7th annual new york international fringe festival at theater2k.com

fringe binge

august 8-24, 2003

the list

American Mouth
Raymond Bokhour is one very clever and very pissed off writer. His seething "musical black comedy" touches down in Bogosian's "Talk Radio" country, but then hammers its own way beyond in this dead-on skewering of contemporary American pop culture oozing from shockjock The Mouth's (a preeningly sleazy, smarmy Julian Fleisher) "Sex 100" slut radio. Directed at a blistering pace by Davis McCallum and smoothly packaged by producer Christine Beyer. Dave Bokhour's sound design is to die for.

Bad-Ass Clown

Belly
Mistakes pathetic for poignant.

Berserker
Nat Turner meets Gallagher. Lose the Jeffrey Dahmer. Please.

Call It Peace
More than what was this about, what wasn't it about.

Carrot and Stick
Clown college graduate Joel Jeske's crisp and inventively physical direction of Chris Alonzo's slapstick, Felliniesque wacked-out dream journey makes for a fast and fun hour. The cast is uniformly adept at both the grand vaudevillian style and the relentlessly complex timing it takes to make it all look easy. Bina Chauhan blew our socks and the Kraine Theater's roof clean off with her portrayal of Courtney, a young woman with -- um, issues.

Civil Liberties

Discordant Duets

Dust

Fallen Patriots

How To Act Around Cops
Perhaps the first true neo-noir of the new millennium, Logan Brown's Chinese puzzle box of a play keeps turning one scheming, plotting character against another and with it, our expectations of not only who -- if anyone -- is telling the truth here, but also our perspective of the very malleable, subjective and self-serving nature of "truth" itself. It's an epic concept that Brown, director Jon Schumacher and a flawless cast pull and stretch like so much befouled taffy in a dark, menacing world of fog and shadows, of half-seen faces and half-lies...that are partly true.

I Want The Whole World To See I Can Cry
The multimedia helped.

Little Wing

Lost Cabaret
The meaning is in the meaninglessness. Can you dig it, daddio?

Maiden America
Five very good minutes of Naomi Wolfian female-commodtization-by-the-corporate-culture; fifty-five minutes of repetitive dance filler.

Manifest: The Battle Of Intergalactic Farces
De-humanization-by-the-corporate-culture with all the edge and bite of a Harry Potter novel.

No Good Nigga Bluez
Simply put, this is everything theater should be, and there was nothing else I saw in this year's Fringe that could touch it. Or damn near anywhere else in recent memory, for that matter. Entertaining without being fluffy, instructional without being didactic, angry without being abusive, humorous without being deferential, Mo Beasley, J-Square and Sekou Writes unloaded a devastating spoken-word dissemination of what it means to be African-American and male in the USA today, spun exponentially from the examination of a single word.

Nosferatu
Based upon F.W. Murnau's 1922 Expressionist film classic, yet not taking either that or itself too seriously, director Deborah Hertzberg and Cat's Paw Collective's delightfully inventive re-telling of the classic vampire tale using string and shadow puppets along with some appropriately flickering rear projection is a top-to-bottom, beginning-to-end gem. "Seal the deal, sucker!" indeed.

Pat Candaras: Panic Is Not A Disorder
Segueing with a manic, stuttering urgency from tales of her childhood in Brooklyn to entertaining the wayward Taliban to Tom Ridge's hairstyle to the Virgin Mary's wardrobe to guys and their dicks with the scope and insight that only 2 grandkids, 3 children, 16 siblings and 23 years in the corporate world can bring, this latest installment from Grandmotherfucker rocked the Ground Floor Theater. You reach a certain point in life where you just don't give a shit anymore what people think of you. Pat Candaras is there. Now.

re
Dharma Road Productions' presentation of all things re -- re-ality/re-set/re-real/re-cycle/re-freshment/re-flect/re-cite (did I forget anything) combined the choreography and performances of Akiko Furukawa, Aiichiro Miyagawa, Aya Shibahara, Sakura Shimada and Norika Yasunaga into a gently humorous, gently wistful and thoroughly unique theater performance. Ei Arakawa's video interlude of Shimada interacting with the trash collectors in NYC's Chinatown and writhing amongst the patrons of Galapagos truly took me to a place I had never visited before, but want to go back to. Real soon. Plus they gave out free candy!!!

The Writer's Mind
Coming soon to an airport hotel lounge near you.

*******

fringe binge

Here's The Disclaimer: Views expressed within the Fringe Binge are solely those of the author and theater2k.com and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the 7th Annual New York International Fringe Festival or its sponsors. The NYIFF is in no way associated with theater2k.com, its writers, editors, designers, drug suppliers or pets, and no such inference is implied.

Thanks to Ron Lasko and Spin Cycle for helping to make this Binge come true.