible legacy to be left by the only person who understood you best in the world, in this case your twin brother.  Charlotte McGraw's twin dies violently... hit by a rusty car careening around the corner and not paying any mind to the skinny little boy on the skateboard who gets hit with such force that it's as if for one moment he's flying.  Legend has it (and of course, it was witnessed by "The Pack", but more about them later) that Charlotte saw the whole thing; and Charlotte, who had always had a strange connection to her brother, right down to the strange language of clicks and whirs and whistles they spoke in, ran to her brother, and held him in her arms as he died, and right as his soul left his body, Charlotte's brother kissed her, and that kiss gave her the power (or the curse?) to kill anything that she, in turn, kisses.  Is it true?  Well, now... that's how the legend goes at least.

This deftly woven story is told predominantly by "The Girl (who does most of the talking)" but the souls of each member of The Pack inhabit the small frame of the amazing Renata Friedman who manages to keep twelve distinct main characters alive and separate (along with several minor characters when necessary) without the use of props, wardrobe or even much grandstanding.  Instead, she relies purely on body language, accent, pitch and, of course, context.  Throughout the evening Ms. Friedman tells not only the story of strange, lonely Charlotte McGraw (who no longer speaks) and her uniquely odd grieving process, but she also gives us "Quisp Drucker" (who has the biggest mouth), Becky Ray Voss (who smokes bubblegum cigarettes), Steffi Post (who romanticizes violence), Brett Hoffman (who keeps track of the facts), Trent Hoffman (who keeps track of the people), Mrs. McGraw (who expected more), Mr. McGraw (who provided less), Jack Whistler (who tends the flowers), Johnny Whistler (who is the subject of much debate), and a host of Johnny's Girlfriends (who change often, and rarely wash their hair).  

While every so often (when "The Pack" is all together, let's say, and crowding to talk over one another) despite Ms. Friedman's extraordinary talent, it can be difficult to keep each character separate.  However, it almost doesn't matter, for when The Pack is together they're doing what a Pack does; egging each other on, and adding to each other's bravery, so it hardly matters if every now and again one character gets confused for another.  I daresay in real Packs of kids there's a tendency for one kid to get confused with another, especially if they're 1) related or 2) spending day in and day out with each other therefore all pulling from the same pool of experiences and influences.

What magically does happen takes place during the quieter moments of the play, when two (or even three or four) characters are together and Ms. Friedman moves so quickly that you can hardly believe you're watching just one woman; she can be the cause and the effect of a climactic scene so powerfully that there's almost no explanation for it. During a pivotal moment when Charlotte McGraw (who no longer speaks) confronts Johnny Whistler (who is the subject of much debate) in a shadowy (imagined) doorway that is only put in your mind by Ms. Friedman, and deepened by Robert Aguilar's lighting design and Matt Starritt's sound design you hold your breath in anticipation; in hope, in doubt; there is so much reality based on illusion in this play that the whole show is like the reflection of an urban legend itself... existing in your mind so deeply, so eerily, so forcefully, that you would swear it is there, until you notice that it's not.

Tremendous credit goes to director Braden Abraham who chose the way of simplicity; also responsible for the simple set design (nothing but a near-dilapidated dock with a tire hung from the post).  With such little else to pull your focus, there was no distraction from the wonderful script or the tremendous acting, and with no props, the sound design went a long way in creating this small town world.  When Charlotte catches a lightening bug in a jar, despite the fact that she has no jar in her hand, the sound alone of metal being slammed against glass perfectly recreated that eager moment we've all had as children (Did I get it?) and did more to carry the moment than any real jar would have done.

The K of D may be an urban legend, but this play is all real - and 100% true talent to the core.

