I had my day off, and now I'm back on track.
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| The plan of attack |
7:00 PM
My first show for the evening was called Revenge of the Deep Water: a Circus Play put on by First Line of Inspiration Circus Theater at the Den of Muses. This would have been a much better start to the whole Fringe experience, since the show was refreshingly competent and fun.
Before I go any further I should offer a disclaimer that this show is what you might call “kid-oriented.” This doesn’t mean that there isn’t something here for older audience members, but it is definitely intended for the under-tens.
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| The beads were used to fight Godzilla |
Before Deep Water even began I was already excited, because half of the appeal of watching this show is its venue: the Den of Muses at the intersection of Port and Architect in the Marigny. The Den of Muses is where many of the city’s Mardi Gras and Halloween floats are constructed and stored. The building itself is a cavernous, otherwise unremarkable warehouse, and the scaffolding from which the acrobatic equipment was hung making it a perfect location for this kind of theater. The floats, which line the walls of the facility, are as much a part of the scenery as anything else and give the whole space a creepy, whimsical feel which works well for the show which follows. The floats are exactly what you’d expect for New Orleans, colorful, decadent, and often subversive (a particular favorite of mine was one of Bobby Jindal forcibly sodomizing a pelican). In all the floats almost provide reason enough to pay the price of admission.
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| Oy vey |
Deep Water is described as a “circus play;” however, I would liken it more to Cirque du Soleil with a plot, which is basically a New Orleans version of Mothra v. Godzilla, right down to the telepathic fairies and Mothra-Larva shooting silly string (amusingly, even some of the musical score is lifted directly from the movie). In this version the monsters are the result of a toxic oil spill, and the primary antagonists are the unfeeling oil executives, indifferent to the harm they are causing by not returning Mothra’s giant, papier-mâché egg.
Overall the acrobatics, which were the real focus of the show, were definitely solid and on occasion quite impressive; one scene in particular where the acrobats formed a kind of two man walking monstrosity was a highlight for me.
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| One of Mothra's Fairies |
The other selling point is of course, the monster costumes, which were really quite good. Much of the appeal for those over the age of ten could probably be attributed to the combination of acrobatics, and the kind of absurd humor that can only be found in watching a regular size guy stumble around in a Godzilla costume as he smashes a small, cheesy model of New Orleans. There were also a few good lines about “top kill missiles” and the like being deployed against the monster, and obvious nod to the top kill procedure which failed to plug up the BP oil well.
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| The monster is slain... |
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| ...or is he? |
I only have two real complaints: the acting and the volume. Because this is mostly an acrobatics performance and not a “play” in the traditional sense, and because preparations for festival shows like this are undoubtedly somewhat rushed, I am prepared to cut the show some slack when it comes to the acting, which I will call “unpolished.” Some cues were missed, a few times the actors spoke over each other, and one or two pauses in the beginning of the show went on for what seemed like forever, but on the whole it was functional if unimpressive.
One thing I can not forgive, however, was the volume of the voices used by the actors. I was pretty close, so I managed to hear almost everything, but I must have been one of the last rows to be able to do so. When you are acting in such a large, cavernous space you must project your voice or it will get lost before it reaches the folks in the back. Microphones would have helped, but they were not necessary, just a little more volume from the actors on stage would have been sufficient.
Occasionally the tone and dialogue came off as a little eco-preachy, but expecting subtly from a show where a giant moth and lizard fight under a strobe light may have been asking a little too much, and perhaps after the spill we are entitled to act a little preachy.
In all these complaints are pretty minor, and I have to admit it is gratifying to finally see a show which was competently executed and worth my time.
9:00 PM
The Executioner, a musical, while not without its moments, did not quite work. The premise started out promisingly enough, a kind of cosmic death bureaucracy is having trouble dealing with ghosts who won’t cross over, and decide that tasking unsuspecting humans with the task would be the best course of action. Now, I was a big fan of the show Dead Like Me, which had a very similar premise, and I think the idea of death being some sort of huge, uncaring and incompetent bureaucracy works really well as the set up for a show.
Good premise aside, however, The Executioner really wasn’t all that good.
But first the positives.
There were some lines that worked and were pretty funny, out of context it makes little sense, but the line “sure, for $75 an hour I’ll definitely paint a penis between your breasts” was one of my favorites. The show also incorporated great little videos which represented what was happening in the spirit world. This mixing of mediums is a neat idea, and the movie sections with the spirits discussing their jobs were, for me in any event, the best parts of the show.
There were quite a few things Executioner had going for it, however there were two overriding factors which doomed the production from the start: the lead actress and the songs.
