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wherein we:
It just figures that at a theater festival, you're going to listen to a lot of words, right? Hear a lot of talk. And we fully expect to absorb a bountiful abundance of language both lovely and wretched over the course of this Fest, which kicked off Friday night. And that's why we thought that, in our peculiarly twisted little way, we should open our personal journey through this year's Fest of the Fringe with a show in which...nary a word is uttered. We found it in David Matthew Engel's one-man mime show, "Bad-Ass Clown", way up top at KGB in the (thankfully air-conditioned) Red Room. Are there street mimes in New York City? There have gotta be. They're in San Francisco. They are strategically placed about the Sacre Coeur in Paris; perhaps I'm just not frequenting the right neighborhoods here. We'll cut right to the chase cuz I promised myself I was going to keep these all brief n breezy. The bottom line here is: Engel's weird. His show is eight vignettes set to an eclectic mix of music, and some undeniably weird shit goes down. But it's our kind of weird shit. This lad is t2k weird. Test this on your personal Weird-o-meter and see where it registers: In the opening vignette, a clown in a towering, rainbow-colored Afro fright wig, a big red nose and wraparound shades runs down little kiddies in his car as Radiohead's Talk Show Host slithers about the Red Room black box: I'll
be waiting Though Engel remains unfailingly specific throughout in his actions, a couple of his longer pieces tend to lose focus, mostly because I think there is only so long an audience can sustain a single pantomimed action. Or maybe it's just me. "Fashion Show", set to a driving 4/4 club beat, and "The Father-To-Be", set to Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue, carry the single idea/action a little too far. In order for pantomime to work, those of us watching need to be on the same plane and same wavelength as the guy up there doing it; once he loses us, we're lost for the duration of the action, and that happened to me a couple of times in these longer pieces. Where Engel really strikes gold and scales new heights of pure weirdness is with his three sequential vignettes of Johnny Cash and an increasingly out-of-control backup singer. Moment of truth: how many of you out there have ever really given that much thought to those good ol' gals who have backed up the Man in Black? Yeah, me neither. And why should we? The most they do is provide gentle, unobtrusive harmonies, and sometimes just hang out in the back crooning, "Ooooooo..." Not in David Matthew Engel's world. It all begins innocently enough, with a strummingly droll beginning of "When It's Springtime in Alaska". But by the time we get through "Ring of Fire"...well, let me just say that Engel's JC has an appropriately immolating climax to this song and solution to his problem. Really, the recurring sight of a cherubic, fresh-faced kid in black-outlined white face paint (with the exception of the first piece, there really isn't much that's bad-ass about this clown; Engels' often childlike quality reminded me not a little of Harry Langdon) segueing from laconic country singer to maniacal wannabe country chanteuse is...well, it's pretty freaking weird. And well worth the fifteen bucks. In her directorial debut, Laurel Brooke Johnson demonstrates a smooth, sure hand, measurably helping Engel deliver a brisk 45-minute set. We thought we were going to be slick here and pull off a Johnny Cash-to-Lady Macbeth segue that only the the most esoteric of the theater elite could appreciate, but alas, it was not to be. We got to the Bank Street in the West Village about 7 minutes before the scheduled first performance of Broads with Swords' "Lady Macbeth Rewrites the Songbook" only to find that a) there was no one at the ticket desk and b) the work lights were on in the theater with a bunch of people milling casually about. Not a good sign. As the friendly woman who came bounding down the risers soon informed me, there would be no Lady Mac B, tonight or any other. Seems that the Broads, a London-based band of hearty vixens, had apparently either missed their flight or their flight was canceled or they were thrown off it or...or...well, it all went downhill from there. The upshot: "Lady Macbeth Rewrites the Songbook" is history before it happened. So if you were planning on seeing this, un-plan yourself. This Lady Mac B is toast. Yeah. OK. Whatevs. So what could we do but breeze across the breezeway to the Westbeth Community Center and swoop in on Urban Wing's presentation of Caitlin Condy's "Little Wing". And are we glad we did. It's not Jimi Hendrix, but there is more than a bit of butterflies, zebras and moonbeams here, and a whole lotta fairy tale. So much, in fact, that "Little Wing" is subtitled, "An Urban Fairytale". Condy's play begins on the outskirts of Jose Rivera country (think "Marisol"), then veers sharply into Elizabeth Egloff/Caridad Svich land (think "The Swan" and just about everything Ms. Svich has penned) before taking strong flight on its own. Condy confides in her program notes that not only does she not really recall writing her play, but that "I still don't know what it means" (Eduardo Machado would love this). These are two revelations I doubt many playwrights would care to see in print, as they could be construed to indicate weakness or confusion on the writer's part. To the contrary, plays -- as Mr. Machado champions -- should be questions in search of answers, the playwright's pursuit of what s/he doesn't know. Plays should not be written to provide "answers", tidy little packages all wrapped up ever-so-neat. In "Little Wing", the character She, a young woman living in contemporary New York City, awakes one day to find -- to her horror and disgust -- that she has sprouted angel's wings. The whys and the wherefores of this affliction aren't really Condy's concern here; the acceptance and love of self from without and from within are. "Little Wing" is a fragmented fugue of visceral images that refuses to fit neatly together, yet at the same time fuses into an estimable, driving synthesis of self-loathing, fear, longing and desire. Best of all, whether she remembers it or not, Condy has fashioned a work of theater, of rich, sharp language undiluted by the snappily hollow repartee too many contemporary young writers have been numbed into parroting by TV scripting. Condy's text is enhanced considerably by an assured and appealing pair of young actors, Alicia Racine as She and Dominic Bogart as He, and by Elyzabeth Gorman's strong direction. Gorman especially knows when to punch Condy's text up and when to chill out and let it breathe. "Little Wing", even at only 60 minutes, is a challenging play, a work that insists you engage with it or be left behind. In this case, engagement has its rewards. And, finally -- In the It-Had-To-Happen-Sooner-Or-Later-Dept.: A woman was seen tightly clutching a leash, being pulled along by...a cat. Yep. On Bank near West St. A little gray-and-white creature, not particularly large, but fairly straining against its harness in shrub-sniffing eagerness. I wonder if I could interest Clyde in that...and then, at an E. 4th St. playground, a young dude shoots baskets while talking...on his cell phone... 'Til next... --
Brook Stowe "Bad-Ass
Clown", "Little
Wing"' The
7th Annual New
York International Fringe Festival Copyright © 2003 The Write Word, Inc. All rights reserved. binge
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