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The New York International Fringe Festival

Pistol Cat Productions present

The K of D, an urban legend

The Cherry Pit

Remaining Performances: Fri, Aug 28th @2:45pm and Sat, Aug 29th @5:15pm. For more information visit www.TheKofD.com

The Cherry Pit | 155 Bank St | Manhattan

Review- Sadie, Sadie (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

Two people can meet anywhere: in line waiting for the (something-or-other) tickets to go on sale, on-line in a (fans-of-some-obscure-star) chat room, at work, on vacation, in an AA meeting (but don't tell), hitchhiking to Canada, in a bar, outside a bar, on the way to a bar, stumbling home from a bar. Sadie (Lilly Tobin) and Jon (EJ Marotta) just happen to meet on the Staten Island Ferry. I have a sneaking suspicion it's because Sadie, Sadie writer Ben Izzo had a great Staten Island joke and wanted to work it in at the top of the show.(Sadie: Why are you going to Staten Island? Jon: I'm going to meet a friend for dinner. Sadie: EEEWWW! Was every other restaurant in every other borough booked?).

Sadie and Jon meet cute, yes... on the Ferry... but cute nonetheless. She likes his toes, and tells him so, and just likes that they're chatting up a storm. Jon is a nice, upstanding, sweet borderline-dork who lives with his endearing hypochondriac of a roommate Henry (Tom McVey) and works in a bakery. Sadie is a motormouth cutie pie fueled by huge quantities of caffeine and lots of TV. She's written to be the kind of person who is very well written; she's snappy, and quirky and funny and quick, she's got an answer for everything and even if she doesn't, she's got something to say that will make you smile, or chuckle. When she cites Gilmore Girls as the pattern for her relationship with her mother (well, actually, half Gilmore Girls, half Sid and Nancy she says) you understand why she's never at a loss for words, or more precisely... never at a loss for clever, well chosen, funny words, that come across as carefully written dialogue. Because being at a loss for words is not who Sadie is. Sadie is not someone who wouldn't exist on TV.

Gilmore Girls did a lot to allow a clever writer to be clever - why not give every actor the best line every time? Who needs filler? Thankfully, both (Gilmore Girls writer) Amy Sherman Palladino and Ben Izzo recognized the same thing: that clever dialogue can be exhausting to an audience and unless something real happens we're all going to stop listening, and worse – we're going to stop investing in your characters.

Thankfully, the realness happens soon enough. After a whirlwind few weeks of dating ,Sadie takes Jon home to meet her mom Donna (Amy Beth Williams) who likes to nag as much as the next mother, but likes to drink a little bit more than the average one (she makes her entrance, hilariously, from behind the couch where she was presumably passed out, or on the way to it). Sadie and Donna start off with small talk and typical meet-the-parents jitters until Donna simply can't hold it in any longer - she drops the bombshell that Sadie's long gone dad is dead.

Since the man's been MIA anyway, this news isn't so much shocking as it is final. Sadie takes her dad's ashes with her on the ferry (yes, that gosh darn Staten Island Ferry again) and decides to dump her dad into the sea. Not accounting for the wind, some of the ashes go onto (and up the nose of) Jon. Ah, good ole Staten Island Ferry. Always a little something unexpected.

Despite Jon's plea to be "part of your crazy adorable brain" he soon finds Sadie's antics more than he can bear. When, on the advice of her (probably) drunken mother, Sadie gives Jon an exorcism (he inhaled the ashes of her dad... so he's become him), he suddenly doesn't find the whole thing so "adorable" anymore. "Crazy"... yes. "Adorable"... no. As things start to fall apart everything rings a lot truer, and the actors get a chance to rise to the occasion and play beyond their crisp tennis match of witty banter and get into the real guts and bones of their characters.

After intermission (even though we're coming back to a half naked Jon and a half crazed Sadie) everything feels a lot more normal, and when Henry comes to meet with Sadie to give her an update on Jon he proves to be the most wise of all. "Everyone is damaged goods," he says, "Everyone has secret places". And we suddenly see that perhaps all his comical hypochondria is really just a means of coping for him, from being hurt just one too many times. That Henry -- he doesn't say much, but when he does... it's worth listening to.

