Hollywood Fringe Festival Review: Oh, But Wait ... There's More!

“Crazy Kim Coles” was an overachiever with a weight problem throughout her childhood, and she learned to use her comedic personality to convince her peers to laugh with her, rather than at her. Standing on top of a wooden box, with her wild hair, flowing dark pants, and sequined black blouse with sheer sleeves (care of costume designer Ceci), she delivers snippets of her comprehensive one-person rendition of 1970s miniseries Roots. Coles (over 60,000 Facebook fans) takes the audience on a tour through her life in Oh, But Wait ... There’s More!, a routine supplemented by family photos, as well as moments in her career, complete with running commentary. Raised in Brooklyn, pointing out her merit badges and school outfits, “there’s nothing gangsta’ about me.” Her effervescent personality bubbles throughout the show, especially when she has a dance break and gets her groove on. She points out her time as a plus-size model (“Look at me, I’m smizing … I’m giving you Phyllis Hyman here”), beauty pageant contestant (her talent becomes important later on in the show), comic, actress, and media personality. She touches on her Star Search days (she lost her second stint by “a quarter star”), Live at the Apollo, and opening for such legends as Sinbad, Luther Vandross, and The Temptations.

She recalls a moment as a warm-up host on the set of The Cosby Show, where Bill Cosby pulls her aside to give her advice.  She was so star struck, she couldn’t hear anything he was saying, only to have him wait for her phone-call years later where the consummate professional was able to recall every detail of her act that day on set, including what she was wearing.  “What was the dress you had on?  Take it out and burn it.”  During the conversation, she hilariously recounts having to use the restroom facilities while on the phone with the famous actor.  Her impression of Cosby is light and effortless and she does Earth Kitt as well, after describing one of the most famous Catwomen as wearing “two sets of eyelashes.”  Meeting Oprah—her current employer—she references how an unmanned spotlight seems to follow her everywhere.

She contrasts her unfortunate one season on In Living Color with her five-season career crown jewels as Living Single's Synclaire James, where she worked with both Queen Latifah and Kim Fields. She shares her highs (which includes her incredible parents and the familial working environment of Single) and lows (shopping addiction, dodging bill collectors, and a security guard with “no teeth in his head” and a lisp razzing her for being in a professional funk). Her delivery is just too rich. Her Puerto Rican Girl Scout Master while growing up gave her this advice: “kissing leads to fucking like farting leads to shitting.” On a fortuitous trip to England, “They got henges like we have hydrants.” While Coles comes across as happy-go-lucky, it’s not for lack of work or making mistakes. She’s human like everyone else and is just as susceptible to darker emotions. She just simply chooses her failings to empower rather than impede her present and future. Her account of making a Walmart trip with mother is both side-splittingly funny and tear-jerking. The one-woman show reaches surprising inspirational moments that would leave most motivational speakers creaming in their pants. Whether or not she cares to, she schools their ass. It seems pretty clear that Coles has led a full life and has plenty of other material to share. She effectively streamlines this particular show and concludes, like its title, with an exclamation point by ripping through a gigantic image of a present while twirling a baton (one of her many talents) to Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” and, dressed in a leopard print dress, employing a dance number worthy of Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine. Oh, yeah, she went there. You knew it was coming, you couldn’t wait, and she sold it … and left you wanting more. To anyone who still says women can't be funny: can we please put that archaic belief to bed?

Kim Coles (on right) backstage with someone famous whose
name unfortunately escapes me ... help!

Coles closed her run at the Hollywood Fringe Festival tonight on the Renberg stage at The Village of the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Center. The last show I saw there was Standing on Ceremony. The house for Oh But Wait was half-full, despite the tickets being less than reasonably priced. At well over an hour, this funny and inspirational girl needs to find a good promoter and take this shit out on the road. You can find out how to contact her and let her know how much you want to see her show here.

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Review: Voices in My Head: A Life

Voices in My Head: A Life




Written and Performed by Bill Ratner




55 minutes; $10


Synopsis: Bill Ratner – one of the most recognizable voice actors in Hollywood – tells about his life.

