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Arts
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: HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical
GROUP: eXposed Theatre Company
GENRE: Musical Theater
ATTENDED: Mon., Sept. 10, 7 p.m.
CLOSES: Sat., Sept. 16
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: eXposed brings you the classic American tribal love-rock musical, HAIR
, in an eXciting new production that pushes the boundaries of the
audience and actor relationship while eXposing the still present results
of war and back-door politics. Join the tribe this fringe and let the
sunshine in!
WE THINK: HAIR: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical relives a time of bandanas, tapestries, incense, and peppermints (just to pay tribute to the classic Summer of Love anthem by The Strawberry Alarm Clock). Complete with a live band jamming to a psychedelic soundtrack of protest and pot smoking, tripping and transcendental meditation, this musical turns on, tunes in, and drops out to the vibes of our nation’s most far-out generation — the hippies of the late 1960’s.
The story revolves around the lives of a group of hairy and high youths partaking in the counter-cultural, sexual revolution that defined their time. While most of the group buys into their drugged out and draft dodging lifestyles, one member comes to terms with reality (through an acid trip, ironically enough) and realizes he must leave the holy orgy to buckle his boot straps and ship off to ‘Nam to fight for his country. What ensues is a story emblematic of a generation who tried to let the sunshine in during one of America’s darkest hours. The cast completely obliterates the fourth wall, interacting with the audience on a magic carpet ride to 1968 that will leave you with a strong urge to clap along and put flowers in your hair.
—Max Pulcini
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: Iminami
GROUP: PuppeTyranny
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Mon., Sept. 10, 8 p.m.
CLOSES: Fri., Sept. 21
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: As a devastating iminami plunges Earth into chaos, the last vestiges of scientific reason flee to the moon Enceladus in a post-apocalyptic drama of two worlds. The creators of the “transcendently bizarre” Water Bears in Space bring you a new sci-fi epic replete with puppets, aerialists, and a live score.
WE THINK: Iminami is the Japanese word for mega tsunami, the cataclysmic event that kicks off this wonderfully weird production about post-apocalyptic Earth-dweller Rene Junot (Kate Black-Regan) and her moon-based confidant Interplanet Janet (Mary Wood). The aerial acrobatics, video scenes, and elaborate puppets enhance the strangeness of this already spectacular tale, the third from Philly Fringe vet C.W. Kennedy, who made cosmic waves at last year’s fest with Water Bears in Space.
Rene and Janet’s desperate desire to exchange situations keeps Iminami from becoming too silly of an affair though. Credit goes to Black-Regan and Wood for performances that give an otherwise absurd play about derangement, drugs, and domination some heart — or as attendees soon discover after a remarkable chain of events — meat.
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: Jawbone Junction
GROUP: The Twisted Tail
GENRE: Music
ATTENDED: Sun., Sept. 12, 10 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 23
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Legends of the Arkansas Delta pool halls and juke joints, Junction rocks Philly for the first time in a three-night stand at The Twisted Tail. Their brand of pure Southern rock-’n’-roll is the perfect way to end a night at the Festival with some booze and cheap thrills. Try not to lose your panties.
WE THINK: It’s easy to poke fun at Southern rockers, and really, Southerners in general. Their dress, the way they talk and their mannerisms come off as goofy to us up here. But the whole “Southerner” thing can really miss the mark if it isn’t hammed up enough. Let’s see some spittoon-hackin,’ bourbon-sippin’ drawled storytelling if you’re going to act like one. When Jawbone Junction took the stage they knew enough to hit some Southern classics from Marshall Tucker Band and ZZ Top, but they didn’t quite hit the cow’s ass with the iron. Sure, the story about a lead guitarist dying after getting food poisoning from a pulled-pork sandwich was great. But the rest of Jawbone’s residency better have more backstory for the band because a couple quips between songs just didn’t take us far enough down home.
—Brian Wilensky
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: Ghost Sonata
GROUP: Homunculus, Inc.
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sun., Sept. 9, 2 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 16
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A vampiric cook. A mummy in a closet. The ghost of a wet-nurse. An elderly enigma set on revenge. And a messianic student who stumbles into the collapsing web of cruelty, greed, and lies uniting these characters. Join the struggle for salvation in this eccentric and immersive adaption of Strindberg.
WE THINK: The dissonance between the grim Ghost Sonata and the spectacular late-summer weather may have been too much to overcome. The cast bears no fault for alienating the audience; Hugh Trimble, in particular, is riveting as the extraordinarily sinister Old Man. As The Student, Patrick Scheid earns our empathy, which should make it all the more jolting when we learn the depth of the horrors visited upon him and the secret society he longs to join.