"I wish I was the essence of Sadie, with all of the goodness and none of the hurt," says Sadie when she's realized that she's really gone too far. Ultimately, though, Sadie is just a kid. She needs a little more hurt to knock the snappy outta her. Because trust me, come 40, that snappy, cute, volley-volley talk is just going to come off as desperate and mocking.

Some of the best moments of the play are not when the main characters are center stage although Lilly Tobin and EJ Marotta do a fine job. Rather, the best moments lie with Henry and Donna. Amy Beth Williams (Donna) manages to convey a good mother with a subtle drinking problem, rather than an overblown drunk, and when she looks at her daughter you can see that this is a woman who did the best she could and didn't plan on being a bored, sad, empty woman. There is a wealth of circumstances that aren't available to us, but that come out of every pore of Amy Beth Williams' performance. Similarly, Tom McVey's Henry is the silent scene stealer; while he spends a lot of time bandaged, half blind, and mopey, when he emerges out from his traumatized state he's like a butterfly (well, okay, a moth) emerging from a chrysalis.

Jon and Sadie are a fun first-date couple, and even a fun first-month couple but their journey to the end is a lot better than their love story; which is to say I enjoy the idea of them apart a lot better than the idea of them together. Their individual paths are more worthy of them than their joint pursuit... which just goes to show you: nothing good ever starts on the Staten Island Ferry.

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The New York International Fringe Festival
BE Theatre Company present
Sadie, Sadie
The Lafayette Street Theater

Remaining Performance: Sat, Aug 29th @8:15pm. For more information visit www.betheatrecompany.org.

The Lafayette Street Theater | 45 Bleecker Street | Manhattan.

Review- Pie-Face! The Adventures of Anita Bryant (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

"At least it was a fruit pie" said Anita Bryant right after she was smacked in the face with a pie on national TV during a 1977 press conference being broadcast live from Des Moines, Iowa. Why was she pied in the face? Why did she quip about fruit? And more importantly: Who the hell is Anita Bryant?

©Dixie Lee Photography

Well, sadly, I'm old enough to actually not only know who she is, but I remember vividly her Florida Orange Juice commercials, as well as her Save Our Children crusade (note: I was but a child myself, unaware that I was in need of her "saving"). But first... let me take you back .. back... back ...

It's the 1970s and the Gay Movement is in it's infancy. The Stonewall Riots have yet to celebrate their 10 year anniversary, and gays are still fighting an uphill battle. Anita Bryant, former beauty queen and spokeswoman for such iconic American brands as Florida Orange Juice, Coca Cola, Kraft Foods, Tupperware and Holiday Inn (what? No Chevrolet?) has discovered that there is a plague crossing this land, a plague called The Homosexuals. She vows to stop them any way she can. And so begins our story. Or rather, David Karl Lee's story: Pie-Face! The Adventures of Anita Bryant which he wrote and stars in (as that indomitable force, Ms. Bryant herself) under the direction of Kenny Howard.

The real show begins almost like a love-letter (after a brief sing-along) , with Mr. Lee done up in glorious Anita Bryant drag (thanks to costume designer Marcy Singhhaus and wig designer Rich Kuntz) and sashaying through a sunny pink set (also of Mr. Lee's creation) replete with lights that double as spotlights and microphones and plenty of delicious Florida Orange Juice on hand. Lee captivatingly lip syncs the Bryant tune "My Little Corner of the World" and soon, we're invited not only into Bryant's world, but into her head as well, where everything seems to be about America, Jesus, and America. Oh, and Jesus.

There's nothing like using someone's exact words against them, and Mr. Lee does an amazing job at highlighting some of the best Bryant gems while putting them all in clever context; through quick cuts of real and hyper-real news clips we're able to watch as Ms. Bryant takes to the roads like a twangy Evita, with just one mission propelling her: to Save Our Children. "Since The Homosexuals can't have children of their own, they must freshen their ranks with ours" she passionately explains, as she "drives" from one state to another, stopping along the road to sing a rousing Jesus-fueled song or plug one of her numerous products.

