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Archive: September, 2012
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: Seek and Hide
GROUP: Dragon’s Eye Theatre
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 1 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 23
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Help! Someone has lost her imagination and she needs you to guide her on a quest to find it! In this theatrical adventure through Smith Playhouse, an intimate audience navigates the terrain alongside the actors. For children ages 5 and up and anyone who’s ever needed help finding their imagination.
WE THINK: Just seeing the Smith Memorial Playground & Playhouse, if you haven’t been to the Fairmount Park treasure before, is worth the trip. But take five-and-unders to see this show! A charming and dynamic ensemble led by Taysha Canales and directed by Suzana Berger takes the audience on a fun interactive journey through Bubble Land and across the River of Sore Stomachs (aided by The Trikings, tricycle-riding cousins of Vikings) in pursuit of a precocious red-feathered bouncy thing. Adults, put away your smart phones and join in — it’s a blast!
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: Brat Rockpile: Popsicle’s Departure, 1989 & Eternal Glamnation
GROUP: Brat Productions
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 8 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 26
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Enjoy a double feature of rock ‘n’ roll theater (buy a ticket to both and save!): Popsicle’s Departure, 1989: Madi Distefano remounts her international award winning solo tour-de-force and former Live Art Festival show about the end of the punk rock scene in Boston. Eternal Glamnation: a nuclear glam-rock fantasia spectacle cabaret about finding your true self underneath the glittery shadow. Conceived by and featuring All-Star Brat Jess Conda, this show sold out last spring as part of her Rock & Awe series. CAUTION: THESE SHOWS FEATURE SEX, DRUGS, FLESH, STROBE LIGHTS, LOUD ROCK, PROFANITY, AND ALIEN ABDUCTIONS.
WE THINK: Brat’s Rockpile is a winning double-edge flashback. The first flash comes by way of Popsicle’s Departure, Madi Distefano’s dark comedic ode to the late ‘80s Boston punk rock scene. Wearing tattered grunge duds, she gamely weaves between male and female characters with exceptional fluidity. Distefano’s incisive tall-tale text hits lots of spot-on notes as she brings the punk period to life in all its desperate drug-addled excess. The show is a welcome reprisal; Distefano presented Popsicle’s Departure in the 2004 Live Arts Festival to much acclaim, and she hasn’t lost a step in her capacity to conjure the intensity and physical nuance to make you feel for her misfit characters.
The follow-up flashback heads to the Festival bar, with Eternal Glamnation, a campy, messy primal scream for the early ’70s era of polymorphous perversity. In the true spirit of glam rock the show celebrates androgyny, spandex and the freedom to let one’s freak flag fly. The live band and cast kick butt running though a bunch of glammer tunes, and when Jess Conda belts out “You’re wonderful!” in the final refrain to her searing version of David Bowie’s “Rock ‘n’ Roll Suicide,” you gotta believe it.
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: 3 Wishes
GROUP: Walking Fish (B. Someday Productions)
GENRE: theater
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 3:30 pm
CLOSES: Sept. 23
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: The year is 1958. Haughty Cornella Jansen is as powerful as she is beautiful. Every man is intimidated by her intelligence and appearance, except Javier, the mysterious janitor. In a moment of weakness she grants him three wishes. Will he seduce her into submission with his sexual prowess?
WE THINK: This weekend’s performances of Ari Flamingo’s new comedy should have been clearly labeled as readings, not full performances (which start on Wednesday at Walking Fish). But Michelle Pauls as the uptight spawn of rigid Victorians and Sarah Braun as Voce, her repressed wild side ready to cut loose sexually with a little encouragement from mysterious janitor Javier (Matt Shell), convinced me that this tongue-in-cheek (and many other places) fable about sexual awakening will be a lot of fun on the Walking Fish stage, and more than a little hot. I’ll miss director Stan Heleva’s ribald impromptu narration from the reading, but I’d love to see the musical numbers and the steamy striptease that he described.
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: Hackles
GROUP: The Groundswell Players
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 8 pm
CLOSES: Sept. 16
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: How awkward it is to forget that Death is in the room. Then one evening, she takes your arm, walks you to the top of the stairs and shoves you. Join a new incarnation of The Groundswell Players, fresh from a year at Pig Iron’s School for Advanced Performance, as they hold Death’s feet to the fire.