While there were three people on stage and a number of other individuals featured in the videos, this was essentially a one woman show, and therein lays the problem. To put it gently the lead actress was not up to the task of holding this show together, and had neither the stage presence nor the singing ability to make the show work on her own. In addition to reading from the scrip on several occasions (which you could argue may have been an artistic choice, but if so it was a profoundly destructive and distracting one) the tone of the show was painfully subdued, feeling more like a sedated stand-up routine broken up by the occasional irrelevant song than a play. There was one instance in particular at the end of the show when she was singing and then told the audience to get up and dance. No one did because no one had been able to get excited or invested in the show.
Which leads me to the songs. Oh the songs.
Part of the problem with the “musical” part of this musical could probably be attributed to the small space and poor sound system, which forced the actress to sing quietly, greatly reducing the quality of her sound. However, the real problem was far more fundamental. When you are writing a musical it is imperative that the songs move the action or characterization of the play forward, that they reinforce the spoken content on stage. A great example of a musical which does this well is one of my personal favorites: Fiddler on the Roof. There is not a single unnecessary song in that show. Every song advances the action on stage, fleshes out the characters that sing them, and ties the show together with recurring musical themes.
Executioner did none of these things. Not only did the songs do nothing to advance the action of the show (in fact on several occasions the singing portion was broken up by spoken exposition) but they also told us nothing about the characters and the only thing which tied any of them together musically was an omnipresent techno beat. Basically what this meant was that every time a song came up it essentially slammed the breaks on what was an already slow production.
There were certain points when this slow pacing lent the show a kind of dreamlike quality, but without a solid lead to carry it forward, “dreamlike” quickly gave way to boredom.
11:00
My final show for the night was Girl Next Door Theater’s No Exit (from the Zombie Apocalypse) at Brydie’s Gallery on St. Claude.
I have to admit I had reservations about No Exit (from the Zombie Apocalypse) before I even entered the theater, however, my concerns had nothing really to do with this show in particular, but rather its relationship to another show I’d seen earlier this year. I might as well just come out with it: No Exit is the second zombie play I have seen this year. I don’t have any problem with the idea of zombies in theater, I quite enjoy the genera in movie, TV, and comic form, but I nonetheless worry what it says about me as a person that I have seen two zombie plays in less than three months.
I guess what I’m saying is don’t judge me too harshly.
No Exit was also different in one other respect, and that is the fact that I met the director, which played a major role in my decision to go. So you can understand my relief when No Exit turned out not only to be good, but actually the best show of the night.
No Exit (from the Zombie Apocalypse) is, of course, an adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, so it has the distinct advantage of working with already solid material. The original story is about three individuals who find themselves confined together in a small room, and gradually create their own version of hell through their interactions. This version is essentially the same thing, but instead of being confined to a literal “hell” our three misanthropes are survivors of the zombie apocalypse, hold up together in a safe house.
On thing I have to give a shout out to immediately about this show, and what sets it apart from everything else I’ve seen thus far, is the acting. It was, in a word, excellent. Each actor really got a chance to shine, and Hazel’s monologue about her 18 year-old lover was a highlight for me.
The set was also perfect. While I suspect it was probably a product of the location, the tight, claustrophobic space really added to the trapped atmosphere of the show.
The opening, which was the only part of the show that was not a direct adaptation, took a cue from Dawn of the Dead, using a series of frantic TV new reports and pundits to establish the emerging crisis. As a framing device it worked well enough, although I don’t know if it was really necessary, and its goofy, lighthearted tone was a little out of place when compared with the rest of the show.
One of the most interesting things about this adaptation is that it was intended as a comedy. The B-movie setting and updated dialogue did, on occasion, elicit a little chuckle, but what is perhaps most fascinating is that, despite the whole zombie thing, the crushing bleakness of the original play remains largely intact. The fatalistic cruelty of Sartre’s characters seems an unlikely survivor of the zombie apocalypse, but I think it is a real testament to the skill of the actors and director involved that it did. I’m sure there must have been a real temptation to play the entire show fir laughs, ironically mugging the whole way through. This would have been a mistake and I’m glad it was avoided.
Sartre’s material is actually quite well suited to the Zombie genera (I know that sounds kind of silly, but hear me out), because, at a certain point, almost every zombie story stops being about the zombies, and starts to be about the survivors. Their foibles as individuals and how they affect the group’s chances at survival are what provide the real drama of the story, just look at Night of the Living Dead. The characters in these movies are striped bare, forced to confront what they truly are when there no longer exists any reason to be anything else. This is more or less the entire conceit of No Exit, exploring the darkest parts of the human soul through three individuals with absolutely nothing left to lose, and nothing left to do but inflict their petty cruelties upon one another.
In all No Exit (from the Zombie Apocalypse) is a very clever idea given a skillful execution, and I would definitely check it out.
That is all for now, join me tomorrow and Sunday for the final two days of Fringestravaganza 2010!
Until then gentle readers,
Ignatius
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