What If at Fringe

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What If by Caitlyn Wisser dealt with tow workers starting their jobs at a new office. The female had plenty of past experience while the males only credibility came form the fact that he belonged to the same fraternity as the boss. The male was immediately promoted to the position of account executive while the female was asked if she could get the men some coffee. At the water cooler she met a female executive who recognized the injustice but suggested that she just tow the line until an opportunity arose.

The two new employees faced off about the injustice which the male couldn’t recognize. The theater lights flickered and dimmed and they both set their heads on the table. This was a time shift and they both woke up in a world where all their expectations had changed. Woman were paid equally to men and the only requirement for advancement was talent and ambition. Men were granted maternity leave along with woman and since women were the primary politicians, there was peace and prosperity.

It took the male worker a long time to adjust to the new world order but in the end he found he too was happy. When they slipped back to the old world order he defended his coworker when she was was disrespected by other male co-workers. The premise of the show was sound but some of the writing felt labored and forced. On top of this, the musical Along the Way, was in the theater next door and the paper thin theater walls allowed the boisterous musical numbers to seep into each scene in this show. What if, What If had been a musical?

Save Me, Dolly Parton at Fringe

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Beth Marshall’s Husband presented Save Me Dolly Parton written by Megan Gogerty. This was a one woman show featuring a witty stories of politics, pop Culture parenting and how Dolly Parton saved the day. Theresa Smith-Levin as Megan described her trip to a record store and picking up her first Dolly Parton album. She and her beau thought it would be a joke, but the music resonated with her. She didn’t want to over state, but simply put Dolly Parton is the greatest woman alive in her mind.

Megan and her husband decided to have a child and of course this loaded multiple new challenges and responsibilities into their lives. She read all the parenting books she could find, book marked the pages and figured she had this parenting thing down, at least in theory. Probably her most funny story came when she described a plane flight she needed to take. Her husband was busy so she had to take the trip alone with her baby in tow. At first the flight was pleasant with passengers glancing at her child lovingly. Then as the flight wore on her child grew tired and cranky. The next part of her story was shouted over the recorded sounds of a baby crying. She screamed that that noise has been ingrained into mother for centuries and that moms would do anything to stop that sound. Passengers were no longer glancing over with affection everyone looked annoyed.

The screaming dilemma didn’t stop on the plane. After landing she had to lug all her bags through the airport to the luggage claim. There she willed the bags to appear on the conveyor. The baby carriage arrive first thing and she lunged to get it off the line. Then she saw her bag. It had been wrapped by an airline employee in industrial grade plastic, like Seran wrap but bulletproof and terrorist proof. To quiet the baby she needed to get inside the bag. She couldn’t lean over of the baby which sounded life a fire alarm right now would fall out. She had to squat down, back straight and try and rip the plastic open with her bare teeth. She decided to place the baby in the carriage so she could complete the task and in an instant he fell asleep. In her relief she started to cry. This was something she hadn’t prepared herself for. And this wasn’t the only time this might occur. she imagined it playing out again and again each time she traveled. Hadn’t feminism solved this? She wanted more feminism.

This was a highly polished one woman show that seemed to flow without a hitch. Theresa Smith-Levin is a powerhouse of a performer. I have seen her working behind the scenes on many shows I have sketched over the years and this was the first time I got to see her raw force on the stage. If you are a young parent you needed to see this show. If you aren’t a parent like myself, you still would have laughed out loud and enjoyed the ride.

The Haunting of Saint River at Fringe

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Bremner Duthie from New Orleans presented The Hauting of Saint River a dark eerie one man musical with mysterious original songs. The haunted house in his tale is located in the deep south of New Orleans. The buyer essentially felt he had sold his soul to the devil to acquire the property. At first he is able to live with the hoes few creeks and groans but in time he becomes sleep deprived and the time spent at the edge of sleep become moments of absolute terror.

A female neighbor across the river become his one refuge as he slips into the houses depths. It sits on the edge of the river banks and seems ready to slip into the rivers grip taking him with it. A small box was used as a screen for historic flashes but the projection also slipped around the box onto the back wall of the theater.

The show felt like a work in progress. To me it seemed like the kind of shows a ten year old might throw together in the bedroom. It was mad and experimental. flashlights were used for the typical campfire under-lit face effects and a ghost puppet danced to the New Orleans Jazz while members of the audience held flashlights to illuminate her. Unfortunately the puppet wasn’t menacing or scary at all, detracting from the intended mysterious thrust of the story.

The story was most successful when Bremner asked the audience to imagine the ghostly threat as he described the characters slip into madness.

