Archive for the ‘Reviews’ Category
Hip Shot: “She Moved Through the Fair”
She Moved Through the Fair
Warehouse – Next Door
Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 18th, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 19th, 3:45 p.m.
They Say: “The romantic life of a contemporary Irishwoman is illuminated in bittersweet, often comic tales of coming of age, illicit love affairs gone wrong, an unforgettable plan for revenge, and its surprising aftermath.”
Glen’s Take: Scheinman’s preview precis sheds a bit more light: ”One-woman show; reminiscences of a brandy-swilling Irish lass delivered in a soupy brogue.”
The one woman in question, possessed of both brandy and brogue, is one Polly MacIntyre, whose show takes the form of four brief slice-of-life monologues — each one, in this case, sliced neatly from the life of a character named Kathleen.
We first meet her as teenager as she recounts to us — in hushed, embarrassed whispers — the tale of her decidedly unromantic deflowering. A quick backstage change of hairstyle later, and a slightly older Kathleen shares with us the tale of her abortive romance with a pompous musician. Next, she finds herself thrust into the role of mistress, afloat in a romantic limbo that’s beginning to wear at her nerves, and finally we come upon a middle-aged Kathleen waiting in a Paris cafe, attempting to figure out just how she ended up there.
Hip Shot: ‘The Pirates of Penzance’
The Pirates of Penzance
The Mountain at Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church
Remaining performances:
Saturday, July 18 at 2:45 p.m.; Sunday, July 19 at 6:45 p.m.
They say: A rollicking band of pirates thwart the efforts of bumbling policemen to win over the daughters of a modern major-general. Back for their third summer at the Fringe, this group of very talented youth, directed by Pamela Leighton-Bilik, must not be missed.
Ted’s take: My, what fun.
Good clean fun, of course—no Fringe-y deconstructionism or naughty bits grafted on or any of that: just an eerily precocious flock of varying ages and heights, all of ‘em with superior stage presence and fine pipes. Also: no shortage of tricorner hats. These folks aren’t just competent, mind you—they really sell lines like “When your process of extermination begins, let our deaths be as swift and painless as you can conveniently make them.” (Even if, you know, they flub the occasional “i’faith.”)
Hip Shot: ‘Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting’
Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting
Source
Remaining Performances:
Jul 17th at 10:30 p.m.
Jul 18th at 10:30 p.m.
Jul 19th at 8 p.m.
Jul 22nd at 8 p.m.
Jul 23rd at 8 p.m.
Jul 24th at 10:30 p.m.
Jul 25th at 10:30 p.m.
Jul 26th at 6 p.m.
They say: “A scintillating spectacular, this vaudeville unleashes the feminine mystique in a whirl of petticoats and a dazzling display of strength, swords, and skin. Behold brutal buxom beauties! Take in tantalizing ta-ta titans! Look-don’t touch-the titillating, tangoing Bare Breasted Women.”
Mike says: I stayed up past my bedtime last night, pondering what Dog & Pony DC’s cabaret-cum-cotton-candied-snuff show owes Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique. The production felt like a visual and textual celebration of negative female stereotypes: The tough warrior princess vs. the over-sexed, daddy-issue-riddled damsel in distress; the “Amazing Rubber Woman” who can bounce back from (see: rationalize and forgive) countless acts of domestic violence; androgynous and uncivilized Amazons who battle for their mistress’ pleasure while hunched over and smeared with chocolate syrup; the beautiful but modestly dressed mute helpers who close the show by playing strip Tango with rapiers instead of playing cards.
Hip Shot: ‘Bad Hamlet’
Bad Hamlet
The Bodega – at The Trading Post
1013 7th St. NW
Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 17 at 10:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 19 at 4:45 p.m.
Wednesday, July 22 at 7 p.m.
They say: “Two Be Or Not Two Be! Hamlet was published twice: a 1604 bootleg ‘Bad’ edition and the familiar 1623 version. BAD HAMLET is an hour-long mashup of the two texts, where the various differences illuminate and deepen Shakespeare’s masterpiece.”
Trey’s take: OK, look: I’m a giant text geek. When it comes to straight plays — especially serious, ambitious, landmark plays — I’m almost always about the words and the ideas as much as the staging and the acting. (Sorry, Mr. Keach.) So while your mileage may vary, John Geoffrion’s … what do we call this, a collation? … struck me as a Fringe must-see from the start.
The good news is that while Bad Hamlet might have been just an interesting exercise in dramaturgy — honestly, I wondered if it would come off like a staged reading of a Word document, with Track Changes set to the “On” position — it turns out to be a pretty slick little one-hour’s traffic. (Yes, I said one hour — it’s two versions of a four-hour play, but Geoffrion has cut the crap out of it, and it moves briskly.)
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Hip Shot: ‘So Do You Love Me Yet?’
So Do You Love Me Yet?
The Bedroom @ Fort Fringe
612 L St. NW
Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 18 at 2:30 p.m.
Saturday, July 25 at 6:30 p.m.
They say: “‘I love you’ or ‘I lust you’? What’s the difference? A young black woman tries to find out. Experience the beauty and horror of love and dating in this one-woman show that features spoken-word poetry and storytelling.”
Trey’s take: There’s more beauty than horror here, and not just because writer-performer Farah Lawal is an ingratiating presence onstage. (Though she’s certainly ingratiating — lovely, with a smile that’s sunny and sly by turns, and a talker confident enough to suggest some time spent on slam-poetry stages.) And not just because the evening’s string of matte-finish performance poems (no coincidence that Lawal calls her poetry blog Pearls from Pain) offers more meditations in the mode of hopeful — of happy yearning around the topics of love and loving, couples and coupling — than it does in the key of despair.