Review: You recognize his voice. Bill Ratner, the ever-present omniscient narrator in countless documentaries, video games, and movie trailers – the fucking voice of GI Joe and God, has decided it’s time he use his trade to tell his own story. To be sure, he has had an interesting life. There’s an instant familiarity–a bond–listening to this anonymous voice that has been woven into the fabric of our day to day lives. There's a special delight in hearing that voice becoming real. He actually talks! And he talks off-script. Ratner spends the most effective parts of his performance on glimpses of his career foreshadowed in his childhood. He speaks of his fascination with media as a boy and recalls his first announcer with a voice “deep, calm, and highly intelligent.” He would spend hours sucking at the “glass teat” of the TV screen, absorbing voice and image, before launching his own radio station with neighborhood kids who would broadcast to each other late into the night.

Less successful are the stories about his family life, which has been unspeakably tragic. As a boy, he lived through the death of his mother, brother, and finally father, who all died separately from unrelated causes. To his credit, Ratner does not allow the story to get caught up in melodrama, only speaking warmly about them. But his tale is a bit too choppy, jumping from moment to moment, sharing an amusing observation here, an extraordinary coincidence there, while not revealing too much of himself, his story. These snippets somehow don’t add up to “a life” as promised in the title. A stronger connection to the theme might serve the piece better. In fact, the production would probably have benefited from being longer (something I rarely say), allowing Ratner to tell his story more fully, a common thread linking the stories together.



Best Line: "The marketplace is a dark soulless thing, vulnerable to the artless whim of philistines and barbarians: the sponsors!"

Bottom Line: A charming, warm performance and that voice! Still, the piece seems incomplete, underserved by his desire to honor his family in ways that aren’t relevant to the audience at large.

Voices in My Head: A Life is part of the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival and plays at the Complex Theatre tonight and tomorrow night at 7:30 pm and runs for 55 minutes. You can find tickets here.

Dan Johnson is a freelance writer in Los Angeles helping cover the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival for Cinesnatch.

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Los Angeles Theatre Review: The Crucible

When talk of witches permeate a 1690s Colonial settlement during the Salem Witch Trials, lies begin to beget themselves and the romantic delusions of young Abigail Williams whips the town into a frenzy in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible, a thinly veiled parable to the Hollywood Blacklist of the 1950s.  As John and Elizabeth Proctor deal with his recent transgressions, the wisdom of the minority goes unnoticed in the wake of this village that has gone “daft.”  Familial livelihoods are compromised and a community destroyed.  Abby is like an airborne disease.  “You taught me goodness, therefore you are good,” she tells her former lover.  Her self-serving perceptions dictate the law of the land, yet, ironically, it’s the good who end up falling.

Bill Voorhees, Jessicah Neufeld

Good John Proctor is also prideful, a personal flaw that leaves him to deal with a mess much larger than before that has spiraled out of control.  Pretense and distraction lead to a miscarriage of justice, while there are those who exploit the chaos for their own benefit.  Proctor is held prey to the law—the final arbiter of human justice—left unaccountable to those it is supposed to serve.  Unchecked, fattened religion, regardless of its professed obedience to God, and mob mentality will corrupt justice and suck a part of the life out of a community.  Keeping up with appearances robs the virtues of work ethic and good deeds.  Ultimately, man’s relationship with God is best kept separate from the church.  Yet, the judgments we leave to God find a way of spilling from the mouths of men.  Their collective power robs us of our individuality.  It’s only when matters hit us personally that we modify our unexamined, firmly-held beliefs.  Empathy makes us human.  Yet, peers of Abigail like Mary Warren are bullied into selling out on the path to self-preservation.  The play doesn’t exactly judge the choices of those facing the Blacklist, but it applauds those who stood up to the machine to do what was right and true.  John Proctor is their patron saint.  “I speak of my own sins, I cannot judge another, I have no tongue for it … I have given you my soul, but leave me my name!”

