3 FROM THE FRINGE FESTIVAL (First ROUND-UP)

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From the ridiculous to the sublime, from the sublime to the subversive, from the maddening to the the madcap, from the madcap to the captivating, the annual summer New York International Fringe Festival has a bit of everything. It's a gigantic salad bar of theatre offerings, usually without a lot of dressing, if that optional dressing is costumes and scenery. Sometimes it's not about the visual, but the visceral, and expect edgy with rough edges, though there have been exceptions with polished productions shining and more traditional --- some say "old-fashioned" --- theatre styles.

The star whose bio we're asked to buy into is someone I've always admired.  Judging by the sold-out opening (and, I suspect, strong ticket sales and buzz), I'm in a well-populated fan club.  You'll be lucky if you get your tix just in time.  Just in Time: The Judy Holliday Story is worth the time and worth being squeezed into the tight rows of the Soho Playhouse.  On its opening performance, there was a major problem with the air conditioning, or lack thereof, that would have sunk many a less sturdy ship.  The wilting audience stayed the course of the 90-minute intermissioness play which, for its integrity and professionalism, is itself a breath of fresh air.  As luck would have it, there happens to be a line in this show business saga about an audience sitting and sweating through a performance.  It got a slightly delayed, intentional, huge, cathartic laugh.

Although not completely avoiding the soap opera-ish cliches of the genre of star-is-born/show-business-is-a-tough-life life story, the play impresses with some strong and creative theatrical devices, dramatc gear-shifts in switching time, tone and place.  In additional to the lady playing the real-life star in question, there are three versatile actors who are assigned a multitude of roles they seem to switch with the ease of switching channels on a TV remote control.  In fact, the play itself is somewhat of a reolving door, too, wit the biographical burden eased by switching scenes at will, simply tossing off a few needed facts by having an actor be a terse narrator with a sentence or two, jump-cutting to another scene when one has served its purpose.  Not uncommonly for such fare, we get more about the beginnings and first big breaks and triumphs, especially Born Yesterday. As much as is crammed in, there's plenty given short shrift or left unmentioned and unseen: Broadway prep, problems and premieres; later-career struggles and disappointments; romantic relationships -- where are you Gery Mulligan except for your first name dropped and two of your songs written with Judy's lyrics sung a bit wanly?  At the center is what needs to be at the center to make this all work: a Judy-esque Judy substitute that doesn't become a cartoon. It's a loveable, committed, spot-on performance by Marina Squerciati who remarkably nails Judy Holliday's unique voice, exaggerated when playing the role of a dumb blonde.  She projects Holliday's vulnerability and pathos while suggesting a quiet and growing resolve.  The wide-eyed naif narrows her gaze to be a steely-eyed glint when the occasion calls for it.  She's hardly ever offstage in this revolving door of memories, observations, and scenes taking place in "real time,"  even when her character is deceased.  Like a well-oiled machine, this actress as Judy in her movie role of a defendant in a murder case playing off Catherine Lefrere capturing the clipped-speech rhythms of Katharine Hepburn playing her  lawyer, is remarkably done and fun.  Sound familiar?  The film was Adam's Rib, and it's another Adam -- Adam Harrington who efficiently and effectively plays all the men, from a swaggering young  Orson Welles to a chatty TV game show host to a hard-nosed politician. The three are adorable as the performing trio The Revuers: Judy and Betty Comden and Adolph Green in a pastiche song capturing their sense of fun and satire: "Life Magazine."  Lyrics are by our playwright//director Bob Sloane, music and arrangement by his brother, choreographed by wife Randi.

