NY International Fringe Festival, 2010

New York International Fringe Festival, August 2010

I managed to get to three offerings in this year's Fringe, Rites of Privacy, 3boys,  and Open Heart.

True to Fringe form, they were all very different, both in premise and quality.

Rites of Privacy, at the Here Arts Center, August 28, 2010

Written and performed by David Rhodes, this one-act series of confessions patches together a range of tales, personal to Mr. Rhodes and a number of seemingly created characters.  One isn't sure if the various tales are people Mr. Rhodes knew or not.  Among them are a Jew who escaped the Holocaust, a southern matron who allows her abusive husband to die and a particularly upsetting doctor who performs an abortion on herself.  Mr. Rhodes slides into each character easily enough and masters sufficient mannerisms to keep them from running together, but his own confession at the end didn't feel particularly revelatory.  I find his title misleading in that there were no tales of secret habits or practices.  All were tales of past events - - confessions.

Director Charles Loffredo keeps the pace up, but seems as unsure of the point as I was.  Greg Emetaz' projections add a bit of cinematic atmosphere, but it's not enough to carry the show.

3boys, at the 4th Street Theatre, August 28, 2010

I didn't really realize that this show was about dogs I arrived to find two of the actors tumbling about the stage like puppies.  Or at least one was tumbling about.  The other was more like a bored babysitter.  Zip (Patrick Horn) is the newest addition to the household, joining Lee (Alex Engquist and Comet (Matt Brown).  Who knew that creatures of the emotional equivalent of a 4 year old knew such worry?  Comet is sad and angry though I was never really clear as to why.  Maybe it was having been put out for stud.  Lee wants Comet to be happy again.  Zip just wants to play with the ball.

Becca Schollberg's script plumbs the depths of canine angst, going well beyond any anthropomorphizing ever attempted by Disney.  These are woeful pups.  Mr. Engquist comes off the strongest of the three, but it's a fairly low threshold.  Director Madeleine Rose M. Parsigan pulls emotion from the three on occasion, but it comes across like an acting exercise a la Viola Spolin.

Open Heart at LAMAMA, August 29, 2010

Crediting Anna Deveare Smith, playwright Joe Salvatore has continued his work in "the verbatim interview theatre process" with Open Heart, an exploration of monogamy among gay male couples.  This verbatim process, similar to the work of Moises Kaufman in The Laramie Project, and Doug Wright in I Am My Own Wife, pulls the text directly from recorded interviews.  The stories from these interviews get woven into an interesting picture of how gay men from small towns and big cities deal with the issue of monogamy in a committed relationship.  With all the political furor surrounding same sex marriage of late, Mr. Salvatore manages to present multiple perspectives without showing favor for any one.

Mr. Salvatore directs his work and has assembled quite the capable cast of five to create  the fifteen men sharing their views and experiences, including Chris Bresky, Stephen Donovan, Daryl Embry, Nick Lewis and Karl O'Brian Williams.  Mr. Bresky was excellent, moving smoothly from a 50ish man from Queens to a stammering Irishman.  Pace was brisk and the staging very clever, making excellent use of Blake McCarty's projections.

Of the three plays above, Open Heart was the one to have seen.  Mr. Salvatore would do well to contact David Drake about producing a run in Provincetown next summer.

It's Like Deja Vu All Over Again

"Double Vision" presented by Fringe NYC Encores at the Culture Project, September 15, 2007

From the promotional materials, "Six singles navigate the tricky waters of urban, modern relationships in this tale of love on the lam."

Yeah, that's what my reaction was too.

Still, this bit of Lifetime TV meets Comedy Central does have a spirited cast with some commendable performances.

Dave (Shane Jacobsen), Mark (Quinn Mattfield) and Ben (Christopher McCann) share an apartment in Queens. All three are single with commitment issues. Dave sabotages every relationship he attempts. Mark is only interested in unavailable women. Ben only wants something passionate that will end before the passion dies.

Neighbor Celia (Linda Jones) lives with a boyfriend who works days while she works nights, but she has a huge crush on Ben. Mary (Rebecca Henderson) has been dating Dave and has an opportunity for a big promotion that would require her to move to California. Michelle (Sarah Silk) is passionately in love with Ben, but is returning to France to finish school the next day.