Doug Burch

My more skeptical side suggests that something like the Blacklist could never happen again, so removed from our more evolved times.  Yet, though technology and society have leaped forward in the last sixty years, it’s still merely a blip in the history of civilization.  And, do we need any more recent example of group-think than the concentrated vengeance the US harbored after 9/11 which oiled the wheels to wage a war that a good chunk of this world has deemed illegal since?  Saner and cooler minds did not prevail.  While it’s a stretch, The Crucible’s lessons aren’t actually ones that have been learned by modern Western society. 

Arthur Miller’s tale is full of broad, dramatic strokes; it was made for the stage in a way film has yet to do it justice.  The writing is clever, even when overt.  The Proctor’s inform their religious authority that “Between the two of us, we do know them all,” when tested on the Ten Commandments and John Proctor just so happens to forget the very rule he has broken (or doesn't have the strength to speak).  Yet, just between the two of them, Elizabeth doles out her justice that he observes “would freeze beer.”  Director Bill Voorhees has assembled an obscenely talented group of cast and crew to bring this allegory and passion project to life, which includes an absolutely chilling courtroom possession scene in Act II.  

Trevor H. Olsen, Bernadette Speakes, Anthony Backman, Doug Burch

Onstage as John Proctor, in his long mane and leather vest, the huntsman-like Voorhees leads the exceptional group of actors, with every last role cast superbly.  Lauren Dobbins Webb adds an empathetic steely veneer to her Elizabeth.  Jessicah Neufeld’s Abigail is an unsuspecting sexual tornado who will chew up and spit out anyone she crosses, waging “a whore’s vengeance” with the power of slander and her Hell hath no fury like her woman-child scorned.  As the torn Mary Warren, Rebecca Sigl (whose voice has a Sara Rue quality to it) skillfully negotiates the realm between comedy and drama.  One of the most expressive and distressed characters in the play, Sigl offhandedly can elicit a laugh with referencing her relationship status, “however single,” only to cower later before the court in full desperation.  Nine-year-old Grace Kaufman as Betty Parris has an unmatched set of lungs; that girl can scream bloody murder before any crime has taken place.  Doug Burch invests a nuanced amount of heart into his performance as Giles Corey.  Enough can’t be said about John Money as Ezekiel Cheever who maintains a Wallace Shawn quality throughout.  Cheever isn’t the best suited for his job, as he struggles with his words, dwarfed by two legal attendants often flanking him.  Money's effortless humor is simultaneously anachronistic and welcome, as the comic relief of the production is appropriately funneled mostly through his character.  This cast is just supreme.  

Foreboding orchestral music provides a dramatic, driving pre-show tone.  The lighting effect is near dusk at first, with the late setting sun faintly fighting its way through the windows with all its orange glory.  The shapes projected on the wood floor reflect stained panels (the work of scenic painter Marine Walton) assembled vertically to create rolling pillars, monolithic in stature, with slits for windows.  Mild adjustments of their mobility serve as the production's backdrop.  Joel Daavid’s set design immersed in the heavily black curtained walls of the Lillian coupled with Matt Richter’s lighting is stunning.  Naturally, stools, benches, a table and small bed round out the simple but versatile set.  Lauren Thomas’ costumes are impeccable, with Thomas Putnams' (Brad Light) full-length jacket, ruffled sleeves and collar a marvel for the eyes, among other outfits.  The detailed overemphasized stitching is exquisite.

At over three hours in length, the production is quite the time-investment.  It includes the optional scene involving Proctor and Abigail meeting in the woods, which is in keeping with the Dollar Bill Productions' concentration on more primal themes.  And, while The Crucible is heavy-handed for some, this particular production is rich and riveting.  With After the Fall from a few months previously, The Lillian Theater is 2/2 with Arthur Miller adaptations so far in 2012.  Produced by Sean Thomas, performances run through July 14^thand plays Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays (at 8pm) and Sundays (at 7 pm).  You can find out more information by clicking on the Plays411 icon to the left.