The play's title comes from the standard introduced by Judy in Bells Are Ringing, the Broadway hit written by Comden & Green for Judy, with composer Jule Styne.  Though we don't hear the song or learn much about that musical about a switchboard operator, we do see an earlier scene from her life where she gets a job as a switchboard operator, like the character in that musical.  In the scene we see, she's fielding -- and accidentally disconnecting-- calls for The Mercury Theatre.  Her mercurial personality comes through and we witness her growing confidence in this chunkier scene.  We see also her loss of innocence as she gets a hard look at how show business can be unpleasant business when male egoes, power trips and sex drive in overdrive take over.  Showing sharp timing and her character's sharp tongue is Mary Gutzi, the fourth cast member, in her main role as Judy's mother -- nagging, supporting, pushing, proud, lamenting and never missing a chance to get in a dig about the no-good husband who walked out when Judy was a small child.  Judy's own child is addressed and sung to, but not seen.  Her abdicating full-time parenthood responsibilities is not ignored; kudos for not making her a saint.  However, we have instant affection for this waif-like funny girl whose mom claims had the original Funny Girl, Fanny Brice, help birth her onstage when Mom went into labor during a performance of The Ziegfeld Follies she was attending.  It is a highly embellished story and maybe some of the other incidents played out here are, too, but oh, it's a winner all the way.  And we keep rooting for Judy to win.

Just in Time continues: August 18, 20, 26 for evening performances and a final performance, a Saturday matinee on August 28. But I would not be at all surprised to see it add a performance or two or be picked up.  Judy Holliday also sang "The Party's Over," but in this case I doubt it.  This is too good to not have an afterlife.  After all, we get to see Judy talk in the afterlife in the first scene.  SoHo Playhouse is on Vandam Street near Sixth Avenue.  See www.FringeNYC.org for tickets and see www.thejudyhollidaystory.com for more details.

You lose track of who's winning in the often very winning and wacky rock musical Viva Los Bastarditos, but really, who cares?  It's too long and too loud, but I give it a long and loud round of applause for its loopiness and off-kilter killer instincts.   Jake Oliver is the man to credit for starting this revolution of rascals and rambunctiousness.  He wrote the script, the music, the lyrics, directed and produced!  I'd like to shake his hand for shaking things up in musical theatre and making me shake with laughter.  Good shake, Jake!

This comic mock rock, knock-down, drag-out, dragged-out battle of revolutionaries and rockers starts off by introducing us to a rock band called The Pickles.  They sing their theme song proclaiming ---over and over and over -- "We're the Pickles," with on-purpose dopey lyrics about being like pickles rising from the bottom of the barrel and not being bubble gum but chewing on the bone and....oh, never mind.  Hey, hey, they're the Pickles and people say they monkey around with political upheaval.  The guys in ths contentious trio become masked avengers when evil strikes and they put aside their squabbles about the band not being so good to fight for the greater good.  After all, there's a pretty lady and her dad tied to a chair by the bad guy with getting rent and getting married via forced marriage on his agenda.  And then there's that large box containing owls !!!???!?!?!?! to consider: A character unblinkingly and forcefully states, "We've got a big box of owls and we want to put someone in it and see what happens."  This nutty musical does think outside the box.  Not everything works, but you admire the cheekiness.  And also in the mixed-up mix?  A big supply of cheese.  I guess there's the other kind of cheese aplenty, too.  And how can you not like a play where in a race against time, they check the time and think they are not only out of their minds but out of time, but then suddenly remember that a watch was set to always be fourteen minutes fast in the owner's homage to the beauty of the fourteen-line sonnet form?  But I digress.  So does everyone in the story, a major part of the attraction.  It's not the destination, it's the side trips.  Detour ahead.  Locations are suggested by changing signs above the three archways that serves as set pieces framing the action, where we go from a ship to a yogurt stand to a sanctuary of sorts -- "Ah! Thank goodness for The Pickle Cave!!"

But, meanwhile, back to our heroes: the band.    One falls in love, they get stoned --- I mean, as in being tied up and having stones thrown at them as deathly punishment, though they may have sometimes been stoned in the other sense of the word.  They're certainly high on themselves.  There's the easily offended and testy Bob White Brown who insists on being called by his full name at all times, with the proper emphasis on the syllable of his choice.  He's cannily played with edgy verve and nerve by Alex Morf, and when the band morphs into the masked Los Bastardinos, he falls more into line and falls in love during their leading the revolution.  You say you want a revolution? Oh well, you know, we all want to change the world.   There are a few winking references to Beatles-like tensions when the band decides to break up because of whose songs or lead vocals get on the albums, with Bob --- sorry, Bob White Brown ----only getting a dopey ditty, "Starfish Tea Party."  Shades of The Beatles' "Octopus's Garden" with RIngo?  Showing appealing puppy-dog dim-dumb-and-dumber personality, Mark Emerson is endearing as the band member who is always a beat behind -- not with the music so much, but in conversation and action.  He's got a softer, sweeter energy that's needed in this frantic, frenetic Fringe fracas.  With an arsenal of acting skills allowing him to calibrate his performance and underplay for a less-is-more- effective punch sometimes, Blake DeLong as the group's battle-scarred sort-of leader makes him seem like the normal one.  But everything is relative.

