Reviews for FronteraFest Performances
Review: Things in Life by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on February 03, 2009
Imagine, if you can, this very very Anglo looking guy converting himself into a 63-year-old black man who ran a hotdog concession at a ball park for years. When he started to go there despite our age of political correctness, I almost held my breath.
Ben Prager's Long Fringe presentation carried the title "Things in Life," sufficiently enigmatic to cover just about anything that he might have wanted to do. The fest blurb advised only, "Actor/playwright Ben Prager uses a series of monologues to portray with unblinking realism a half dozen familiar types in various stages of life."He deserved his artistic license, considering that he has written seven shows of monologues and his "Four Monologues" was picked as one of the …
Review: Leela's Wheel by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 31, 2009
Gemma is so good at shifting characters that she can give us a middle-aged woman seducing her crofter husband and make us believe in both partners at the same time.
Gemma Wilcox is a lively and inventive woman with a serious case of multiple comic personalities. Her two-act show Leela's Wheel runs about an hour and you never know who (or what) she's going to be next.This piece is dialogue-based, almost never in monologue style. One accepts fairly quickly her theatre convention of transferring instantly from one character to another by shift of position, body English, voice and accent. The impression is a bit like quick-cutting in …
Review: A Matter of Taste by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 30, 2009
There's a core here of irreverent, smart alecky writing that delivers a good time on stage. The sketch format doesn't allow much character exposition, so we're provided jagged humor tied to the incongruities of the imagined situations.
Playwright Bastion Carboni has some good ideas but he gets in their way. There are five ingenious skits in this Long Fringe entertainment but he has the mistaken impression that an audience will be as interested in the creative process as he is.Carboni has actress Jenny Keto preface the evening with a confused, swaggering but finally non-helpful appearance as "the playwright." And at the end of a pretty enertaining evening he brings on the director(?) and …
Review: Our Angle in Heaven by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
Diana's funeral becomes a tourist event, replacing the temporarily closed wax museum at Madame Tussaud's -- and a family from the north of England leaves the bouquet and poster meant to celebrate "our angel in heaven."
The title of Maggie Gallant's solo show is an apt understatement, suggestive of the portraits she offers us. What angle do we take on heaven and the richness of its offerings for us? And where is that heaven? Who goes there? That's a lot of message for a simple misspelling. Maggie gives us eight characters in the twelve monologues she presents in about 45 minutes at the Salvage Vortex. It is perhaps telling that the one who ties …
Review: My Bugatti Story by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
Ehrmann has a lot of himself invested in this narrative. At times he comes across as confessional or woodenly self-obsessed, perfectly in keeping with the character.
My Bugatti Story is playing at the Salvage Vanguard Theatre as part of the 2009 FronterFest Long Fringe. Writer Paul Ehrmann plays Alexander, the principal character. Though there's a cast of six, the show is essentially a long monologue by Ehrmann, interspersed with illustrative scenes. The near-monologue format is appropriate, for most of the action is taking place in his head, or at least in his fantasies. At the opening, Alexander is found in a …
Review: Drywall by FronteraFest
by Michael Meigs
Published on January 26, 2009
This kind of TV sit-com writing is a constant diet of Hostess Twinkies. That's where Drywall digs in, with sharp fangs.
The vividly bald guy in a white t-shirt and carrying tools has just walked onstage, grimaced, and there's a chuckle of appreciative amusement from the speakers. He shrugs, as if annoyed, and there's another rumble from the audience on the speakers. Then he stalks off, to more recorded merriment. Canned laughter? What's going on here? Lights go down, then up again on two buddies, Doug and Peter. They're brainstorming ideas for a play, or at least a …