But maybe the company set its expectations of the audience too high for its “immersive” adaptation of August Strindberg’s 1908 chamber play. We could believe, with little trouble, that the creepy residents of a cursed condo complex belonged in the darkness of PhilaMOCA, but though the room had been staged to erase the physical boundaries between cast and crowd, we 21st-century dwellers were feeling way too good to fully settle into the space, and too eager to flee back into the sunny afternoon the second the house lights came up.
—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: modern dance explained
GROUP: Rebekah Rickards
GENRE: Dance
ATTENDED: Sun., Sept. 9, 3 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 9
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: A revelation of codependence between weakness and stereotypes, modern dance explained candidly details the distance we are willing to travel for acceptance, the hilarious hoops we jump through to be taken seriously, and the languages we contrive to be understood.
WE THINK: One of the benefits of the Fringe Festival is that it offers opportunities to catch emerging artists who are just beginning to stretch their wings as professionals. These shows may be rough around the edges and display the youthfulness of their creators, and that’s part of the enjoyment. That was the deal with Rebekah Rickards modern dance explained, a comedic dance theater performance that made good-natured fun of the pretentions and anxieties that inhabit the world of contemporary dance.
Playing the role of a wannabe posh choreographer, Rickards concocted absurd dances and prattled on with preposterous platitudes as she attempted to teach a motley crew the language of dance using Pictionary and other unorthodox methods. It was witty and knowing, and while the show ran too long and a bit too loosey goosey, the performance presented Rickards, and co-choreographer/dancer Ronald Parker (in the outlandish role of Angry Black Man), as fresh artists worth keeping your eye on.
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: Stop Kiss
GROUP: Kristin Heckler
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sun., Sept. 9, 2 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 14
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Two young women fall unexpectedly in love. On the night of their first, tentative kiss, they are brutally attacked. With scenes alternating before and after the assault, this beautiful piece will make you laugh, cry, sigh, and cheer, while examining if progress has been made since its 1998 debut.
WE THINK: Diana Son's understated, powerful drama benefits from a smart production emphasizing the intriguing romance between Callie (Colleen Hughes) and Sara (Erin Carr), neither whom identify as gay, resisting and denying their feelings for one another. Neither Son or director Kristin Heckler make Stop Kiss an Issue Play, so we process both their awful attack and their new social identities on a very personal level. Sara's ex (Matt Tallman) Callie's friend with benefits (William Toussaint), a police detective (John Jerbasi), and other bystanders (Megan Ede) define the transformations that take the women by surprise and change their lives.
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: Comedy Sportz presents Tongue & Groove
GROUP: Tongue & Groove Spontaneous Theater
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sun., Sept. 9, 7 pm
CLOSES: Sept. 19
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: Inspired by personal information given anonymously by the audience, T&G instantly creates a dynamic collage of scenes and monologues. ". . . acted with soul-baring sincerity, intelligence and humor. GO SEE THIS!" (City Paper) "T&G will explode your expectations of what improvisation can be!" (Phawker.com)
WE THINK: Tongue & Groove amazing development continues with WHO, in which skilled improvisers use audience answers to "Who are you?" to instantly create genuine characters in a collage of intriguing scenarios, all focused on identity: how do we define ourselves, especially when — like on line, or in speed dating — we dictate the definition? Describing all that happened Sunday is irrelevant because each show is completely different, but one moment was particularly revealing: two performers took cards from the basket of audience responses; one read "I am a dreamer," the other said, "I am a dreammaker." Stunned and laughing, these skilled actors stopped their scene there, knowing nothing they could do would top this spontaneous synchronicity. That's one of many things I love about T&G: their hour-long shows are never indulgent, because they make smart choices and know when to move forward. See this show: I guarantee, you've never experienced anything like Tongue & Groove.
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: Some Other Mettle
GROUP: Applied Mechanics
GENRE: Theater
ATTENDED: Sun., Sept. 9, 10 p.m.
CLOSES: Sept. 18
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: From the company who brought you Overseers and Vainglorious, a new work that sends its stout-hearted underdogs into battle to vanquish their fears and discover mysterious truths. The physical world transforms around the audience as they witness acts of bravery small and large.
