In the 13 varied vignettes that wry writer Michael Merino has alertly assembled and ferried to Fringe after it’s appearance at Page-to-Stage, the uses, misuses, abuses, disabuses, ruses, muses, tenses and tensions of language and its rocky on-again off-again relationship with the truth are explored and exploded for our entertainment and edification.
An original glam rocker from the early 70′s, Hamell has not lost his edge or yuppie-ized whatsoever. He looks and dresses like a snazzy jazz man, or a Beatnik, or your cool uncle who can drop references to the Lovin’ Spoonful as quickly as to Wilco. He plays one heckuva mean amped-to-11 beat-up ’37 Gibson acoustic punkabilly guitar and sings and talks in an unexpectedly high-pitched, fluid voice which somehow makes him seem much more honest than if he sported the gravelly thirty-years-of-booze voice you expect.
The plot is essentially all there in the blurb—a lovely young wife, despite the advice of her father, marries an artist, and then withers and dies as he attepts to capture her beauty on canvas. This is a classic Poe story in the beautiful-women and disturbed-men vein (it would be misogynistic if it were written by anyone but Poe). The point is, like most operas, not the revelation of plot, but rather the indulgence in the passions involved, and in Gregg Martin’s chamber opera version, those passions come across, for the most part, beautifully.
The magic of the play lies in watching the pair get tied up in philosophical knots, in seeing a couple of ‘little people’ like ourselves try and make some sense out of the empty gaps of time between fateful encounters; instead, this production comes off like Stoppard’s greatest hits (and not even all of them—no “We’re actors; we’re the opposite of people!”) sans the connective tissue of gloriously, methodically mounting tension. The pacing becomes more natural in the well-staged final act (on the boat to England), but even then, a most important death scene is rushed.
The Elephant Man – the Musical
The Baldacchino at Fort Fringe
Remaining performances:
Saturday, July 18 at 4:00p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 8:30p.m.
They say: “The Elephant Man sings and dances his way to Broadway in this hysterical parody of, and love song to, the American Musical. And why not? After all, everybody wants their life to be a musical!”
Brett’s [...]
Soup!
The Shop at Fort Fringe
Remaining performances:
July 16 at 8:45p.m.
July 18 at 7:30p.m.
July 19 at 2:30p.m.
July 24 at 7:30p.m.
They say: “Come taste Soup! SF’s Trio arrives to DC with a tasty blend of swine flu, trans-fats, and a dash of downward dog. This original concoction of dark comic shorts is guaranteed to induce abdomen-strengthening belly laughs. [...]
Leave a Tone After the Message!!!
The Trading Post – The Apothecary
Remaining Performances:
July 12 at 2:00p.m.
They say: Check your mirrors. Where’s True North? Five journeys to find the secret. You can’t get there from here. Who has the key? Where’s the lock-box? Talismans everywhere leading us forward and astray simultaneously.
Brett’s take: “My friend often asks me, [...]
From some nameless or unknown author, we might dismiss this play as pretentious. But Kane’s backstory does more than give the show credibility; it makes it definitive. Sitting in the sweltering, cramped new Fringe space called the Bodega (rarely has seeing theater in such a dilapidated chamber been more appropriate), we think, this is the final word on the subject of terminal depression.
In which your trusty Fringe bloggers disclose sundrie facts — some of which may prove revealing — about their sensibilities. And their sordid pasts. In this installment: overachiever Brett Abelman.
The 70% Club
Social Hall, Trinity University, 125 Michigan Avenue NE
(Note: The performance changed rooms within the Main Hall at Trinity; they have signs to direct you.)
Remaining Performance:
Saturday, July 26 @ 7:30 PM
They say: “Can a woman find lasting love these days — especially a black woman? Can two people stay together “’til death do us [...]