[Photos care of Sean Thomas]

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: Four Clowns

 Four Clowns

Conceived and Directed by Jeremy Aluma

75 minutes; $5 - $10

Synopsis: Four actors perform a series of vignettes that present the human struggle from being a kid all the way to adulthood.   Oh yeah, they’re clowns.

Review: Four Clowns is an improv comedy show broken up into three sections: childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.  Each phase of life offers a variety of skits, including a boy molested by his teacher, another bullied by his brother, a teenager spurning his first love due to peer pressure, and an adult taken ill who must be operated on.  Although it may not seem like cheery subject matter, I assure you it most certainly is. 

With such a talented group, it’s hard to pick a favorite performer here.  Amir Levi may be the funniest of the four, though Raymond Lee has the most range (if you ever need an impression of a half dolphin/half sheep, Lee is your guy).  Alexis Jones has a beautiful singing voice, and her line delivery was great, even when speaking gibberish.  Kevin Klein (not that one) brought a manic, self-conscious energy to the show.  He was the most comfortable letting the seams of the play show, sharing with the audience the fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants nature of improv.  I can’t help but think that someone needs to send these actors over to SNL to save it. 

The show, though a lot of fun, could have used a bit more discipline.  Skits went on a little too long, interludes occasionally seemed directionless, and the group relied a little too heavily on killing one or all of the main characters to find their way out of a dead-end skit.  The actors played fast and loose throughout the show, less artists than performers having a blast.  It was impossible to resist their infectious spirit, but I just wished the screws were just a little tighter.  Ultimately, they were better comedians than improvisationalists.  Mario Granville deserves a special shout-out for his spirited piano playing throughout the show.  He ably created the soundtrack for the various skits, and his introductory pieces in particular were especially difficult. 

Best Line: Throughout the play, we witness the Sad Clown (Jones) being verbally abused by her mother. She befriends an audience member and periodically goes to him for comfort, leading to the following exchange--

Sad Clown: Why is my mother like that?
Audience Member: Because she’s mean.
Sad Clown: I’d rather be mean than sad.

The most succinct explanation for bullying I’ve ever heard.

Bottom Line: The cast is extremely talented and likable.  The show could use a little cleaning up, but you’ll have a great time, regardless.

This particular show simply titled Four Clowns only played once at the Fringe Fest.  However, you can catch the troupe’s other show That Beautiful Laugh (family friendly) on June 21st (8pm) and 23rd (9pm).  You can find tickets here.  

Dan Johnson is a freelance writer in Los Angeles helping cover the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival for Cinesnatch.

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: Fool for Love

The title placard for Sam Shepard’s Fool For Love projects onto the back wall of The Actor’s Company stage (used by the recent Marie Curie), parting the simple set of an old TV atop a dresser on one end and a bed and night stand on the other.  There was a mild humidity in the space to coat the Southwestern tale of two star-crossed lovers narrated by The Old Man (Ed Beardsley).  The play opens with a huge argument which continues to resurface throughout the whole production.  The dirty jeaned Eddie (Casey Campbell) is a stuntman back in town who spent too much time apart from May (Chelsea Reynolds)--the love of his life despite all the other women--pondering the beauty of her neck in her absence.  She has other plans, however, despite Eddie’s insistence that, “you’ll never get rid of me.”  With the spurs of his boots dug into the floor of her hotel room, getting rid of him will be no easy task.  When she informs him of her new self-sustaining occupation as “a cook,” his laughter turns her into a bull, as she paws the ground and slides her foot back, revving up to charge at him with everything she has.  If he insists on remaining, there may be nothing left but remains of the two of them.  With her cascade of brunette locks, Reynolds captures the spitfire that is May and Campbell is quite at ease holding up the red cape.  