WE THINK: The program bill for Some Other Mettle mentions that some text by poet Wallace Stevens is used during the performance. It doesn't say which piece exactly, but it seems as if its Stevens' idea that people are "constantly putting together parts of the world to make it seem coherent"" that's cultivated for inspiration. According to Stevens, reality is an activity and at best people have "a piecemeal understanding" of it. It's not so much a fear of the unknown that's on display here, but rather it's this idea that no matter how ballsy or timid an individual is that fear is ever-present and it falls squarely on said individual to navigate their way out.
The performance opens at the dawn of time with a brief introduction detailing the impending sea change about to take place, and then lightning strikes and the actors scurry, stumble and crawl to various pockets of the Jolie Laide space. The characters explore the dark corners in an attempt to assess their new surroundings, and despite the primitive grunts and cries it's clear that these people merely want to be able to explain to themselves what's happening and understand why exactly it's happening.
For the uninitiated, a show by the Applied Mechanics collective cannot be contained in merely one room. It takes place in multiple spaces at the same time, and as an attendee you're encouraged to move around and make the most of it for yourself. When the action got underway, the majority of the audience froze in place which made navigating the recesses mildly difficult. Based on my position in the crowd, the character Sy was the most visible. Everyone is dealing with some aspect of fear, and with Sy it appears that his fear is rooted in what he is capable of. It's as if he's capable of truly great things, and that idea of potential is what causes him to freak out. This is a very participatory show in the sense that there are five rooms and five performers and absolutely zero breaks. Unfortunately, I can't say much about Usco's plight and I only have a foggy notion as to what was up with Tesam and Fallow, but this is positively an event that should be experienced before it's too late.
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: 27
GROUP: New Paradise Laboratory
GENRE: Theater/Movement
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 4 p.m.
CLOSES: Sun., Sept 16
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: It’s dusk in a country with an invisible flag. The inhabitants party hard, celebrating their way too-early deaths. They are the champions of inconsistency. They are the zombie fuck-ups. They are 27. Welcome to the afterlife. Where the laws of the universe are ignored. Where life is brilliant. Where victory means self-destruction in the most pleasurable way possible. And defeat means fading from view. New Paradise Laboratories returns to its roots in this muscular live performance. 27 examines maturity as a kind of tribulation, a labor against the laws of the universe that endures into death. All of it accompanied by the best music in the solar system.
WE THINK: Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse — the rocking members of the dead-at-age-27-club — host a barbecue in a rundown basement with tacky lighting, bad paneling and plenty smoke machine fog. There they writhe, bump, twitch grind and mumble their songs in a wifty whisper until they are joined by a girl who ran her car off the road and keeps losing her underwear during this lousy party. This dark movement comedy isn’t the most pointed or unique of magical director/conceptualist Whit MacLaughlin’s famed works within the storied Live Arts/Fringe Fest continuum but it’s noisily uncomfortable fun.
SHOW: Red Eye to Havre de Grace
GROUP: Lucidity Suitcase Intercontinental + Wilhelm Bros. & Co.
GENRE: Theater/Musical
ATTENDED: Sat., Sept. 8, 2 p.m.
CLOSES: Sun., Sept. 16
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: On September 27, 1849, Edgar Allan Poe set out on a lecture tour from Virginia to New York. Days later a train conductor saw Poe in Havre de Grace, Maryland, wearing a stranger’s clothing and heading south to Baltimore where he died on October 7. Innovative stage director Thaddeus Phillips teams up with the Minneapolis-based musical duo Wilhelm Bros. & Co. to create an action-opera that follows the odd details surrounding Poe’s mysterious last days. Informed by 19th century train routes, historical accounts, and Poe’s letters to his mother-in-law Muddy, Red-Eye To Havre De Grace comments on the nature of being an artist in America and casts Poe in a new light by exploring his writings on the gold rush, fools, furniture, and the universe.
WE THINK: The final days of Edgar Allen Poe — drunk, druggy, paranoid, haunted by the memory of his young dead wife — is boldly re-imagined with director Thaddeus Phillips and the musician/composer/performing Wilhelm Bros at the helm. Its script utilizes Poe’s twilight poetry, letters to his mother-in-law Muddy, and the recollections of those who witnessed Poe during his lost last lecture tour. The reed-thin Ean Sheeny is ravished and ravishing as the dazed Poe, an actor whose wired stillness provides stability for dancer/actor Sophie Bortolussi to mold herself around. But the star is Phillips’ simple staging, bold lighting, shadow play and the manner in which his production literally courses the darkness of Poe’s tortured psyche.
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