The ensemble  is strong, with no weak links aiming the fun winks at musical theatre conventions.  Case in point or pointlessness-- a song titled and about falling in "Love at First Sight," as often happens on some enchanted evening.  At least in musicals.  It saves time.    And "Some Kinda People," a rant about how the way "some people" live and make decisions "ain't all right for me" reminds me of a poor man's cousin to "Some People" from the iconic musical Gypsy. The songs work, but some could use some tweaks and tucks and sharpening to bring them to the level of the wit and slyness and method-to-the-madness in the dialogue. You do have to listen hard as some hard rock wham-bam instrumentation can obliterate some lyrics and you must sometimes question if certain bland lyrics are intentional.  Usually, they are, such as this song called "This Song," whose convoluted lyric says this could be your song since we didn't really write it with anyone in mind.  Perhaps a dig at the early Elton John hit, "Your Song"?

And there are some wonderful little moments, such as when the campy/fun/energetic -- if overused ---prancing, snarling villain with his random accent, threatens his captors, they argue about whether the stated threat has been overextending a metaphor about hammers. So much for matters of life and death.  The nasty guy is played by Scoop Slone in an over-the-top performance that in looking for shtick and mannerisms and something to milk, leaves no stone unturned-- including the stones that may or may not work stoning to death the trio trying to stop him.  They should know better.  Nothing can stop a ham actor, and I don't necessarily mean the entertaining Mr. Slone ---OK, I sorta do ---but it turns out his rage comes from being a Gilbert & Sullivan actor stuck in the same role for years.  This play with Mr. Slone's Captain Hook-like character and stuffed with pop songs with hooks is quite a different flavor than the other spelled-slightly-differently-but-deserving-an-"A" Mr. Sloane's nuanced play reviewed above.  I recommend both.  Join this hoot of a rootin' tootin' revolution, Viva los Bastardinos, by attending on the night of Saturday, August 21 or the afternoon of Monday, August 23 or the night of Wednesday, August 25, when the madness is scheduled to issue its final battle cry.  For now.  But you can't keep a good man down.  Or a bad one.  So we'll see.  Meanwhile, see www.bastardinos.com for more and to hear the songs.  But a word to the wise: these are wise guys and some of the songs can't be appreciated out of context as regular songs.  See www.fringenyc.org for ticket-buying options.  The show plays at LaMama on East 4 Street near Second Avenue, where there are a few Fringe performance spots causing the streets to be full of theatre lovers.

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With a two-week theatre festival offering 197 different productions--that's right--what to see among the many simultaneous attractions is a matter of choice.  And, conveniently for this segue, ...a matter of choice is also the name of one of the choices and there's a lot that's the matter with this Matter. I happen to live off Second Avenue and the disruptions and decibels and delays of the current construction of the Second Avenue subway are vexing me, so when I saw there was a Fringe play where that was a big factor in the plot, it caught my eye.  Misery loves company.  But be careful what you wish for.  Though it got remarkably better all around in its last scenes, it was full of problems before that for me.  We're told here that the new subway prep will take several years.  This play seemed to threaten to take almost as long until we finally saw some light at the end of the tunnel.  Though Chad Beckim's piece is not on its first trip through theatreland, it needs work to make it work.  He has another show in the festival this year called Cookie, beginning performances on Thursday.  I did not see Lights Rise on Grace, his 2007 Fringe entry--I told you there were so many choices each year---but it was voted as the Outstanding Play and he's had other positive attention from his work.  So, maybe this is an anomaly, or is it just me?  Somehow I don't think it's just me.