Director Ari Laura Kreith has assembled this able cast and moves them through their paces.

Mr. Jacobsen is an oozing mass of insecurity, terrified of being responsible for anyone or anything, even himself. He spends the second half of the play naked following a car accident eerily similar to one he described at the beginning of the play. While at first effective to communicate his mental tribulations, the nudity loses it impact quickly.

Mr. Mattfield also acquits himself well in his role, he sums it up "Love. It's a lot like what you didn't ask for - like forks raining down."

Mr. McCann's Ben 12-steps his way through his role as a recovering addict. Ms. Jones' Celia frets and worries herself into bed with Ben, even before his French girlfriend has left town.

All in all, the cast was much better than their material. At 70 minutes without intermission, it could have been just as effective at 40 minutes.

"My Problem Child"

"A Beautiful Child" presented by FringeNYC Encores at the Culture Project, September 15, 2007

"A Beautiful Child" is an adaptation of a Truman Capote story from a collection published in 1975, Music for Chameleons. (No credit for the adaptation was provided in the playbill.)

The story is based on an afternoon that Mr. Capote spent with Marilyn Monroe after the funeral of her acting coach, Constance Collier. The 40-minute act begins with Mr. Capote (Joel Van Liew) in direct address to the audience about Ms. Collier, and her relationship with him and Marilyn. I must give Mr. Van Liew credit for smoothly handling the latecomers who marched in after he had begun to speak. Ever polite, as Truman was, he encouraged them to find suitable seating, before continuing with his monologue. His Truman was not a caricature, nor even an attempt at imitation, but more what I imagine Truman viewed himself as a literary device in this particular story. Still fey and bespectacled, of course, but not lisping and nasal. To have done more would have upset the balance of the characters as they were presented.

Maura Lisabeth Malloy's Marilyn was very impressive. Dressed in all black and forgoing the blond locks that made her so famous, Ms. Malloy captured a Marilyn that most of us might have imagined would be in "real life": insecure, sometimes unaware, sometimes inappropriate, occasionally crude, ever vulnerable yet always thinking. She also gets a couple of terrific zingers, too. About Los Angeles: "One big varicose vein." After Truman's confession of a one-nighter with Errol Flynn and his reputed prodigious endowment, she says, "Everyone says Milton Berle has the biggest prick in Hollywood, but who cares?"

Director Linda Powell has done a nice job of keeping the flow organic as the play flows from scene to monologue elegantly. The only part that approaches a misstep is some uncomfortable choreography used as musical scene shifts. Ellen Reilly's costumes suit the moment. Lara Fabian's minimal sets also fit well.

Three's Company?

"Lights Rise on Grace" Fringe Encores at the Culture Project, September 3, 2007

I didn't get to any of the shows at this year's NY Fringe Festival during the regular run, but once again several shows have returned this month in an encore series.

Chad Beckim's "Lights Rise on Grace" tells the story of Grace, Large and Riece. It's a bizarre love triangle of race, prison, and self-deception. Grace (Ali Ahn) is the child of Chinese immigrants, seduced and at once in love with Large (Jaime Lincoln Smith), who is soon shipped off to jail for 6 years where he meets Riece (Alexander Alioto).

This minimalist production moves well under the direction of Robert O'Hara, but Mr. Beckim's script still needs a bit of work. While he does pretty well having the story jump back and forth in time to reveal certain plot points, the characters suffer a bit as a result. Most injured by this is Grace. We meet Grace in a direct- address monologue and she is forthright, honest and open, traits which all three disappear as she flashes back to her first meetings with Large. She becomes a Bronx Cio-Cio-San, barely able to speak from shyness and inexperience. Yet, in her first interaction with her parents, there is no hesitation in how she expresses herself. Ms. Ahn does the best she can with the material but is hindered early on by the writing.

As Large, Mr. Smith plays the smooth operator very well, but as the plot shifts to his time in jail and his relationship with Riece, again, things don't quite ring true.

It is Mr. Alioto's Riece that gets the full treatment. A sociopath at heart, Riece is the only character who gets a true arc through the course of the play. Mr. Alioto manages to stir empathy with this troubled man as he abuses and torments Large, and later Grace, in the name of love.