Jordan Randall

May lures a gentleman caller into her messed-up world as a sounding board to reveal the secret behind her love with Eddie; the irony being Martin's (Jordan Randall) family roots.  After a moment between the two men, May appears backstage-left lit up like the red awning described by Eddie.  The production prerecorded the role of The Old Man offering his perspective on the situation with the look of dated black & white film interspersed throughout the play.  The perfection of timing required robs the play of some of its spontaneity, but, ultimately, it works.  Later, in that same distinctively bright scarlet red dress, May rolls along the wall displaying the projected image of the old coot—going in circles being the play’s pervading theme, which director Melody Rahbari deftly captures.  “Fifteen years I’ve been a yo-yo for you,” May lays it out for Eddie while fighting within her soul to resist his burly advances.  Her desire to break the reckless, toxic cycle that is their relationship manifests itself onstage whether it be Eddie rolling a tequila bottle around on the concrete floor or how she twirls as she ignores Eddie and collects herself to let Martin know that, “I’m going to get some glasses” when she steps out for a short period leaving the two men alone.  The antics are often fun, accents are good, and language is a hoot (Eddie threatens May with the impending arrival of Martin, “I’m going to squash that date into a fig”).

The Vespertine production continues its run at the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival June 22^nd and 23^rd at 7 PM at The Actors Company on 916A N Formosa Ave, behind the Target/Best Buy super-complex at Santa Monica Blvd and La Brea.  You can buy tickets here.  

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: If Water Were Present ...

In If Water Were Present, It Would Be Called Drowning, Betsy Moore walks barefoot in a geometric pattern on the OCD-friendly decorated stage of Fringe Central's Open Fist Theatre (where Jennifer Aniston Stole My Life debuted, but been oscillating with the Hudson Theatre) with children’s toys and chairs perfectly lining the sides.  She carries a pink parasol that she’d love to stick in the nearest comparably-sized fruity cocktail, while a narrator reads off a litany of shopping list items, thoughts, and every social rule that has been hammered into her brain since birth.  Her face caked in white powder and doll makeup, she’s a woman passed the verge of a nervous breakdown.  Her trenchcoat reveals an apron that continues to a striptease down to her lingerie, as she shares with the audience her inability to cope with motherhood and wifedom in her tract suburb.  She shares all of her wildest fantasies that include infanticide while her business-suited, plastic husband (Paul Tucci) sometimes chimes in with generic interest about her day via lip-syncing to voice-over.  In the background, a screen displays a deteriorating kitchen over the course of the play.  Moore sturdily carries John Sinner’s surreal one-person show depicting this deteriorating woman without going into complete distancing histrionics.  This reviewer saw an encore performance that was part of the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival.  

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: 25 Plays Per Hour

Synopsis: A crew of actors put on twenty-five plays in fifty minutes.

Initial Reaction: Whiplash.

Review: Theater Unleashed – a Los Angeles-based theater company – has come up with a show that seems uniquely suited to the present day attention span. Webisodes and YouTube videos promise to keep us no more than 5 minutes so that we can move on to the next one. I myself find it difficult to sit through an entire movie on Netflix Streaming without conducting a few IMDb searches and Facebook checks. TU has put together twenty-five two-minute plays in one production comprised of various gags, vignettes, and monologues. This ought to keep us interested, right?

The opening piece is amusingly meta, in which the two main characters are stressing out over the idea of having to write a play in a couple of minutes. The first character asks, “How are we supposed to show an instant bond between two characters?” Her writing partner gently wipes a stray crumb off the first character’s cheek, all the while indicating she has no idea. They complain about how unrealistic it is to write a play in two minutes, just before wondering “What impossible task can we give our main characters?” It’s a cute introduction, especially appreciated because it would not have the same impact in any other context.  Another piece draws surprising parallels between going to your first war and starring in your first gay porn. Yet another reveals a former bully’s regret for driving a classmate to suicide. And another finds a married couple bickering about the love/hate chore of sex. The conversation adopts a “boys locker room” quality as the two argue over who is the more discreet masturbater. The fact that some of these plays aren’t very good seems almost beside the point. They’re so short that, as long as you’ve been entertained, they’ve done their job.