WE THINK: I remember the “wow” of seeing Pig Iron’s first show at Swarthmore College years ago, and felt it again at Hackles, produced by their students. This improvisationally developed piece follows teenage misfit Cynthia (Martha Stuckey) as she copes with dating goony Greg (Scott Sheppard) and caring for her paranoid blind dad (Nick Gillette). Everything changes when she witnesses death, and sees a beautiful lady (Alice Yorke) seemingly taking away souls. Could she be her late mother? Cynthia takes a magical journey to the other side. Beautifully staged by Mason Rosenthal with humor and grace in an ethereal all-white room.
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: Real Housewives of South Philly Play Match Game!
GROUP: The Waitstaff
GENRE: Comedy Game Show
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 7:30 p.m., L’Etage Caberet
CLOSES: Sun., Sept. 23.
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Everybody’s favorite Real Housewives of South Philly return to put their very special spin on the most hilarious game show of the 70s! Join host Gene Rayburn, Jesus H. Christ, the Duchess, and special celebrity guests! Be a contestant, and play for fabulous prizes! Get ready to Match the Stars!
WE THINK: As a contestant on this ersatz Match Game, my mind went completely blank when I was asked what Duchess, the Real Housewife of South Philly uses instead of a traffic cone to hold her parking space. (Thankfully a kind woman in the audience clued me in). So I got to kiss “matches” Brett Somers and Duchess. Charles Nelson Reilly changed his answer to get a hug from me, but the point was disqualified. So I called on Duchess not Charles for the Super Match, and won Mike Douglas’s “The Men in My Little Girl’s Life.”)
The Match Game cast was as hilarious as the prize. Rayburn was very quick-witted, and Somers’ brilliant malapropism about drawing a blank had me in stitches. And the outsized personality, Duchess, was particularly inspired. Give The Waitstaff big tips for including Jesus and a raunchy, kilted Sean Connery as panelists.
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: Awesome Alliteration: The Magical Musical
GROUP: BetaMale Productions
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 8 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 30
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: When his girlfriend chokes on a verbose love letter and dies, Mayor Miller feels he has only one choice: ban all literary devices from the school system. Ten years after his "No Style Left Behind" plan begins, a Teaching America member enters the town and resolves to bring literary style back.
WE THINK: In Media Res, (that's the name of the town mind you, but should also serve as a pretty clear indication of the sort of whimsy being cooked up here), everything is taken literally and only the audience is in on the joke. Well, the audience, first-day-on-the-job Gary, and a janitor who may or may not be JD Salinger.
It arguably misses the point to try and suss out how or why each of these jokes work, so we won't do that. This is a breezy, fun-loving production, with some very big laughs in the first act. One of the hazards with satire is that eventually reason has to enter the picture and tie things up, and while that happens, energy levels remain high. Also, these songs are damn catchy.
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: Napoleon Princess Groupie Newspaper
GROUP: Amy Frear and Chelsea Sanz
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 12:30 p.m.
CLOSES: Mon., Sept. 10
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Join a groupie backstage at a rock show, a newspaper blowing in the wind, a dental hygienist from Tacoma, and Napoleon Bonaparte as they explore what it means to be a young woman in 2012. A new play about getting lost and going electric.
WE THINK: Four talented, adorable young actresses play the titular roles in Napoleon Princess Groupie Newspaper, three monologues and one dialogue depicting Modern Woman in all her contradictions: tough, vulnerable, scheming, resourceful, paranoid, self-absorbed, self-destructive and self-effacing. Playwright Amy Frear’s oh-so-French Napoleon in exile is ’ungry and angry. Jessie Bennett’s Princess has a fabulous dress and a major dilemma. Amanda Kearns’ Groupie is a cross between Scheherazade and Pamela Des Barres — only with a thing for Bluebeard instead of Frank Zappa. And Merci Lyons-Cox’s perky Newspaper has a random encounter with a gruff Old Shoe. (Despite being omitted from the title and the cast photo, Harry Slack brings a boyish charm to the role.) With no plot and barely any connective tissue, the show doesn’t add up to much. But this being Fringe rather than math, there are less pleasant ways to spend five bucks and 50 minutes.
—M.J. Fine
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 Grand Continental
GROUP: Sylvain Émard Danse
GENRE: Dance
ATTENDED: Mon., Sept. 8, 4 p.m.