When Ken Kelly of Rolling Stone magazine asks if he can accompany her in order to do an in-depth interview she immediately agrees, and the use of a Ken doll is simultaneous funny, campy and solves a few staging problems all at once. Perched on his little couch Ken sits unmoving while his questions are pipped in over the audio -- it's amusing and effective to see Bryant earnestly talking to this doll and giving her ridiculous answers. "If gays are granted rights, next we'll have to give rights to prostitutes and to people who sleep with St. Bernards and to nail biters."

Surprisingly (to Bryant) as she continues her crusade an enormous backlash starts to build, fueled by the Gay Rights Activists but strengthened by celebrities such as Paul Williams and others who support the Gay Movement. People start boycotting orange juice. The jokes start coming. ("Ms. Bryant, are you aware that there are now more jokes about you than there are about Polish people?"... oh, how deliciously un-PC the 70s were!) One by one the big brands pull Bryant as their spokeswoman. Her concerts become sparsely attended. Her talk show invitations are rescinded. Offers dry up, and people turn their backs on her - literally. In a recreation of this event Lee sings God Bless America and the audience was encouraged to stand and turn their backs on the performance. While it took a little courage for the first person to stand, soon enough the whole audience (save for 2 stick-in-the-muds) had our backs turned on Mr. Lee/Bryant and I must say it was rather satisfying.

Eventually Bryant begins to pour her heart out to Ken Kelly as she becomes more and more despondent. Unfortunately, in her vulnerable state, even more of her actual ignorance on the whole matter becomes stunningly apparent. For instance, while on the subject of the bible, Bryant insists that if you read it cover to cover, you'd know that homosexuality is wrong. "Where in the bible did you read that?" Ken asks. "Well, it's in there somewhere." "But didn't you just say you read it cover to cover?" "Well, I actually haven't... I wasn't raised a Catholic where you're taught to do such things..." then she goes on to babble something about God contradicting himself, but that's okay, because taken as a whole, the bible all makes sense.

Ultimately, the play does a great job utilizing the interview itself, (which was never published in Rolling Stone, but rather, was sold to Playboy, captioned "Cruising with Anita" and run next to explicit pictures from the NYC swinger's club, Plato's Retreat), old news footage, and Bryant's vocal recordings to piece together a part of history which now seems absurd when seen under the microscope.

In drag and lit just right David Karl Lee almost passes for Anita at times, especially when lip syncing. And again, Mr. Lee makes Bryant so appealing (or rather, Mr. Lee is so appealing when he channels Bryant) that it's a bit hard to completely demonize her or come away hating her. Feel sorry for her - yes. And not because she lost her sponsorships or her touring deals. But because the woman is so, so ignorant. But hate her... no, you just can't hate her. Mr. Lee must have realized how appealing he was, or someone must have mentioned it, because the last few minutes of the show provide a great epilogue where Lee comes out as himself, out of Bryant drag, explains what it means to inhabit the body, the clothes and the world of Bryant for an hour, and then proceeds to sing "My Little Corner of the World" with an updated, altogether personal arrangement. And at that moment it's the perfect footnote to all of this, the whole message suddenly comes together as well as the whole trajectory of how far the Gay Rights Movement has come... that a man, in drag, can embody and reclaim the woman who tried to keep him from having the right to do so. Now THAT is progress.

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The New York International Fringe Festival
Kangagirl Productions present
Pie-Face! The Adventures of Anita Bryant
The Actor's Playhouse

Final performance: Saturday, August 29th @2:15PM. For more information visit www.kangagirlproductions.com

The Actor's Playhouse | 100 Seventh Avenue South | Manhattan.

