Hip Shot: “Billy the Kid: First Exhumation”

Billy the Kid: First Exhumation
The Bodega – at The Trading Post

Remaining Performances:
July 17th, 7 pm
July 25th, 5 pm

They say: Directed by a former member of Herbert Blau’s performance group Kraiken, Redd Shifft tackles similar performance issues, including spontaneous improvisation, psycho-association, physical and vocal reflexivity, all in a highly charged, non-linear context of the body longing to know.

Llewellyn’s take: Be grateful for the Fringe Festival: these experimental theater opportunities that are few and far between in DC.  Dramatic improvisation may not be everybody’s cup of tea for sure, but I like it as a palate-cleanser from a world filled with Legally Blonde the Musicals.

So here we have Billy the Kid: A First Exhumation, a storytelling experiment that delves into the fight-or-flight mentality.  Intertwined with the stream of consciousness re-enactment of Billy’s life are modern tales of revenge and revenge fantasies. Threats punctuate dream sequences while a tense Western gunfight-strum plays in the background.  The characters are there only to mock and threaten each other—just the way Artaud might have wanted them to.
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