Mostly, however, they are pretty good, some even great. The format seems better suited for quick gags that couldn’t normally sustain the length of a full play, and 25 Plays finds plenty of amusing setups. The dramatic pieces, on the whole, were less successful, as these were less experimental, prone to cliché and sentimentality, and overstuffed considering the format. The standout from the entire production, however, was “White Satin, Clean Lines,” a dramatic piece about the sad cost of fitting into the perfect wedding dress. The monologue turns from amusing to tragic, bold to subtle so quickly, so naturally, that it really feels like a complete piece. The entire Theatre Unleashed cast is largely up to the task of creating various characters and different set ups. Tracey Collins deserves singling out, however, for delivering the most laughs.

Best Line: "Have you ever had sex with a fat guy in a car?!"

Bottom Line: It’s no surprise that a collection of twenty-five plays contains varied tones, subject matter, and levels of quality. The shorts are more hit than miss, and while the production may be light as a feather, it’s undeniably a lot of fun.

You can catch 25 Plays Per Hour at the Theatre Asylum today (2:30 PM), and also on June 20th (8:30 PM), 22nd (11:30 PM), and 23rd (2:30 PM).  Find tickets here.

Dan Johnson is a freelance writer in Los Angeles helping cover the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival for Cinesnatch.

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: Glennie & Maple Break Up

Glennie & Maple Break Up is not only the title of Paul Hoan Zeidler's new play, but it’s an oft-repeated plot-point.  They break up, get back together, break up again, etc, all over the course of five scenes.  On the surface, Glennie is temperamental to say the least.  She opens the play feeling cold and it’s not long before her temperature runs the other direction.  After exiting an abusive relationship, she is pretty needy and expects a lot out of her boyfriend, Maple, who’s also shtupping another chick, Marla—his offstage mistress.  (Introductions at parties must make them sound like the Tappet brothers Click and Clack.)   The aforementioned substance of the story doesn’t leave much for the audience to chew on and the production plays more like an ambitious acting-class final project.  Each scene starts with them having just gotten back together and generally ends with them calling it quits.  The acting is nuanced. Etienne Eckert is so small you could measure her in ounces, but she carries with her a presence and her resonant voice wraps lightly around an East coast accent.  Charles Pacello and his beautiful shiny, bald crown as Maple has a nice chemistry with the raven-haired Eckert.  They perform within a literal black box on the Theatre Asylum stage, surrounded by dark walls, a tiny laundry basket brimming over with dirty clothes, and a queen-size bed made up in black sheets and accented with a huge splash of a scarlet red patchwork blanket anchored by a leopard-print pillow. 

The Sewer Socialist production was written and directed by Zeidler and is less than an hour and runs evenings tonight and June 21^st (8:30 PM) as well as 2 PM matinees (16^th, 17^th, 23^rd, 24^th).  You can find tickets here.  

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: This Vicious Minute

This Vicious Minute

Written by Ben Moroski

75 minutes; $5 - $10

Synopsis: In his one man show, Ben Moroski – straight-A student, former quarterback of the high school football team – shares his struggle with cutting.

Initial Reaction: The production is so simple and the story so personal, it seems perfectly suited for the Fringe Fest.

Review: Vicious recounts Moroski's struggle with self-mutilation, as well as with love, sex, and his church. They all get wrapped up in each other, one feeding on another, cycling, expounding. While Moroski did not begin cutting until he was seventeen, he starts his story four years previously, as a new teenage boy, freshly "saved" on a religious retreat. He arrives at home eager to begin his life of personal purity void of lust, kissing, and masturbation.  He knew he could be good – righteous - if he could just be strong enough.

He wasn’t.

