September 2- 8, 2004

cover story

For Your Consideration

Try it, you might like it: our picks for a successful Live Arts/Fringe experience.

These are just City Paper's humble recommendations for what to see and do in the next three weeks. But what do we know? Make up your own damn schedule.

For tickets and more information, visit the Live Arts/Fringe box office at 620 Chestnut St., call 215-413-1318 or visit www.livearts-fringe.org.

AdShock

Sir Isaac Newton's got nothing on the guerilla performers in JUNK. The dancers don't simply defy gravity; they challenge the very construct, through the sort of contorted choreography usually seen in Cirque du Soleil shows. This year, Brian Sanders' infamous troupe turns a former transit station from a skeletal industrial site into a living, breathing Metropolis of clanging steel, sputtering cogs and physical commentary on us crooked media types. --Andrew Parks
Sept. 3-5, 9 p.m.; Sept. 9-10, 9 p.m.; Sept. 11, 9 and 11 p.m.; Sept. 12, 9 p.m.; Sept. 15-16, 9 p.m.; Sept. 17-18, 9 and 11 p.m.; $20, The Transit Station, 625 N. Front St., 60 min.

Black Palace Pink Party

If Reliant Projects, the team that brought you 2000's Bell and Clock: The Dead Media Project do like they did previously, the Black Palace's subtitle — "an unpleasant walk-through performance in three brief acts" — will certainly be in effect. Here, during a wily set of misadventures and misinformation, a self-delusional "Jayne Mansfield" is portrayed during the last act of her bosomy career. Failed but still ambitious, the now-reduced-to-striptease Mansfield falls in league with a devil-worshipping crew. And laughs ensue. --A.D. Amorosi
Sept. 3-5, Sept. 7-12, Sept. 14-18, 10 p.m., $15, The National Dock, #2, 119 Arch St., 60 min.

Caveman

Caveman

A highly unscientific CP poll suggests that audiences either adore Richard Maxwell and his monotone New York City Players or despise them. Last year's musical theater piece Drummer Wanted knocked this writer's socks off, but left others thoroughly unimpressed — even angry. The Obie-winning Maxwell returns to the Arden's Haas stage this year with Caveman, a love triangle that simmers among three characters referred to only as C, W and A, and addresses the oh-so-primal complications that arise when one's sexual territory is challenged. And it's all set to song. Enjoy (or cringe) to your heart's content. (There's another Maxwell work, Showcase , a play set — and performed — in a hotel room. --Lori Hill
Sept. 9-10, 8 p.m.; Sept. 11, 2 and 8 p.m., $20, Haas Stage, Arden Theatre Company, 40 N. Second St., 90 min. Festival Plus: discussion with Richard Maxwell following Sept. 10 performance.

Cold Feet

Cold Feet

So much to consider when getting married: guest lists, wedding planners, china patterns, divorce statistics, in-laws, the prospect of never having sex with anyone other than your spouse ever again. Kaleo Bird (whose Deep Sea Theatre gave last year's Fringe Beckett Slam) interviewed actual brides-to-be from Philly, New York, D.C. and Virginia and wrote this performance piece. Thirty characters, played by Marla Burkholder, Courtney Spiker and Bird herself, give life to the often-unheard doubts, fears and expectations of women on the verge of a singlehood breakdown. --L.H.
Sept. 4, 7 p.m; Sept. 5, 6 p.m.; Sept. 6, 1 and 7 p.m.; Sept. 9-10, 7 p.m.; Sept. 11, 1 and 7 p.m.; Sept. 12, 1 p.m.; $10, 2nd Stage at the Adrienne Theater, 2030 Sansom St., 90 min.

Don Juan in Nirvana

I don't mind that choreographer/conceptualist Whit MacLaughlin stole my line about New Paradise Laboratories' enigmatic vision of "multi-layered wonderment" for Don Juan's press kit. Since 1996, MacLaughlin, his various-shaped movement specialists and collage-obsessed sound-samplers have pieced together the best the Fest's biggest productions can offer. This time, NPL's mosaic of akimbo arms and wiggly legs take on the muscular turns and sinewy savagery of krumping, the extreme sexuality of Wilhelm Reich and the spirituality of Carlos Castaneda. Again? --A.D.A.
Sept. 2-5, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 9-12, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 15-18, 7:30 p.m.; $20, The National Dock #2, 119 Arch St., 90 min. Festival Plus: discussion with Whit MacLaughlin following Sept. 9 performance.

Drive-In Lost Soles

Drive-In Lost Soles !El Conquistador!