Review- Remission (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

There's a stigma attached to the word Schizophrenic, more than to other mental illnesses. Virtually everyone throws around "depressed" on a daily basis with nary a care, and when you hear someone is bi-polar, well, they're just a bit moody. Aren't we all? But bring out the S world and somehow everyone still hearkens back to Sally Field-as-Sybil: one minute speaking with a deep voice, one minute doing a girlish pirouette. Silly. That was multiple personality disorder. All these years and the two diseases which have nothing to do with each other are still being confused.

Schizophrenia is a brain disorder, it brings hallucinations, delusions and voices. It's a fearful disorder, misunderstood and foreign. One that we rarely, if ever, hear has gone into remission. And yet, that's exactly what Remission is about: actor Dan Berkey who was schizophrenic for 45 years tells his own story through the words of two-time FringeNYC Excellence Award Winner (2002, 2003) Kirk Wood Bromley.

Let me say straight off that to have watched another actor in this play would have been terrifying, but to see Berkey tell his own story is something a little bit further than that...further than terrifying. Further than disturbing. Further than uncomfortable. And yet...seeing that at the end of it he is okay...well, that makes us okay.

The play begins with Dan's direct address as he breaks down the words "Post Schizophrenic Actor" and there are a lot of words here. Almost Shakespearean, as dramatic as Beckett, big and overdrawn, and in a way fitting. But in another way I begged to be spoken to plainly; here was Dan's moment (with or without Kirk Wood Bromley) to tell plainly what was going to happen, because Lord knows enough of the next hour was going to be confusing, verbose, strange, inflated, and awkward enough. Not to say this is a bad play, quite the contrary, only to say this is a difficult journey and it is told starkly, plainly, and without anything to cushion the blows. So a little bit of plainer talk at the onset would have helped to explain what was about to happen.

Next, Dan, continuing to take the audience out of its comfort zone, or perhaps in an effort to truly connect in the way one does in a support group, a church, or a family reunion, came out and touched as many of the audience members as he could because, as he said, "we all came here to be touched in some way". With that touch it was like he was joining us to him, and very soon we weren't just watching this show but participating in it. If this was even a wisp of what Schizophrenia is (and how would one ever be able to know without experiencing it?) then I can only say that living through 1.5 hours of it made me feel like I survived a water boarding, so 45 years of it is unimaginable.

Remission is like standing in front of two mirrors which face each other and are constantly reflecting, and then refracting every image brought before it. There is so much meta data being assembled in sight, sound, voice over voice over voice, spilling over each other that it's almost too much...sensory overload to the point of being painful. But then it keeps going, past the pain, till it's profound, and there are moments of stillness, poetry ("I'm no star to those who wish on me") and of peace. Then it's on, past the profound, where it becomes uncomfortable until it refracts again, it becomes confusing, again, (falling into a darkness "my teeth are screaming again") with one small moment of understanding that grows, a little more a little more, it careens off, and you're lost again ("I learned to be more or less more...and less").

Dan begins the telling of his life with the early years, and has no problem taking us through terrifying scenes of abuse; it's very personal, very intimate, graphic. And it's heartbreaking. All the while it's impossible not to remember that this isn't a brilliant actor embodying a tortured soul, but rather a tortured soul recreating his deepest despair in order to show the enormous, profound difference between him and (perhaps) us. And if there is no difference, then Lord help us.

Dan's middle years are full of drugs, the illegal kind, and voices, the hellish kind, save for one hallucination, Timothy, who doesn't speak but acts as Dan's guardian angel. Dan's visions are hard to understand, and those Berkey acts out are visceral and brutal. Berkey uses every cell of his being in his acting, sweating so much that he must change shirts midway through the play, and constantly replenishing his fluids with Gatorade. He also uses every inch of the theatre, he draws on it in chalk, he rolls on it, he hides behind parts of it, throws himself up against its walls, runs up into the audience and back again, flings himself to the floor; he'd fashion a trapeze and swing from the ceiling if it were conceivable. He also cooks, but more on that later.

