Lila: The Love Story of Radha and Krishna

Remaining performances:
Jul 25th 4:15 pm

They say: Attraction, flirtation, jealousy, passion. Follow the human Radha and the god Krishna as they bask in the joy and burn in the heat of their love. The emotional quality of their story is captured beautifully through Odissi Indian classical dance.

Llewellyn’s take: It was pouring rain outside the Apothecary.  People shuffled in, soaked from head to toe, sopping wet playbills in hand.  A veritable waterfall cascaded from the ceiling in the back of the house.  The stage manager quipped that they were just trying to set the ambiance by making it more monsoon-like.  She may have been joking, but the drenched, humid conditions were perfect for what was a beautiful, intricate, and all-around amazing performance.  I can’t imagine a better way to wait out a monsoon then to watch the graceful interplay of these gorgeous women; the slow, delicate contortions alternating with the staccato raga stepwork.  Shalini Goel Agarwal’s flirtatious, mesmerizing gaze itself is reason enough to see this show.   The captivating beauty in their dress and expressive personalities had me wishing for an even plusher production—what if there were more dancers, more tapestries, real waterfalls, and a live tabla-sitar orchestra?

Some may be scared off by the prospect of classical, interpretive Indian dance.  American interpretive dance can be confusing enough by itself.  Maybe you think that the cultural barrier could only serve to alienate the audience; instead, the infectious pageantry won’t fail to enchant.  I’m not sure I completely understood the meaning even when outlined by the narrator (I think the plot was something akin to Shaggy’s “It Wasn’t Me”), but it didn’t really matter.  You know that it’s a dance of jealousy and passion: Radha complains to Vishnu, Vishnu appeals to Radha, they embrace, they fight, they get back together, and it repeats.  Somewhere in there, a flute gets played.  Sure, you might miss some details in this love battle of the gods while transfixed by the polyrhythmic undulations of the dance.  There are shows swimming in meaning and importance, but this one is swimming in beauty and technical skill.

See it if: You like nice things.

Skip it if: You still can’t forgive Vishnu for how he treated Shiva.

Not without its highlights, though, and certainly replete with the requisite Fringe-isms. Fake breasts? Check. Um, more fake breasts? Double-check. Duplicitous robots from space? Indeed. Desultory allusions to Beckett, Wilde, Shakespeare, et al. wielded with the weight of a French tickler? Duh.

Below the jump, a telegraphic rundown on last night’s 23 previews.

Deep breath!~ Here we go:

• Let’s Sing Gospel 101!, in which the magnanimous Rosita Mathews induces her mainly white audience to shout, stomp, clap, and otherwise make a joyful noise.
• Uncorseted, a gender-bender purportedly relating to the 1893 World’s Fair. Lots of gents wearing wigs & padded bras, prancing about and “dueling” with plastic swords. Expect as much phallic wordplay as phallic swordplay.
• Headscarf and the Angry Bitch: A woman, a hijab, a guitar, and an innocuously irreverent song cycle about “growing up Muslim in America.” The humor seems to revolve around Pakistan, Facebook, and goats.
• Captain Squishy’s Yee Haw Jamboree (the musical): The gentlefolk behind last year’s smash I Like Nuts! (the musical) return to Fringe with a tale about a Country & Western variety show and the WWI German agent who infiltrates it to spread sedition and funny accents.
• Lila: The Love Story of Radha and Krishna: Entrancingly programmatic classical Indian dance.
• Missing Pages: A daughter uncovers her father’s war diary and past as a WWII spy. Vietnam, Iraq parallels.
• Krapp’s Last Powerpoint: Promising title; no apparent relation to its Beckett namesake. (Unless you count the whole one-man-alone-with-audience-and-memory thing.) Also, faith-healing seems to be involved.
• Riding the Bull: Something about a rodeo clown, Godsburg, TX, and a handful of giggle-worthy pop culture references. Also, original banjo tunes from “New York City’s Angriest Yodeling Banjo Player.”
• She Moved Through the Fair: One-woman show; reminiscences of a brandy-swilling Irish lass delivered in a soupy brogue.
• Irish Authors Held Hostage: Another black comedy from Martin McDonagh? Nope—just a historical mash-up, in which the usual cast of Irish men o’ letters (Wilde, Yeats, Joyce, &c.) get kidnapped by terrorists “of every stripe.” Last night’s short—Oscar Wilde taken captive by Al Qaeda—had the audience (rightfully) in stitches.
• Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead, in which Nu Sass Productions cuts Stoppard’s fringe darling down to an 85-minute, all-women adaptation. Ambitious—and, if the preview’s any indicator, ripe for chaos.
• SOUP!, an all-in-the-timing series of comedy shorts. Wednesday’s excerpt—a dysfunctional husband-wife cooking show—split some serious sides.
• MAY 39TH/40TH, a tale from the future (the yr. 3009, to be precise), in which the more things change (lots of clones) the more things stay the same (dating “still blows chunks”).
• Please Listen: A Musical Chaos: This year’s rock & roll spectacle. Two musicians kidnap a record exec and assault his ears with their opus—a concept album about duplicitous robots from space.

OK, at this point in last night’s proceedings there was a mandatory beer break. Given the feat-of-endurance nature of this post, I’d recommend the same thing here.

Back? Good.

• Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting: Wait, didn’t we just hear about this? Ah…this one involves actual women, who dance, wrestle, and—yes—duel, all in the name of “vaudeville.” Also, if we’re to believe the hype, there’s actual toplessness. If, y’know, you’re into that sort of thing.
• My Fabulous Sex Life: Confessions of a gay man’s sexual awakening in D.C. Funny; brash; almost inconceivably explicit.
• Slow News Day: Able, audience-participatory improvisation about TV news. If you delight in such things, this one is a no-brainer.
• Herbie: Poet of the Wild West: A totally irreverent take on Hamlet that involves eye-patches and six-shooters. Also, since it’s Fringe, a token lesbian cowgirl.
• The Escapades of Farty Johnson: OK, I’m gonna go out on a limb here. This was the most thrilling four minutes of the entire program. I have no idea whether there’s a plot (if there is, it seems to revolve around a delusional woman auditioning for an unsympathetic director). Farty (or, as she called herself onstage, “Toots…because girls don’t fart”) apparently specializes in an offbeat quadrille that somehow communicates deep sadness while keeping the audience in stitches. Can it sustain over the full 45 minutes? Who knows. But if Patricia Krauss wasn’t the most gifted physical comedian in the room last night, that’s only because David Gaines was sitting in the back.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: A Collection of One-Acts: Asks the question, “Can’t murder be innocent?” Looks for answers in ways Dostoevskyan (”Dude, let’s kill a homeless guy!”) and otherwise.
• The Real Adventures of Tom Mix: Based on the “real-life” adventures of the early-Western film star, this seems to boil down to a lot of monologues delivered from under the brim of a major-league Stetson.
• Jack, The Ticket Ripper: Slasher-farce about an overenthusiastic usher who goes all Titus Andronicus on playwrights, bartenders, and pretty much everyone else.
• Pepe! The Mail Order Monkey Musical: Two understimulated brothers order a mail-order monkey, throwing a wrench into the machinations of their social-climbin’ mother.

But what did you think? Let us know in the comments.

Selah.