Though known for the aerodynamic dexterity of his tap routines, multilingual actor/puppeteer Thaddeus Phillips seems as well to have a knack for multimedia surround-sounded dance-performance rife with kitsch politics and politicized camp. With its time and visual shifts moving from the '30s to the present (with a drive-in theater screen between them), its enigmatic families and its mysterious CIA documents, Drive-In is like watching a JFK-obsessed Oliver Stone filming Movie Movie. Conquistador, on the other hand, is sure to have the same Walter Mitty-like feel of Movie Movie . Only this time, with the aid of Victor Mallarino (its writer as well as a Latin American telenovela personality), Phillips takes on the world of Telemundo with charged border politics and rhetoric of a personal nature. --A.D.A.
Drive-In Lost Soles, Sept. 16, 8:30 p.m.; Sept 17 and 18, 8:30 and 10 p.m.; $15, Whole Foods, 929 South St., parking garage roof, 60 min.; !El Conquistador!, Sept. 3 and 4, 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 5, 1 and 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 7, 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 9, 9 p.m.; Sept. 11 and 12, 4 and 9 p.m.; $15, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St., 60 min.

Elementals with a Suggestion

Poet/Dirty Frank's doorman Frank Sherlock sees a lot of strange stuff, and his observations fill his work. Electronic artist/DJ Alex Welsh, co-founder of the Rashomon Effect live electronic music series, absorbs sounds and then incorporates them into his own textures. Welsh has just returned from a year in Brazil, and Sherlock is presently collaborating with CA Conrad on The City Real & Imagined: Philadelphia Poem. So what happens when Sherlock and Welsh — so adept at consuming and rendering the world around them — get together to riff off each other? Big Bang or Black Hole? Are you brave enough watch it go down? --Brian Howard
Sept. 8, 7 p.m.; Sept.10, 7 p.m.; $10, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., 45 min.

Hell Meets Henry Halfway

Hell Meets Henry Halfway

Henry is the latest show from the splendid Pig Iron literary clowns. Based on a text by Witold Gombrowicz, a modern Polish novelist and playwright, this is likely to be darkly comic (or comically dark), featuring "florid diatribes and absurd cruelties, dressed in tennis whites." I could resist the absurd cruelties, likewise the florid diatribes, but in tennis whites? Never. --Toby Zinman
Sept. 7-11 and Sept. 14-17, 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 12, 3:30 p.m.; Sept. 18, 2 and 9:30 p.m.; $20, Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey St., 120 min. Festival Plus: discussion with Pig Iron members, Sept. 9, 6 p.m., third floor of Plays and Players.

How Late It Was, How Late

How Late It Was, How Late

Ample artistic energy has been put toward the examination of the lives of the Scottish working class — from the novels of Irvine Welsh to the films of Lynne Ramsay. Now, Austin, Texas-based theater troupe the Rude Mechanicals take on the sometimes-impenetrable Glaswegian dialect as written by Booker Prize-winning novelist James Kelman. His 400-page novel, How Late It Was, How Late, centers on an ex-con named Sammy who's prone to drunkenness and fist fights, and his strange pursuit by the Glasgow police on unspecified charges. The story gets the Rude Mechs treatment, complete with live video feed, physical trickery and a whole lot of humor. A disclaimer on the troupe's website warns of "adult themes and language, loud music … and lots and lots of onstage smoking." Now there's a night of good, old-fashioned entertainment. --L.H.
Sept. 3-5, 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 6, 3 p.m. (with post-show discussion); Sept. 8-10, 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 11, 4:30 and 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 12, 4:30 p.m.; $15, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., 90 min.

Incensed!

Is there really any exhausting one's Catholic upbringing for moments of hilarity? Three self-professed "lapsed Catholics" who call themselves Sound of Emotion in a Broken Mirror don't think so. It's safe to say there'll be jabs at the clergy, the congregation and all things papal — and, according to their promotional blurb, be prepared to "laugh, cry, sit, stand and kneel." And if they were really raised strict Catholics as they claim, they'll feel guilty about it all afterwards. --L.H.
Sept. 4, 10, 11 and 17, 7 p.m., Well Fed Artist Gallery, 51 N. Third St., 60 min.

Kate Rigg — Slanty Eyed Mama

Kate Rigg — Slanty Eyed Mama

"Spoken word and comedy jam" is how Kate Rigg describes her upcoming show. Aiming to deconstruct Asian stereotypes with numbers like "Me Love You Long Time" and a tribute to Mulan, Rigg and her Mama partner, Lyris Hung, along with guest modern dancer Sato, will be freestyling their own brand of street urban medley — "like Eminem and Laurie Anderson in one show but with an Asian slant," she promises. --Helen i-lin Hwang
Sept. 9, 10 p.m.; Sept. 10, 7 p.m.; Five Spot, 5 S. Bank St., 90 min.