Jon Bennett: Fire in the Meth Lab at Fringe

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Jon Bennett from Melbourne Australia wrote a play about his brother called Fire in the Meth Lab. His brother is in jail and in various letters he warned his brother not to write the show. In general this on man show was a coming of age story. We all have had siblings who acted like bullies. His brother was a life long bully. He showed us a clip from the Wonder Years, a TV show in which most people identify with the young boy Kevin. His brother identified with that young boys jerk of an older brother, Wayne. The older brother is picking up the younger brother after a date. Each time the younger brother reaches for the car door his jerk of a brother pulls away. The date watches the nonsense and the lad is mortified.

Jon’s brother did far worse, like sticking his dick in his brother’s ear. I can’t imagine. Things got silly when Jon shared clips from his brothers favorite pop star.  It was some Australian singer and the lyrics left little impression. He read some cards from the pop starts board trivia game and the answers were obscure and impossible to guess. Only a rabid fan might have a chance.

Things got serious when his brother decided to start a meth lab. A fire broke out and rather than leave the product to burn, his brother went in to save the meth. He then drove away before police arrived. When he was later picked up the police ordered him to get out of the car. He couldn’t. He had third degree burns and his flesh had melted onto the car seat effectively gluing him in.

Jon lost his pet dog and then befriended a dog down the street. He felt so close to this dog , that he decided to take him home. On that trek, a neighbors dog barked violently. He turned to the dog at his side and barked as well, in his mind saying “It is us against the world.” The dog misinterpreted his barking and lunged for his face, violently biting him and intending to kill. he woke up in a hospital bet with multiple stitches, deeply wounded. The dog was put down. Only much later did he learn that his brother had followed him on that day and saved his life from the attacking dog. His brother might have treated him like a jerk most of his life, but in the end brothers stick up for each other.

Banned in the USA at Fringe

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Gerard Harris from London grew up watching James Bond films rather than become a spy, he ended up becoming a comic. Being a comic does involve some international travel and his one man show is about how he has been treated like a spy or threat by the world’s super powers when he travels. His one man show was about trying to get through airport security. The posters he designed for his Fringe show at the time were not a help. One was designed like a Cuban Soviet poster. The title of the show, Banned in the USA also didn’t help as he tried to get to this year’s Fringe.

The set consisted of a  was a red couch and a folding chair to hold his laptop computer. He seemed to be making the show up on the fly with the laptop as a back up for details he might have forgotten. He is a manic storyteller. He crawled all over the couch at one time sitting on the back as he told his tale. He used to work at a tech company and his boss who usually went to conferences to talk about the companies goals and mission was not able to go so Gerard was asked to go.

The entire show was about being held up in the airport and the struggle to try and get to the conference on time. The petty nature of international borders was the ongoing theme. At one point the office that could resolve his issues was just a few yards away  but it was in another country so he couldn’t stroll over for the answers. Despite his rapid fire delivery he started to run long and so he had to wrap up his story quickly at the end. We seemed to be the guinea pigs for a dinner party story he had told many times before he decided to convert it into a Fringe show as we watched.

Title and Deed at Fringe

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Kangagirl Productions in association with Susan Turner presented Title and Deed written by Will Eno and performed by David Lee. The one man show is a dry witty meditation on life. The character questions everything. What is his roll in life, does he belong? He begins by stating that “I am not from here.” He addressed the audience intimately yet was clearly set apart perhaps a foreigner. As an artist , being apart is needed for perspective, an outsider looking in. Perhaps that is his role but he also seems mundane and everyday.

The set consisted of two empty book cases and a backpack with a stick in it. I thought the stick might be a divining rod, but he used it to strike his leg multiple times to prove to himself that he had feelings. His was an existential dilemma which he shared with reckless abandon. David’s delivery was dry and monotone, at times getting a laugh from the audience. We all question our place in the world and this show was an open forum for those concerns. He points out the things in our everyday life that are difficult for an outsider. What is most important? Family, Career? What do we miss? How do we truly feel at home? Our society which runs at a mad efficiency might be missing a few things when viewed from a different perspective.

Wanzie’s Monorail Inferno at Fringe

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Wanzie’s Monorail Inferno opened with a fabulous opening number. The theater was dark, and the actors on stage held flashlights that created a menacing effect. I was excited, it looked like we were in for an amazing ride. Unfortunately that high energy suddenly died when the first act got under way.