CLOSES: Sun., Sept. 9, 4 p.m.
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Le Grand Continental is a festive — and FREE — 30-minute outdoor adventure that has assembled nearly 200 local dancers of all ages and backgrounds to show off the talent, charisma, and personality of Philadelphians. First created for Montréal’s renowned Festival TransAmériques, the Philadelphia version promises to be one of the largest presentations of its kind in the world.
WE THINK: Hundreds of amateur dancers taking a crash course in modern dance and making their debut at the foot of the Art Museum? This thing coulda been a disaster. Instead, it was a blast. Just row upon row of high energy dancers in street clothes giving their all. The dancers’ enthusiasm made up for the occasional misstep, their smiles beat back the clouds and their glee was infectious. Le Grand Continental has one show left. Don't miss it.
—Patrick Rapa
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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: The Consul
GROUP: The Philadelphia Opera Collective
GENRE: Opera
ATTENDED: Fri., Sept. 7, 8 p.m.
CLOSES: Fri., Sept. 14
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: While trapped in a stifling, dusty waiting room surrounded by strangers, a young woman discovers that everything she is and everything she loves boils down to a single piece of paper. When the whole world closes in around her, will one piece of paper be enough protection?
WE THINK: The trope of the "mad scene," in which a (nearly always) female character expresses losing her mind with a flood of showy coloratura, was highly overused during a certain period of opera. It was basically a go-to excuse to let a diva show off her pipes and for the composer to break musical rules. (Think Ophelia in Hamlet.) A lot of operas foster the sterotype that the whole art form is uniformly big and bombastic, where every single person who goes crazy does so suddenly in a big theatrical way rather than just quietly sobbing in a corner. The grand postures, epic plotlines and bellowed vocals of opera's pre-modern eras were designed to be seen and heard from the back of a large concert hall rather than close up, so you can excuse them for lacking some subtlety.
But The Consul, an English-language opera that won the 1950 Pulitzer Prize for music, is a lovely little example of the possibilities of the small scale. In tiny Jolie Laide Gallery, the audience in the front row (particularly on the left side) is literally within inches of the performers (close enough to feel a breeze as actors go by) and the acting is... actually acting, which is wonderful in an art form where productions can sometimes dedicate all their efforts to the music. The young cast sounded uniformly great; they had clearly thought about how to make the space feel intimate rather than cramped, and how to handle selling it to the back row when the back row is only a couple yards away. The Consul follows the wife of a political dissident, who in the first act has to go on the run from the secret police of their unnamed, East Germany-ish country. Nearly the entire second half is set in a surreal bureaucratic purgatory as Magda attempts to get visas for herself, her husband, his mother and their baby to cross the border in a maddening battle of paperwork with the secretary at the consulate. The story gets heavy into some brutal, emotional stuff — no rose-colored glasses here on the standard outcome of opposing a totalitarian state, and I cried twice, which doesn't happen all that much. You get the feeling that you're watching how madness should be done: Not as a bravura four-minute aria, but agonizingly drawn out over an entire opera.
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: The Grimacchio Variety Hour
GROUP: Philly Improv Theater
GENRE: Comedy
ATTENDED: Fri., Sept. 7, 9 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 11, 9 p.m.
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Comedy act Grimacchio (Jason Grimley and Ralph Andracchio) pay tribute to classic shows like Colgate Comedy Hour and The Carol Burnett Show, hosting an hour filled with big band songs — with a live band on stage! — dance interludes, sketch comedy, plus a special guest star or two.
WE THINK: The Grimacchio Brothers and the extended PHIT family managed to recreate not just the scatterbrained fun and feel of an old-school variety show, but the tension, as well. Just like on live television, there’s nowhere to hide. All punches must be rolled with, all errors must be laughed off. The Grimacchios, our all-singing/joking/acting/schticking host duo, handled it swimmingly, enjoying the tension with good humor and grace. And there were a lot of balls to juggle, besides their own songs, bits and improvised banter: a swinging, horn-filled houseband; the dancing interludes, (hilarious) stand-up comedian La Tice; and some wild sketches by comedy group Secret Pants. (“Elf Law & Elf Order” was insane and note-perfect.) Every night of The Grimacchio Variety Hour is different, and we’re close enough to see the sweat on our hosts’ brows, but they proven they can make it across the tightrope. Really good show.
—Patrick Rapa
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