The Ladies Room

The Ladies Room

Every year the festival roster contains some acts that just scream "Fringe!" Take this gem, a 12-minute play about love on the down low, set in a bathroom and presented to the audience in — get this — a bathroom. We're sure it will be entertaining and, best of all, if you feel nature calling during the show, you don't have to be rude and leave to use the bathroom. City Paper is now placing bets on how many drunk people will have to pee and inadvertently stumble into a performance. You've got to love the pure Fringe-ness of it all. --Debra Auspitz
Every 20 min. between the following hours: Sept. 3, 10, 16-17, 4-6:20 p.m.; Sept. 4, 11, 18, 3-5:40 p.m.; Sept. 5, 12, noon-3 p.m.; Sept. 9, 4-6:40 p.m.; $5, Amici Noi, 236 Market St., 12 min.

Limbic Pentameter

Here's one of those great, between-shows freebies that make the Fringe so much damn fun. With sculpture and sound respectively, artists Carolyn Healy and John Phillips want to create "a hyper-space arena" in which to explore ideas of memory, invention and the human brain. Whatever, anything with lots of pipes, Plexiglas and metal grids and 4-channel sound is just freakin' cool, right? --L.H.
Sept. 3-18 (Tue.-Fri., 6-10 p.m., Sat.-Sun., 2-10 p.m., closed Mondays), free, The National Dock #2, 119 Arch St.

Mounted and Framed

From the weary British paper-pushers of The Office to the software manipulators of Office Space, people can't seem to get enough of watching others make fun of what they themselves probably do every day. With these six short works, The Surface Tension Project joins the fray, with the warning that they're "sure to overcharge your ticket and then outsource the show to foreign actors." --L.H.
Sept. 3-4, 10 p.m.; Sept. 6, 4 p.m.; Sept. 10-11, 8 p.m., $10, The Print Center, 1614 Latimer St., 60 min.

No Pity in South Philly

It was one thing when all of the hipsters started playing dodgeball. The cool kids were always athletic. But the drama crowd? You were once the safe haven for us butterfingered klutzes, the welcoming beacon at the end of a dark, dark gym class. And now, with this Philly theater all-star kickball extravaganza, you have turned on us. Oh, the humanity! But, we suppose for those of you who don't have horribly scarring high school P.E. class memories, watching InterAct and 1812 folks like Dave Jadico, Pete Pryor and Seth Rozin duke it out junior-high style on the kickball field might be pretty damn amusing. As for us, we'll be at home crying into our high school drama club scrapbooks. --D.A.
Sept. 6, 6 p.m., free, Palumbo Field, between Ninth and 10th and Bainbridge and Fitzwater sts., 120 min.

Our Little Sunbeam

Our LIttle Sunbeam

With slapstick antics, stuffed owls, astronauts and multi-video presentation fused throughout their dance, Dayna Hanson and Gaelen Hanson's Seattle-based group, 33 Fainting Spells, is as much a Keystone Kop comedy as it is limber rhythmic movement theater. Based, in part, on chunks of Chekhov's forlorn Ivanov, the Spells add bolting, jolted gyrations to film clips of the glorious Mercury Program and the tunes of Waylon Jennings, while Manhattan-based rapper Linas Phillips hops along. --A.D.A.
Sept. 3 and 5, 8 p.m.; Sept. 4, 3 and 8 p.m.; $20, Haas Stage, Arden Theater Company, 40 N. Second St., 75 min. Festival Plus: discussion with Dayna Hanson and Gaelen Hanson following Sept. 3 performance.

Pagan Pride Day: Ritual Performances

The pagans are coming! Actually, according to the Delaware Valley Pagan Network, they're already here, "everywhere among us." But, if you happened to miss them, come check out some food, fun and magick, Pagan-style. It's for a good cause — the group is donating collected canned goods to the Mazzoni Center, and their rituals will center on community-building, education and activism. Plus, they spell magic with a "k"! Neat. --D.A.
Sept. 5, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., Starr Gardens Playground, Sixth and Lombard sts. Donations of canned goods will be accepted.

