September 23–30, 1999

Fringe Shorts

Short reviews of Fringe shows continuing through the festival’s second week. Call the Fringe Box Office for info: 215-413-1318

The Convention of Cartography
One of the treats of the Philly Fringe is discovering unusual venues — but not every show makes good use of them. So it’s a pleasure to welcome this production of W. David Hancock’s play that is an ideal match of space and piece: something special happens in a little corner of the National Showroom. It’s a simple story — one artist (David Ingram) pays tribute to another, a drifter named Mike (Bob Nielson) who wrote poetry and fashioned collages from household objects. But the two men — one seen live, the other on video — endow the piece with extraordinary sweetness and sincerity. Ingram in particular is marvelous, effortlessly bridging the real world and the theatrical one. Just watching him watching the video is a lesson in the actor’s craft. The Convention of Cartography may sound like little more than a "my most memorable character" recitation, but I doubt if this year’s Fringe offers a lovelier, more lyrical hour. David Ingram at National Showroom, 113-131 N. Second St., Sept. 23-24 at 6:30 p.m., Sept. 25 at 3:30 & 6:30 p.m.
—David Anthony Fox

Mongrel
How can you not love — or at least not try to love — a show with a credit list that includes "Hamlet/Accordion"? Or a finale that offers a torch singer gargling (really!) "La vie en rose"? Mongrel gives us Hamlet and Ophelia as contemporary barflies. They flirt, drink, sing, summarize the story of the play, reenact key moments using newspaper dolls and, oh yes, occasionally read Shakespeare. Throughout, the action is observed and narrated by a bedraggled torch singer who offers her own weird commentary, including a version of "My Favorite Things" fitted with new S/M lyrics. Mongrel never quite gels and often seems on the brink of terminal hipness (a disease of near-epidemic proportion in any Fringe Festival). But there’s so much that’s genuinely original and droll that it demands to be seen. Whether singing, acting or clowning, the cast is highly accomplished — no one more so than torch singer Christa Hughes, who seems an unlikely hybrid of Tracey Ullman and Marianne Faithfull. Throttle at Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St., Sept. 25 at 9:30 p.m.
—David Anthony Fox

Black and Light
In Robert Christophe and Kim Waldauer’s piece, the grimness of the workaday world is contrasted with a series of visual episodes that makes use of masks, puppetry and clever costuming. The best episodes are the most fanciful (and, not coincidentally, the shortest): There’s a wonderful moment where the boss’ order to fax a document becomes a veritable dance of paper. Elsewhere the piece rather overextends itself and the whimsy begins to cloy; it should be said too that little of the humor rises even to the Dilbert level. But the saving grace is Christophe and Waldauer’s design world, where simple papier maché objects are always expressive and charming. With a nifty jazz trio providing accompaniment, Black and Light generally entertains, and would be a good choice for younger children. Red Road Productions at Arden’s Arcadia Stage, 40 N. Second St., Sept. 23 at 9:30 p.m. and Sept. 25 at 2:30 p.m.
—David Anthony Fox

The Dream of Perpetua
Judging from Angelina Sciolla’s play, third-century Christian martyrs, for all their goodness, would have made dreary company. When they’re not anointing themselves, they’re talking endlessly about their piety: visions, faith, yadda yadda yadda. And the shrill, self-dramatizing overstatement! "Draw the sword dripped in poisonous words and point it at my throat!" cries Perpetua in a moment of stress. (Is there any reason to think that martyrs talked like characters in a Cecil B. DeMille movie?) The acting is a hodgepodge. Ray Saraceni is all hammy bluster (think Hurd Hatfield in King of Kings), while Tom Crognale’s Pudens brings a little bit of South Philly to ancient Carthage. Amy Angle (Felicity) and Danny Beissel (Revocatus) are Party of Five-style troubled teens. But whatever Angelina Sciolla’s weaknesses as a playwright, in the role of Perpetua she proves herself a graceful and gifted actress. Angelina Sciolla at Highwire Gallery, 137 N. Second St., Sept. 24 and 25 at 8 p.m.
—David Anthony Fox