At some point Dan is FINALLY diagnosed and put on a regiment of drugs (the legal kind) which he doesn't like. ("The drugs slow things down. And when you slow things down, other things can catch up with you.") After being plagued by voices and hallucinations for all these years it suddenly doesn't feel right to give over such complete control to a group of doctors. We may say, why not? Isn't it better to control these impulses? but as Dan says "You either own your body or not. How you own it is your business, but how you don't is theirs."

45 years is a long time. A very long time. And perhaps when you've gone through as much as Dan has gone through, it bears the 1.5 hours of storytelling. And certainly, of the two of you, Berkey is certainly the more exhausted afterwards, having relived his demons, spoken to them, spat at them, swallowed them...and finally boiled them away in a fine pot of steel cut oatmeal. However, this is a very very very draining piece of theatre and while I commend Berkey's agility and force of will, and applaud Bromley's ability to sculpt what one would think is unsculptable, this is still one heck of a long journey.

I will say, the good news is, it ends at the beginning, with a Post Schizophrenic Actor. "For those who don't believe I am in remission, for those who say I was never schizophrenic to begin with, I thrill in your assessment of my life". Strong words, from a strong man.

The piece ends peacefully, as Dan explains his remission; a sudden vision which saved him. Unexplainable but then, who cares. And as he says, this is literally Re-Mission - a new direction, a new mission. In this new, peaceful world, Dan has learned to nurture, and allow, and experience. He savors, and he simmers. And in the end, he rejoices in his second chance.

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The New York International Theatre Festival
Inverse Theatre Company present
Remission
The Players Loft

Remaining performances: Friday, August 28th @8:45PM and Saturday, August 29th @2:30PM. For tickets visit www.FringeNYC.org .

The Players Loft | 115 MacDougal, 3rd Floor | Manhattan.

Review- The Office and The Metal Blob (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

Take one part The Office, one part Office Space, a smidgen of Dilbert, a dash of Brazil (the movie, not the country), a whisper of the "Mr. Roboto" video, a little of the Schrödinger's Cat Thought Experiment, a shake of What the Bleep Do We Know!?, put in a little Stomp, give it all to a cast with a talent for musical comedy and top it all off with a Metal Blob named Roxanne and what do you get? You get a musical, wrapped in a comedy, hidden in a satire, standing behind an enigma wrapped in a riddle shrouded in mystery. Basically, it's the recipe for one really fun night.

The Office and the Metal Blob (conceived and directed by Andrew Scoville) starts off with GEM (Preston Martin) explaining how he is here to tell the story of "The Father" and how the world came to be the way it is now, all because of the time the Metal Blob (now in the form of Roxanne [Barrie McLain]) came to descend upon the CTC. It's all a little confusing in the beginning but soon enough we're taken back (by way of holograph, we're told) to Cleartron Corporation (The CTC) where it all began.

It's hard not to like all these odd ball characters who inhabit this strange, half futuristic, half retro office setting, a place where everything is done according to the policy, and everyone has their very specific role. The office workers introduce themselves to the audience in that very rhythmic children's school yard way..."Hi My Name Is Alex And I Work At The CTC...(I can't get it out of my head). There's the usual round up of weirdoes: the germophobe Edna (Elizabeth Alderfer) who's having an affair with the harried husband, Viktor (Ilya Khodosh), the lonely single woman Janice (Kate Weber) who lives alone with her 2 cats and has a lot of free time on her hands, the lesbian Asian chess player, Kimberly Kim (Nikki Calonge), the straight Asian nerdy guy Alex (Yung-I Chang), and finally the "Father" Reggie (Stephen Arnocyzy)...a man obsessed with climbing the corporate ladder and turning his co-workers into robots.

While this office holds most of the mundane bits that all offices hold (themed casual Fridays, a secret office affair) it also has a bit of the odd to it - packages that fall from the sky, a workday that seems to be choreographed by Busby Berkeley by way of AT&T and..oh yeah...A mysterious metal blob.