Philly Song Shuffle

It's a premise as practical as it is entertaining: Some 50 folkies (and anti-folkies) hustle onstage — one at a time, mind you — for four-minute sets. Doesn't matter if one act sucks; four seconds later another one will be up to give it a shot. Far from amateur hour, last year's Shuffle was an eclectic and lively assembly of established and up-and-coming artists aiming to put their best stuff out there. Show up on time — the stacks of acoustic guitars will surely limit the capacity. --Patrick Rapa
Sept. 7, 7 p.m., $10, Warmdaddy's, 4-6 S. Front St., 180 min.

Production Values

Production Values

Ten Bryn Mawr students, calling themselves The Uncut Pages (love that pun), confront the Issue of How-to-Do-Shakespeare: original practices vs. contemporized hoo-ha. Once more into the breach, dear friends. Kitchen appliances are promised — what's a Fringe show without a fridge? --T.Z.
Sept. 3, 8:30 p.m.; Sept. 4 and 11, 4 and 7 p.m.; Sept. 5, 2 p.m.; Sept. 9, 8 p.m.; Sept. 10, 16 and 17, 9 p.m.; Sept. 12, 2:30 p.m.; $5, basement of the Philadelphia Ethical Society, 1906 S. Rittenhouse Sq., 45 min.

Saint Anthony's Body

Dawn Falato is a co-founder of Hotel Obligado, a "postmodern vaudevillian variety show" that resurrects the puppetry, mime and clown skills of the European Renaissance. Its performances are outlandish, absurdist and crude, the absolute opposite of Falato's own Saint Anthony's Body. The unnerving play centers on Clare, a woman recovering from an eradicated nervous system that leaves her seeing visions of an abbot named Anthony. Masks and puppetry are still at play, but the stakes are suddenly uncomfortably high. --A.P.
Sept. 8-11, 6:30 p.m.; Sept. 12, 1 p.m. (with post-show discussion) and 6:30 p.m.; $15, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St., 55 min.

Sister Carrie: A Spectacle of Warm-Blooded Humanity

From the folks who brought you Stage Kiss and Portrait of Dora as a Young Man comes an adaptation of the once-scandalous story of a small-town woman who leaves home, taking a train to Chicago to become a star. Stolen Chair's work-in-progress combines physical theater, period music and, of course, the words of Theodore Dreiser's 1900 novel. --L.H.
Sept. 5 and 12, 6 and 7 p.m. (with post-show discussions after each performance), free, National Museum of American Jewish History, 55 N. Fifth St., 30 min.

Skewed Shakespeare

Random Acts of Theatre joins the purist vs. interpretive relevance fray by declaring "no tights, no fancy shirts, no bad dialects" but instead, real stories for the common man. Can a show be plain and skewed at the same time? Stay tuned. --T.Z.
Sept. 3 and 17, 8 p.m.; Sept. 4 and 18, 6 p.m.; Sept. 5, 1 p.m.; Sept. 12, 5 and 7 p.m.; $10, Triangle Theater, 1220 N. Lawrence St., 60 min.

Triumph of Summer

In this solo show, performance artist Jesse Wilson considers the experiences of a summer camper through three stages of emotionally charged adolescence and the boy's discovery of his own unique language. Wilson has called it "a love story," and for anyone who's ever been to summer camp, it's likely to be that and much more. Features projections of works by local artist Anthony DeMelas. --L.H.
Sept. 4, 8, 10, and 15,10 p.m.; Sept. 5, 9 p.m.; Sept. 11, 8 p.m., $10, Triangle Theater, 1220 N. Lawrence St., 60 min.

Voices of Africa Choral Ensemble

Voices of Africa Choral Ensemble

Be prepared to be part of a celebration of life when you attend a Voices of Africa show. The West Philly HQed, Afro-centric drumming and singing sextet exists to give you the African musical experience, meaning no passivity allowed. You will stand, dance, sing, clap your hands and stomp your feet. --Mary Armstrong
Sept. 3, 8 p.m., $10, National Liberty Museum, 321 Chestnut St., 120 min.

Woods/The Dead Girl

Crime shows and horror movies love dead girls in the woods. But while everyone's running around trying to figure out how the girl got dead, does anyone really care about who she is? Choreographer Sasha Welsh examines the concept of the dead girl, not as the beginning of a thrilling investigation, but as the end of a life. Working backwards in collaboration with lighting designer James Murphy, filmmaker David Neal and composer/artist Billy Dufala, Welsh looks to tell the dead girl's side of the story for once. Part of the Emerging Artists Program 2, along with works from Kristen Shahverdian, Elrey C. Belmonti and Aryani Manring. --Brian Howard
Sept. 9, 7 p.m.; Sept. 11, 2 and 7 p.m.; Sept. 12, 7 p.m.; $10, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St., 75 min., followed by post-show discussion.

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