Posts Tagged ‘Redrum’
Hip Shot: ‘Lipstick Handgun’
Lipstick Handgun
Redrum at Fort Fringe
Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 24 @
5:45 p.m.
Saturday, July 25 @ 11:45 p.m.
They say: “This is play is scar from my head through my heart to my crotch. It’s a Greek chorus wrapped inside a romantic tragedy. There is also some moments of comedy and a compulsion to move via dance yoga and/or tai chi contained within it. A tornado in the rodeo of love and obsession. With meditations on the power of positive thinking. A shogun mystery choreopoem. Unraveling samskaric imprints.” [Note: I typed exactly what was in the Fringe Guide. Exactly.]
Hilary’s take: “I don’t get it,” says K, as D and M (or maybe it was T?) pantomime their pants off, clawing at their waistlines and collars. “I don’t get it!”
That’s exactly how I felt the entire 45 minutes of Stephen Forrest Notes’ “tornado in the rodeo of love and obsession.” I weathered the storm but walked out of Fort Fringe unamazed and confused. I think the gist of the play is this: Boy meets local “it” girl and becomes obsessed with her powerful sexual energy. But this woman is not powerful at all; she is vulnerable, needy even. But she doesn’t need him. Each is searching for a fulfilment the other is painfully ill-equipped to provide.
Hip Shot: ‘This Is NOT My Life”
This Is NOT My Life
Redrum
Remaining Performances:
Wednesday, July 22, 2009 @ 9:15 pm
Saturday, July 25, 2009 @ 11:30 am
They say: Emily figured it out: run away to France, meet the perfect guy, leave everyone behind. But, upon her homecoming, to be the maid-of-honor at her mother’s fifth wedding, it becomes glaringly obvious — this is NOT her life.
Suzyn’s take: This is NOT a fun evening at the theater.
What gets me is that the playwright knows the problem. He writes in the program that his script is full of “stupid, selfish asses.” However, it is really hard to make a play about “stupid selfish asses” work—to say nothing of a musical.
Hip Shot: “Missing Pages”
Missing Pages
Fort Fringe – Redrum
Remaining Performances:
Sunday, July 19th at 6:45 p.m.; Thursday, July 23 at 5:30 p.m.; Saturday, July 25th at 4:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 26th at 2:15 p.m.
They say: “A World War II hero, his daughter and Vietnam veteran son confront the secrets that haunt and divide them. This powerful new drama, lightened with laughter, was inspired by the author’s father, whose war diary she discovered after his death.
Glen’s Take: ”Emerging” local playwright Susan Austin Roth is a well-known and highly successful writer of gardening books, so should you see other reviews of Missing Pages busting out a lot of cheap gardening puns, you’ll know why. Not here, though. No, faithful F and P reader, here you will find no references to grafting, cutting or pruning; that is my solemn vow.
A play that revolves around Alzheimer’s has a tough row to hoe.
Hip Shot: ‘It’s Not Easy Being Green’
It’s Not Easy Being Green
Redrum at Fort Fringe
Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 11 at 2 p.m.
Saturday, July 18 at 10 pm.
Wednesday, July 22 at 7 p.m.
Friday, July 24 at 7:30 p.m.
They say: “Lock five playwrights in oversized compost bins, and demand plays about the expanding ‘green’ movement. What do you get? Mountains of compost, five smelly playwrights, and a Fringe Festival entry. Come explore the sad truth: It’s Not Easy Being Green.”
Hilary’s take: There are no oversized compost bins or playwrights onstage. In fact, “they say” nothing about the production’s actual content. Here’s what they should’ve said: “Lock a sold out audience in steamy Redrum to absorb one shaky modern dance and four didactic sketches by five (smelly?) playwrights. What do you get? Bludgeoned by morality and a surprise sales pitch in our attempt to expand the ‘green’ movement.”