When this blob arrives on the scene each office worker immediately wants some alone time with it and gets their own crazy musical number devoted to their exploration of it. Each worker interprets it as something which can complete them in some way; give them what they need - be it companionship (Janice sees it as a baby, Kim sees it as a giant nipple), a portal (Edna and Vick think it can transport them to lovely Sweden where no wife, kids or germs can follow them), or an answer (Alex hears it telling him to kill everyone in the office and then kill himself, Reggie understands that he must put it on his head and use it as a mechanism to turn his other co-workers into robots, thus becoming CEO of the CTC.). Since this is a play about quantum reality, 3 alternate endings are shown, but ultimately the one which wins is the only one which COULD have happened, or else GEM wouldn't be here telling the story.

Full of great musical numbers written by Corey Michener, broad comedy, a hugely talented cast who are obviously great at improv (when an AV problem caused a small part of the video to go without sound the cast ad-libbed quickly and hilariously) and unique media design (Kate Freer and David Tennent). I found myself completely caught up in the fun of this play.

A good mark of any successful show is when the audience leaves the theatre humming the last song. I always felt it was a bit of a cheat when I saw big Broadway shows reprise their flashiest numbers at the end just to send the audience out into the streets in a good mood. That wasn't necessary with The Office and The Metal Blob. All the songs were catchy, and the last song was so good that I was humming it all the way home. If they had been selling the soundtrack in the lobby, I certainly would have bought it.

In a season where a lot of the Fringe shows I'm seeing are a bit on the down side, it's really nice to see something fun, and done so well.

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The New York International Fringe Festival
The Centerfuge presents
The Office and The Metal Blob
The Cherry Lane Theater

Final performance Friday, August 28th at 9:15pm. For tickets visit www.FringeNYC.org

The Cherry Lane Theater | 38 Commerce Street | Manhattan.

Review- Tell It To Me Slowly (FringeNYC)

The Fab Marquee review by Karen Tortora-Lee.

Believe it or not, there was actually a time when reality TV was not the norm, and when someone's idea of filming a family just going about their daily lives was considered a brilliant concept. Yes, once upon a time this idea was considered ground breaking, innovative, and unique. And so, a film crew descended upon a Californian family, and let the cameras roll.

I don't need to tell you that the result was the now infamous An American Family,which captured the lives of the Loud Family. I also don't need to tell you that it's largely credited for opening the door to almost all voyeuristic television which came afterward. Albert Brooks, not knowing how prophetic he was being, parodied the process of reality TV with his 1979 mocumentary Real Life, which showed the ridiculous lengths to which the crew, producers, camera people and studio heads will go to in order to get "good TV". Naturally, at some point, the fourth wall is blurred and Albert Brooks becomes somewhat more involved with the family than he should. Thirty years ago this was an almost unthinkable satirical parody. Thirty years later...well...his movie is still comedic, but for a whole other reason.

Fast forward to Tell It To Me Slowly (written by Daniella Shoshan and directed Jeremiah Matthew Davis) which takes place in the present: in this over stimulated, over filmed, no-information-is-too-much-information-anymore generation and we find what has grown to become a very typical TV family. Gone is the cookie cutter TV family we once considered archetypal: Mom, Dad, 2.3 Children, a Dog, and perhaps a Grandparent or Nanny/Housekeeper/Live-in of some sort. Now we have the neurotic mom Pam (Piper Gunnarson), the jaded teen Noah (Mary Quick), the not-too-bright-son Squish (Justin Gillman), the token adopted kid Peng (Chester Poon) the long-gone father, and the crown jewel of the family (and the whole reason for the reality show, by the way), drug addled, halfway-to-dead son Lucas (Tom Slot) who is off in a never never land that resembles a pool but could just as easily be the recesses of his own little mind.