Capital Fringe Fest 2009: Our Comprehensive Rundown
Hey Fringefolk~
We figure it can be pretty hard to keep all these shows straight. To make it easy on ya, we’ve created this page—a comprehensive rundown on all the shows we’ve covered. (We know…it’s a lot to handle.) Make sure to check back, as we’ll be updating this list every day to provide you with that stress-free, feel-good Fringe experience you’ve been dreaming about. Enjoy!
- 2 Shorts in Black and White: Count Dracula’s Cafe
- 2 shows: PLANT PSYCHIC/DISORDER
- 4.48 Psychosis
- The A Cappella Party
- A.D.
- All That Was Left of Them
- Bad Hamlet
- Bag Lady
- Bare Breasted Women Swordfighting
- Beyond Dark Corners
- Billy the Kid: First Exhumation
- Born of a Fairytale
- Cabaret Carousel
- Cabaret CooCoo
- Closet Land
- Concord, Virginia
- Cover Me in Humanness
- Dancing to Ancient Rhythms
- Deconstructing the Myth of the Booty
- The Devil’s Christmas Carol
- Diamond Dead (Continued…)
- Dorks on the Loose: Facey Facey Face Face
- Dust of Babylon
- The Elephant Man, the Musical
- The Escapades of Farty Johnson
Hip Shot: “Headscarf and the Angry Bitch”
Headscarf and the Angry Bitch by Zehra Fazal
Warehouse – Next Door
Remaining Performances:
Jul 17th at 8:30 p.m.
Jul 18th at 3:30 p.m.
They say: “Join Zed Headscarf on a tongue-in-cheek romp through faith and growing up Muslim in America. Featuring hits like ‘The Only Thing I’ll Do Five Times a Day is You’ and ‘I Lost My Virginity During Ramadan.’ This beef ain’t halal!”
Mike’s take: The future of American-Islamic relations could hinge on this one-woman show. Before Muslim folk-rocker Zed Headscarf (Zehra Fazal) got involved, America’s most memorable depictions of Islam were a.) Lil Kim sporting a hijab and not much else on the cover of One World and b.) that episode of Southpark wherein the boys travel to Afghanistan to return a mail-order goat to its starving family. (And to kill Osama bin Laden, who, in the words of Cartman, “has a small penis.”) No wonder those pious clerics up and declared America’s objectification of women and obsession with dick jokes as deserving of–dare I say it?–jihad! Zed Headscarf, infidel-licking lesbian though she be, really could change all that.
Hip Shot: “FICTITIOUS The Musical”
FICTITIOUS The Musical
The Warehouse – Mainstage
Remaining Performances: Wednesday, July 15th at 5 p.m.; Friday, July 24th at 8:00 p.m.; Saturday, July 25th at 10:30 p.m.
They Say: “This (sic) satirical musical comedy. Hugh Diffindoffer, a young immigrant from ‘Nonexzistia’ comes to America. His journey leads him to become The Number One Bodybuilder in the World, Movie Star in the World and finally, Leader of the Free World.”
Glen’s Take: They also say: “127 Minutes.” So yeah; know that.
Look, the songs by Tom Hyndman are solid, the harmonies both precise and euphonious, and the band, led by Mary Sugar, is tight. They sound great — yes, grampa, they’re loud (amplifiers + teensy space = scowls from the Olive-Garden early-bird contingent) — but they’re great.
The music itself is pleasingly catchy; it’s lyrically that the songs underperform. Many of Hynder’s most hummable tunes dispense with the verse as quickly as possible so they can head straight for the chorus and homestead there, but that’s par for the Broadway course.
Hip Shot: ‘The Lost Ones’
The Lost Ones by Samuel Beckett
Warehouse – Next Door
Remaining Performances:
July 15 at 8 p.m.
July 19 at 1:30 p.m.
July 23 at 7:15 p.m.
July 24 at 11:45 p.m.
They say: “Closely held. A Beckett gem. Rarely permitted to be played. With scores of tiny puppets, actor Carter Jahncke enacts a mesmerizing text. Beckett’s haunting vision reaches out, enfolds us in a chamber far outside, and deep within the mind.”
Brian’s take: You may want to take a cab home from The Lost Ones, an extended soliloquy so intoxicating that Carter Jahncke, who as The Aged One is the stage’s only breathing player, has to literally shake the scraggly character out of his body before he’s able to bow. Even after the self-exorcism he still seems a tad afflicted — like a shaman returning from a vision quest, or a child who has just seen his grandpa’s ghost.
Hip Shot: ‘May 39th/40th’
May 39th/40th
The Bodega at The Trading Post
Remaining performances:
Saturday, July 18 at 4 pm
Sunday, July 19 at 6:30 pm
Friday, July 24 at 11 pm
They say: “MAY 39th takes a voyeuristic ride through the morning after Sam and Louisa’s first date. In MAY 40th, Jim takes creative steps to heal Roya’s blindness. It’s 3009 AD: dating still blows chunks, and playing doctor is way more creepy.”
Aaron’s take: Okay, first of all, I’m pretty sure that description is just plain wrong. Unless I completely misinterpreted everything I saw (and there’s not much room for interpretation), Jim’s the one with the eye problems (though not blindness), and Roya’s the doctor who’s fed up with his whining. But no matter. Let’s get to the crux of it.
Every story, play, song, or artwork must on some level answer the question, “Why do we care?” And sometimes “Because it takes place in the future” just isn’t a good enough answer. That Louisa needs to kick Sam out so that she can “log on” rather than “go to work” doesn’t change the fact that we’ve heard this story a thousand times before, and it generally doesn’t interest us unless we’re the ones in bed.