A bored transgender Disney hostess guided wide eyed tourists around the stage. On the monorail any impending doom was masked by the mundane. The monorail got stuck on it’s tracks leading to a forced purgatory for everyone on board and the audience. A teen wore a red bow worthy of Minnie Mouse and her boyfriend just seemed to be along for the ride. a thin rail of a woman was a choreographer who was stuck doing choreography for theme park shows. A southern bell sat next to a southern hick. A small girl got into a screaming fit and was bound and gagged by the passengers. Each person on the monorail seemed like a caricature, rather than someone with a personal history worth learning.

The southern hick had issues with the Disney Hostess but thankfully they were separated by the line of seated passengers. There was some resolution as they both told aspects of their past that showed that they both suffered and suffering is a game that needn’t be won. After a long wait, passengers were finally allowed to disembark and the hick was the first to leave. He left behind a package which I thought was a staging mistake, but it was the cause of the inferno to follow. The show is a musical but several numbers could clearly be cut without
slowing down the plot. The worst is when a passenger breaks into song
for no apparent reason. The final number had the entire cast dressed in white singing and dancing in heaven, finally finding the happiness they never found in life. I suppose the story was intended as a morality tale but I was confused.

Jack Kerouac: End of the Road at the Fringe

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Southern Winds Theatre, from Orlando, Florida presented Jack Kerouac: End of the Road at the Orlando International Fringe Festival. In July of 1969, three months before he died, Jack Kerouac, the father of the “beat movement,” appeared on William F. Buckley’s “Firing Line.” In a tirade of booze inspired talk, he shared stories about his insane, yet creatively inspired travels on the road.

The play is staged in the waiting room before Jack goes on the air. There he drinks and reminisces about his life, family and friends. He is labeled as a “Beat” which is similar to many with “Hippies” as they became known in the 1960s. His views however are rather conservative and Republican. He himself viewed hippies as degenerates. As he sips alcohol his speech slurs and hiss views become blunt.

I have done many sketches of resident authors who write at
the Kerouac House here in Orlando. The Dharma Bums was written right
here in a tiny Orlando house which Jack shared with his mom. When On
The Road became a best seller, Jack needed to borrow bus money to go up
to NYC to talk to his publisher.With such strong Orlando connections, how could I not want to learn more about his life?

He only wanted to go on the TV program to recite some of his poems, but Buckley wanted instead to get his views about the Beats. In the rare moments Kerouac does wax poetic, a sax player appears out of nowhere to perform an accompaniment to his angst. It would be nice if the history of his life flowed as if in a Benzedrine induced haze, but the writing seemed forced as if for a historic made for TV movie. Perhaps I was just put off by having to see a young vibrant man wasting away needlessly on stage. Jack died an alcoholic. We will never know what was left unwritten.

In Tandem at Fringe

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What would you give for an escape, freedom, or for complete liberty? In Tandem is inspired by the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. The Explore Composite from Orlando Florida examines the complexities of humanity and how we came to develop the relationships we have today. What bonds us? What drives us apart? How far would we go to protect the ones we love?

These ideas were explored through modern dance. In he beginning of the show, as the audience filtered into the theater. A sheet of paper was scrolled open on the floor and dancers would lie down and have their outline traced on the sheet. Each dancer in turn had their outline added to the sheet and at the end of the show the sheet was taken out and taped to the back wall of the theater. The markers unfortunately weren’t very wide, so I couldn’t see the lines added to the sheet.

 For me it was a challenging hour of trying to catch changing gestures in the ever changing flow of dance. Being a small theater, the dancers had to work in a tight area. I like that the dance company has dancers off all shapes and sizes. It wasn’t just a company of very thin dancers, which makes it more believable to present concepts that explore big concepts that affect us all. Not everything rang true for me. But as an artist, I always appreciate a chance to sketch dance.

Ruminations at Fringe

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Presented by the BAAD Project, Ruminations, like the name suggests, is inspired by the ruminations of Alan Wilson Watts. When was the last time you really took the time to stop? Stop thinking, stop doing, just listen. So often we are caught up in the whirlwind of life, always moving from one thing to the next we rarely take the time to settle in, quiet our mind, and observe. Utilizing explosive movement and captivating partnering, we delve into our relationships with each other and with nature; we explore what it means to really be present.

Alan Wilson Watts was a British philosopher, writer, and speaker, best
known as an interpreter and populariser of Eastern philosophy for a
Western audience. Interpreting this philosophy in dance offered some fluid modern dance. Dancers reached for the intangible as the philosopher expressed his views of the world. I cant claim to understand all of what was expressed but that might be the point.

I was pleased to see dancer Jesse Sander who has performed as Yellow at DRIP for years. DRIP just recently had its final performance after 10 years. So it was good to see the talent fostered there still influencing the arts scene here in Orlando. Orlando has a strong dance community and it always shines at Fringe.