When we first meet this family it's by way of daughter Noah (who has a Sara Gilbert quality to her) who is talking to Camera 1 (Grant Boyd) in an earnest "confessional", complaining about how her mother probably went too far in preparing hummus for the crew--doesn't this break the 4th wall? When Pam comes on the scene, concerned about the fact that The Contractor (James MacBean) she hired to redo the house specifically "for this" is now two weeks late, thus loudly clashing with the filming, her prattling manner, her swollen vocabulary, and her inability to shed her facade gives us a perfect snippet into the head of this terribly obsessive compulsive woman who is not so much worried about her son's recovery as she is how she will appear to the world as she navigates on video through her son's drug problem.

Soon enough The Producer (Jehan O. Young) descends upon the scene, obviously disappointed by the footage Camera 1 and Camera 2 (Bari Robinson) have been collecting while she has been off spending time with Lucas. She gives Pam and family a little pep talk, urging them to dig deeper, try harder, be realer, show MORE. Her thin veneer of concern barely masks the hard steely intention which drives her; she needs the shot, she needs the tears, she needs the goods. While Noah is convinced that this show is all about getting some back story so that an expert can be brought in to save her brother, we're let in on the secret that really...there's no one coming. This is all about getting good TV.

There are nine characters in this play, and while I understand that at times there needs to be a tremendous amount of action going on in order to convey to the audience that this is all a circus, sometimes it really does a disservice to the story line. I felt the character of The Contractor was built up into almost a Greek Chorus vehicle. His constant blathering on about “making things with his hands” swings widely away from what these TV people here are doing...basically making things up.

Point made, mister, but in such a tightly written well acted play, this was the one character who just didn't come together for me. Almost like perennial busybody handyman Eldin Bernecky from the old Murphy Brown show there were times I just wanted to tell him to mind his own business and go back to measuring the walls. Similarly, there are moments between him and Camera 2 which I felt were just manufactured in order to justify having them around. And while some of the most amusing moments of the play are seen when Squish and his adopted brother Peng (who are on the synchronized swim team) move, speak, and think in perfect unison even though they are obviously not twins, this one note joke gets old. When the pressure of what is happening around them causes them to break apart for the first time, it's not exactly pivotal, and at that point, once they've lost their “thing”, there is little else for them to do.

Tom Slot plays Lucas in a poetically drug-induced mixture of touching sentiment and foregone cynicism. From the bottom of a pool he waxes touchingly about his brother's foot and entreats his mother to look at him before he disappears. At times his points are difficult to understand, but then again, it does a lot to capture the other plain of consciousness he's inhabiting.

The bests moments of this play rest with Pam, Noah, and The Producer. Piper Gunnarson is absolutely heartbreaking as she explains why she adopted Peng; and her inability to pull away her mask, even when she knows that it might save her child, is shocking. Mary Quick's Noah is completely opposite on the spectrum: so real, so ready to open up, so ready to do whatever it takes to fix her brother, that she'd even sacrifice her own privacy, regardless of how absurd she finds the whole convoluted, constructed, manufactured process.

Finally, the real scene stealer is Jehan O. Young who has the ability to play layers and layers of emotion so clearly that she is brilliant to watch. What could have been pure caricature in a lesser actor's hands becomes finely nuanced and deftly played. Ultimately, while what she does for a living is a little sleazy, this is a woman who must get through her workday just like all of us, it's just that her workday involved filming junkies, and getting enough good footage, cutaways and reaction shots from the families in order to justify the price of the “specialist” who gets flown in at the end. If it's worth it.

The end of this play is terribly chilling and stark. But as The Producer says towards the end, these shows are so popular because while not everyone knows what it's like to race around the world, or be stranded on an island, everyone knows agony.

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The New York International Theatre Festival

False Start Productions present

Tell It To Me Slowly

The Robert Moss Theater

Remaining Performance: Saturday, August 29th at 2pm. For tickets and more information visit www.TellItToMeSlowly.com

The Robert Moss Theater | 440 Lafayette, 3rd Floor | Manhattan.