Frigid Festival 2010 @ various venues
02/24/10-03/07/10

The creative spirit knows no recessionary measures only the response of an audience stimulus. Once again, the intrepid Frigid Festival jumpstarts the new year of independent downtown theater programming with its annual 21/2 week smorgasbord of ambition if not unrecognized talent. In possible acknowledgment of the economic climate, however, none of this year's entries was over 60 minutes. While many shows caught my eye, time constraints limited me to three. A brief critical overview follows.

Medea @ Kraine Theater 03/01/10

Epic Greek tragedy in under an hour, who could resist? Then again, murder and mayhem take place regularly on TV during that time (including the news) so why not? No.11 Productions' of Euripides' classic (2400 years young) with a succinct translation by Paul Roche proved to be the highlight of my festival going. Using a variety of classical motifs and adding Bunraku style puppets (as Medea's children designed by Jen Neads), director Ryan Emmons' moves the story along at an amphetamine-fueled clip. We are introduced to this ageless story of a woman scorned by the Nurse (Vanessa Wingerwrath who despite occasional vocal slushiness admirably relates the back story of Medea's arrival in Corinth as Jason's wife). Emmon's gets very inventive with the chorus of Greek women who watch Medea's marriage slowly disintegrate and her subsequent revenge.

They are all pregnant while choreographer Ava Conaval has them moving in various Busby Berkeley routines. Julie Congress is very good as a feisty, no nonsense yet secretly vulnerable Medea. The actress is about 5'3" and in her snug red gown (by Brooke Cohen) she often comes across as bantam she-devil. Her diction is impeccable in her often emotional frenzy and she in no way shirks from Medea's outrageous machinations ("This hand of mine will never falter"). The men do not fare as well with Willy Appelman's Jason a little too passive-aggressive while David Henry Gerson's Creon is a little too declamatory. Still, the end result still packs a punch with Rebecca Greenstein's eerie incidental music providing a haunting aural tableau.

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Late Nights with the Boys: confessions of a Leather Bar Chanteuse @ Under St. Marks 03/01/10

The play/reading is an autobiographical account of author Alex Bond's (called Anna Zander in her book) of her life circa 1977 in Dallas, Texas. Ms. Bond is your classic Southern debutante (she actually had a coming out party) who through a series of unusual occurrences finds herself singing in a downtown Dallas leather bar called The Range (as in Home on the ...). The time is the late seventies and Dallas has yet to see the AIDS epidemic. As much as it is about a time of gay "innocence" with a leather fetish twist, the story is really Ms. Bond's true "coming out" as a tolerant, enlightened woman in the harsh prejudicial atmosphere of the Deep South.

The evening is cleanly staged by Steven Yuhasz (a graduate classmate of Alex's from the Dallas Theater Center) as a fictional development of the novel. Bond (aka Zander) is looking for a ghost writer to help her shape her memories into a memoir. She finally decides on Craig (who saw the ad on Craig's List) to help her. David Carson gives us an animated, self-doubting Craig; a nice counterpoint to Bond's gracious Southern charmer. Despite the vocally talented duo, the evening is a little static (both actors are seated at a table throughout the show) and one cannot help but be reminded of Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City. Yet, this literary performance is truly touching without becoming maudlin (no mean achievement) and Ms. Bond's memories are heartfelt.

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Fishbowl @ Red Room - 02/27/10

A rather muddled performance piece by Mark Shyzer. Mr. Shyzer who serves as both writer and performer has created six characters in search of a play.

Ostensibly about Esther Goudy, a nerdy high school physics student who is on the brink of a major quantum breakthrough, we are asked to follow her experiment through the lives of various other characters. I think. Shyzer never really makes clear the interrelationships between the characters. In addition to Esther, Shyzer plays a depressed teenage hipster, an alcoholic divorcee (his best incarnation), a middle aged aerobics instructor and a senior citizen trying to escape from an assisted living facility. There are some clever lines and vivid moments but not enough to sustain interest. Also, Shyzer tries to accomplish these quick character changes with only vocal intonations, a difficult task for any performer. The publicist's card shows Shyzer as all the characters in the full costume. While probably impossible due to Festival constraints, it certainly would have been a helpful addition.

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