Yes, yes, we all were taught that conflict is an essential element of drama.  But a bunch of vulgar people using vulgar language spouting vulgar opinions while pontificating and pouting on a pillowed couch is not my idea of involving conflict.  It's part of my Theatre 101 rules of thumb, that to engage an audience we need characters who are either sympathetic or intriguing.  Both would be nice, but I'll settle for either.  For most of this, we get neither.  Until we know there's more at stake than finding a new place to live with a small budget, there's small reason to care.  Three roommates fuss and fume and futz with fault-finding freaked-out, flustered, flummoxed festering and fluctuations.  Another "F" word, one your parents told you not to use, is ubiquitous.  These characters use it and other such words in virtually every sentence as all-purpose, one-size-fits-all substitutes for specific language.  You've sat beside such people on the subway and will do so in the future on the Second Avenue subway, if they ever finish it.  It's maddening, even if the word doesn't offend you.  At moments of being inspired to be articulate and avoid cuss words, these characters react with the witty, brilliant retort: "Whatever!"  They seem petulant, whiny, even hateful, an impression that comes up right away in the very first scene when one is complaining about the behavior and dress of people in a NYC ethnic parade.  It goes nowhere except on and on.  It surely doesn't make us like the character.

The roomie who is the leaseholder never opened an envelope that said they had to move out because their building would soon be knocked down due to the subway work.  Apparently, they weren't told in any other way and don't talk to their neighbors or read the paper, etc., so they have to move.  If only the plot did.  It's difficult to see any reason except masochistic tendencies or insanity why they plan to stay together as roommates in a new location.  All they do is argue and insult, it seems, with the exception of a break to smoke and sell a little marijuana with a friend--one of two visitors welcomed by the other roommates as warmly as a landlord or bedbugs.   As audience, we think, ah! eviction can be a good thing.  Now they have a reason to split up in this city full of options and lower-rent places in this recession housing market.  Frankly, I was tempted to get up on stage and pack their belongings for them all if they'd just move---- offstage----or move the plot along.  Instead, they continue to play the blame game, throwing up their hands in dismay or throwing around more brain-dead comments.  If misery loves company, Les Miserables who moan and mope may  love an audience who'll listen.  To catch this audience member's ear, it takes more.  Finally, I got it.  What a surprise.  We get a scene where one roommate talks about their early days when they were like a supportive family to each other.  Sudden vulnerability, real emotion, regrets and---gasp!--being articulate.  Who knew?  And we see, also too late, another aspect of the personal support sysytem between the two of them when rescue and caring intervention are truly needed.  The reason behind some spat-out hate is now logical.  We begin to care.  And there's some real action and nail-biting confrontation.  The plot, belatedly, thickens.  Can these scenes be flipped so we care earlier?  Or another reason or two to care about the dope-smoking dope, the woman with the gargantuan chip on her shoulder and the babbling third roommate and the ex-con friend.  How about the other guy?  No, not a chance with him.  That's OK.  Other characters don't add too much except some respite and, well, more talk.

What's puzzling is how the acting is so very, very much more convincing and natural in the highly dramatic, challenging scenes near the end,  whereas it seems weak and artificial with the small talky interaction you'd think would be easy.  Surviving the storm is Jake Lemmenes as the Gay roommate who is more of a peacemaker than the others. He has to often play spineless/wimpy but is nice(r) and garners the most sympathy in the shallow pool we dredge up for the beginnings.  He's also a co-producer, along with Alicia Dempster who co-directs with her own father, T.C. Burt, Jr.   I wish I could be more positive, but, like the subway construction I live with on my corner, right now it's full of more noise and more obstacles, but maybe it, too, can one day provide a smoother ride down the line.

...a matter of choice is an offering from the new Freed Purple Monkey Theatrics; see www.freedpurplemonkeytheatrics.com for more can be seen at The Soho Playhouse at 15 Vandam Street off Sixth Avenue on the nights of August 17 and 19 and the afternoon of Saturday, August 21.  See www.fringenyc.org for tickets and info on all the Fringe shows.