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Infectious Opportunity, written by James Comtois and directed by Peter Boisvert, is a superb new, highly-original gem of a play with a very talented, highly-energized ensemble cast. Infectious Opportunity is also the immorality tale of a young, driven, highly ambitious screenwriting film student who, seething with envy of a gifted fellow student, will go to any lengths, and sink to any smarmy soul-devouring strategy, to get his star to rising. Fame, fortune and the soothing stroke of fawning admiration are what he shamelessly craves. Finally, he stoops about as low as you can go -- he plays the T-cell and sympathy card -- he fakes being being HIV positive; then, bases all his screenplays and filmmaking on people suffering from AIDS.
In the ultra-liberal, kind-spirited, politically super-correct atmosphere of academia, he is now the center of positive attention, and every favor that can be bestowed on him, is. He is a campus superstar with a long leg up to extending his status into the "real" world. Trapped in web of lies, that needs constant re-embroidery, our not wholly unsympathetic antihero must navigate the false world he has created for himself painted into a corner of sexual ambiguity and self- imposed loneliness. Throughout he is haunted by a smart, sassy, sexy young woman, built of conscience, but embodied in the person of a recovering drug addict -- a woman with AIDS whom he befriends, and might have, given half a chance, loved.
The script is well-honed, rife with enough irony and acid-tipped wit to tip it into the category of black comedy, however its drama carries so much truth about our society and ourselves, that, on reflection, it isn't funny. Of course, this doesn't prevent us from laughing out loud throughout. But not without more than a little bit of nervous self-recognition. David Ian Lee gives Wes (our antihero) enough vulnerability to draw our empathy. It's a nuanced, finely-shaded performance, that earns him the right to keep us guessing as to what his next move will be. As Josie (the avatar of Wes' conscience), Jessie Gotta packs power beneath the slink. She switches easily from impish blithe spirit mode to avenger with a quiver full of barbed wit-edged arrows, to a living conscience that cares for the man she haunts. Ms. Gotta delivers a dynamic performance. Ingrid Nordstom is a hoot and a half in the numerous roles she played, but most especially as the addled-headed horny Professor Hale. Anyone who made it through college has known a Professor Hale, and Ms. Nordstrom brought her back to us.
This is terrific, gimmick-free writing. The play deserves a life after Fringe. Someone, please give it a run. But in case producers are as blindly absent as they typically are; theater-lovers go out of your way to see Infectious Opportunity NOW.
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Heroes and Other Strangers, written and performed by Zac Jaffee and directed by Christian Haines, is storytelling at its absolute finest. This is the best solo show I've seen thus far; and I've seen eleven. It's 1971, and we are taken along by the hand, heart and mind. On a quest to San Francisco, Berkeley and environs. We travel with a New York boy, young, untested, unsure, a would-be-man in search of an even-younger runaway, and his own selfhood. We feel ourselves woven into numerous adventures and encounters as Mr. Jaffee gives undeniable palpable texture to the time, the places, and odd assortment of people he meets. He exists in the time, he evokes the places and he becomes the people.
The writing is so true, the story so original, and the actor so dead on the mark, that the piece seems downright cinemagraphic. All this achieved without benefit of set, costumes, or 3-D glasses. This is bare-bones theatre at its jewel-like best. See this show!
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How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity, written by Aileen Clark and John Caldon, is directed by Claire Rice and performed by Aileen Clark. If you don't
like tales of teenage angst, young women coming of age finding themselves, and sexual identity and their sense of family, purpose and their place in the world -- go see this show anyway. I fell into this show because it fit into my Fringe schedule, and Ms. Clark's performance blew me away. She's a Scottish/Latina lass, with genuine acting chops, fabulous comic timing and the gift of full immersion into the multitude of characters she plays. Her transitions are seamless, whether she's being her own father, aunts, cousins, a-hole boyfriends etc., they become realized human beings.
Ms. Clark's true life story is the vehicle by which she lays bare her soul to us -- leaving it not so much as a fig leaf to hide behind. You'll cry with her, but mostly you'll laugh with her, out loud and a lot. The is a tour-de-fierce. With high-energy and a strong empathy-inducing lovability factor. I urge you again -- go.
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A. Chekov's The Darling, starring Lisa Dalton and directed by Victor S. Tkachenko, is a solo show that sent me up the proverbial wall, in a state of "weep for lost art" frustration. That afinely-limbed piece of writing, that in its day had galloped ahead of its time, carrying on its back, irony-infused humor and wisdom-laced sadness, should meet the fate of a lost mitten on the floot of the F train at rush hour, was way too much for me.
Here is a piece that warns us all, but especially women, of the dangers of becoming the breathing mirror of our adored one; so much so that we are unable to so much as exist outside of his presence, so much so that we abnigate our own personhood, so much so that unless the adulated is a complete egotist, he becomes bored and annoyed with the replicate. Then having a life partner that contributes no sustenance to that life, the adored one shrivels up and dies, or rejects the parasitical other and moves on, thus rendering the sweet love sucker bereft and utterly alone.
These are weighty ideas that Chekov does not use as a cudgel to knock us upside the head with, but rather presents to us on a delicately-patterned platter in the form of the intricately- wrought, delicate, deliciously insufferable and long-suffering Olenka. Mr. Tkachenko and Ms. Dalton conspire to murder Mr. Chekov's creation. Much like Olenka, their method is smothering reverence. Every word that Ms. Dalton articlutes on the stage is GIVEN THE EXACT SAME WEIGHT. And the interminable pauses between every word were such that even Harold Pinter in his most unbridled dreams could never have conceived of them. There are no levels here. All drama is strangulted by a boring monotonal drone that had me staring at the exit sign with a longing of a permanent State inmate. With proper pacing this could have been and should have been half as long as it was. Ms. Dalton and Mr. Tkachenko, please decide where the drama lies and where be the wry in this dry vokda martini, and act accordingly. And may I also suggest that the role of the narrator (as well as Olenka) not be played by the same person. It only muddles the story flow, and makes the transitions between characters so much harder to acheive with any dramatic impact.
Lisa Dalton seems sweet and not devoid of talent; but she is sorely misdirected here. So gentleman and lady, stop in the name of Chekhov before you break his heart. And Fringe-goers think it oh-oh-oh-over before you give any time to this "Darling."
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