FRINGE REVIEW: Le Mirage/Dead City Philly

The love triangle is just about the oldest plotline there is, so how do you make it fresh again?

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FRINGE REVIEW: Le Mirage/Dead City Philly

POSTED: Wednesday, September 12, 2012, 12:45 PM

Every year, there's hundreds and hundreds of performances at the Philly Fringe and Live Arts Festival, and unless it's one of the big shows, it's sometimes hard to tell what you're going to get. Here at Critical Mass we're sending writers to as many shows as we possibly can for 75 pocket-sized reviews over the course of the fest. Check back in with us at On The Fringe every day for real talk on what these things actually are!

SHOW: Le Mirage/Dead City Philly

GROUP: DysFUNctional Theater

GENRE: Rock opera

ATTENDED: Mon., Sept. 10, 8 p.m.

CLOSES: Tue., Sept. 11

BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Jenny is alive. Claudine is a ghost. They're lookalikes who want the same man. Who will win his love? Based on Georges Rodenbach's 1892 novella, Bruges la Morte. Re-imagined as a rock opera. Set in Philly. Debuted at Fringe 2011. Includes new songs, added scenes. Back by popular demand.

WE THINK: The love triangle is just about the oldest plotline there is, so how do you make it fresh again? Well, making the spurned woman a ghost whom her ex is obsessed with bringing back to life is one way to go. This is director/writer/bandleader Janet Bressler’s supposedly partly “autobiographical tale,” told through the music of Sylvia Platypus, a rock band that here functions as character, narrator and Greek chorus. And the music is worth a listen: 14 catchy, original songs featuring Bressler’s high-energy performance and Etta James-low vocals, an impressive variety of bagpipes played by Charlie Rutan and guitar from prog-rock veteran Bill Barone. The ballad “Claudine 2,” especially, and “If It Don’t Kill Me First,” co-written by Bressler and the prolific Scot Sax, will stick in your head for hours. The other highlight is Lesley Berkowitz, performing a profoundly creepy modern-dance interpretation of Claudine’s ghost, lurching across the stage and slithering onto the floor. Now, the downside: The clunky acted scenes between the songs, which sometimes felt like half-assed interstitials and other times dragged on way longer than the relatively straightforward plotline required. Also, the constant slideshow of photos and video projected behind the performers, though it occasionally helped to advance the story, more often had the feel of either a karaoke backing video or someone’s wedding PowerPoint. Still, it’s easy to see why Dead City was revived and expanded for a second year at Fringe; if they bring it back next year, we hope they’ll lose the slideshow, keep the necrophilia.

—Samantha Melamed

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Featuring everything from event roundups to concert reviews and sex talk, City Paper's Critical Mass is a space for off-the-wall coverage of Philly's A&E scene.

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