Live at the Apollo Diner
Don’t miss this one: In an old-fashioned diner, where the placemats serve as programs, and the actors serve as waitresses (big stretch there), a man kills flies (as wanton boy?) and an elaborate rhythmic chorus develops as the two waitresses and the counterman start banging and clanging their spatulas on the grill, their brooms on the floor, the swatters on the flies, while another woman clicks away on a laptop at the counter. The older man (Harry Philobosian) has three legal forms in his hand; he picks up a hand mike and says to one of the waitresses (Deb Seif): Tell me how much you love me. She takes the mike, and with surprise, hesitancy, inspiration and excitement crossing her face, replies as if she’s making it up on the spot — in Shakespeare’s words. King Lear has begun again. This brilliantly conceived and performed play (distinctly not a parody) is moving and entertaining (and mystifying, with Ben Franklin’s illegitimate son turning up, asking the question of the play, "Wherefore base, Dad?"). It would be criminal to spoil your theatergoing joy by telling you about the waitresses’ tango, the Fool’s doughnut paradox or the astonishing rightness of the pop songs. Laura Gross, Corinna Burns, John Lumia and David Disbrow complete the topnotch cast directed with immense precision and imagination by Joe Canuso. Theatre Exile at the Lite Bite Luncheonette, Third and Vine Sts., Sept. 23 at 8 p.m., Sept. 24 at 5:30 & 7:30 p.m. and Sept. 25 at 3 & 10. All performances currently sold out, but additional shows may be added; call 215-413-1318 for update.
—Toby Zinman

Winners
If audiences are expecting the Big Mess man Greg Giovanni’s usual pixiesque mythologizing, forget it. This stark monologue is harsh and uncomfortable, intertwining Giovanni’s scarred young gay-character psyche with that of New Jersey 16-year-old child molester/murderer Sam Manzie and the two killing children of Columbine High. With Smashing Pumpkins as soundtrack (Sam’s favorite), the spare surroundings give Giovanni — a blunt bullet of an actor — room to pout, brood and snort like a dangerous child having a pre-tantrum huff. With his short haircut and rubbery face, he personifies the youthfully self-involved, the courageous mind unraveling devious plans in his mind while making model airplanes. While savaging flies and reminiscing about his own early sex life, he compares himself to Manzie’s unaroused 11-year-old victim. "My dick was hard from the time I was six." Tightening the muscles in his face and shoulders, Giovanni toys with the homoeroticism of older men, and rants against the gay press’ denial that the Columbine boys were lovers ("Eric was good at theater. He read and understood Shakespeare.") while holding his hands over a lit candle. Mostly what Giovanni does is taunt the audience about crime, evil and youthful exuberance vs. adult responsibility, leading up to a literally explosive finale. Greg Giovanni at LockJaw Gallery, 138 N. Third St., Sept. 23 at 8:30 p.m., Sept. 25 at 8:30 p.m.
—a.d. amorosi

SCRAP
For the last two years, productions by SCRAP Performance Group (Icarus, Strung) have been among the most talked-about performances in the Fringe, so it was not surprising that this year’s offering — titled simply SCRAP — drew overflow crowds on the opening weekend. The piece, choreographed by Myra Bazell and Katharine Livingston, takes viewers on a mesmerizing journey.
SCRAP unfolds slowly, with six female dancers covered in pale blue body paint and white outfits delicately exploring the walls of a dark, cavelike alley behind the Arden Theatre. Each dancer eventually arrives at a solid black wall, which they proceed to take apart and rearrange into a shifting, shimmering pattern (the sides of the sections are painted in Day-Glo colors). It’s a psychedelic Rubik’s Cube brought to life, brightened by black lights hung from above (these are ensconced in sculptures by Andrew Jevremovic, crafted to look like stalactites). Live music by Stinking Lizaveta creates an ambience of zips, pings and cymbal crashes.

With the wall down we see the backdrop of the city. One by one the dancers move further down the alley to congregate in a group, where they undulate in ritualistic fashion as abstract red- and blue-tinged images of water are projected onto what is now a ghostly human canvas. The colors intensify, the music turns dissonant and throbbing, and a single dancer is exposed, suspended in a harness attached to a pipe grid. As she writhes in captivity, the others swing and climb about the grid. Some try to get to her, while others engage in acts of abandonment and attempted escape. The music continues to build in intensity, its force increasing as sound resonates down the alley’s long narrow pathway.

That’s it. While the 30-minute piece doesn’t possess the grandeur or high-risk aspects of prior Fringe efforts, it draws us into a taut world where beauty is manifested in an otherwise gritty environment. I liked what I saw — the movement and visuals are intriguing and evocative. Still, more could be done to take advantage of the unique site, such as taking better advantage of the natural set-up offered by the tight sidewalls. Also, the endpoint seems arbitrary. This may be by design: We are left to our own imaginative devices to determine what, if anything, happens next. SCRAP Performance Group in SCRAP Alley, 35 N. Third St., Sept. 23 at 8:30 p.m., Sept. 24 at 7:45 p.m. and Sept. 25 at 10 p.m.
—Deni Kasrel