He quickly discovered that he could not ignore his sexual desires. He lusted, touched himself, and failed to protect his prescribed virtue. He could not control his urges. So, instead, he would cut. He had never heard of the act. It wasn't an event or condition with a name, therefore “it couldn’t be right or wrong,” he explains. It was his way of gaining control. Cutting was his friend, he admits. Fascinatingly, Moroski speaks about the surprisingly sexual nature of his relationship with self-harming. There is that same excitement: the trembling and foreplay as he gently runs the razor across his chest before making the first slice. There is even, he reveals, an erection. Cutting was also glamorously tragic. He would call up girlfriends, threatening to cut, letting them talk him out of it. He could test their relationship and love, as well as his worth. He was fucked up, but they might save him. He cut so they could.

While Moroski has gone through periods of sobriety, he tends to gloss over them in his piece. He presents them with so few details, they almost seem arbitrarily happenstance, months or years where he just didn't cut. He doesn’t describe them as if they were a struggle, part of cycle, or periods of hope. They actually seem like minor plot-points in his life he can’t seem to milk any storytelling value out of. Ignoring the significance of these periods has the unfortunate consequence of limiting the story; it does not become a tale of recovery. It’s a story of what cutting did for him, which could have been engrossing in its own right, but why, then, frame it as a narrative? The play carries us along, but ultimately doesn’t lead anywhere.

Vicious does end on a powerful note with the artist removing his shirt and taking inventory of his scars. Like rings in a tree, each scar marks moments, years, battles lost. In a soft voice he lists each weapon - X-Acto knife, curling iron, sewing needle – while pointing to each old wound. It’s a powerful display: a physical journal of suffering, rarely seen in live theater. One just wishes it received the introspection it deserved.

Best Line: “When I cut, I disappear.”

Bottom line: The play is highly personal, though it lacks the insight necessary to make it a true standout. It’s as much about his struggle with relationships and religion as it is about cutting. While Moroski uses those aspects of his life to explain the what?, he never gets quite deep enough to the why?, thus making his monologue feel incomplete. Moroski does deserve credit for avoiding self-pity and melodrama. The play is never indulgent, and I admire how the playwright is not concerned with making his motivations relatable or likable.

You can catch This Vicious Minute at the Elephant Theater: June 17th 12pm; June 18th 9pm; June 19th 10:30pm; June 24th 4pm.  Find tickets here.

Dan Johnson is a freelance writer in Los Angeles helping cover the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival for Cinesnatch.

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: Doomsday Cabaret!

“Everyday is closing day,” announces Eddy Suddick (Michael Shaw Fisher, who also wrote the book, lyrics, and music), the host of Doomsday Cabaret!  It’s a new 60-minute rock musical of apocalyptic proportions (opera really, as most of it is sung) about a convention involving a motley congregation of zany characters sharing their own passionate, individual beliefs of just how exactly Armageddon is going wipe us all out.  He kicks off the audience interaction with his organizer Jerald “Jerry” Cox (Chairman Barnes, dressed in a silk jacket and ponytail) greeting the audience into the house with a table of End of Days symbol choices (Barnes hilariously has the IEC 5009 power on/off button stamped upside down on his forehead).  Much to my surprise, the band was already playing on the set of The Fool & the Red Queen’s Act I, complete with lancet windows (which work for the production’s purposes).  The same monitor hanging from above played various images and text, until the house closed and the duo emerge atop wooden boxes with their arms spread open like rock gods.

In the vein of a heavy metal Tenacious D, they sing “The end is really fucking here.”  Set in the very near future on December 21^st of this year (does this mean the revue has a short shelf-life?) in San Bernardino, the speed is full steam ahead as the cast jumps on Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train” and enters like a bunch of late-seated audience members.  They all wear name tag stickers and wait for their turn as each one gets their moment to shine in a revue-style not dissimilar to the recent Jersey SHOREsical. 

(back row from left to right) Jake Regal, Mark Bemesderfer,
Sarah Chaney, J. Todd Howell, Michael Shaw Fisher,
Lauren Andrea Nelsen, David Haverty, Sarah Key,
(in front) Chariman Barnes

Looking like Meatloaf in a Member’s Only jacket, David Haverty plays Kurt Billie, the real-life North Hollywood arsonist, who sings in "If You Love Me Light Your Car on Fire" with pyromaniac glee, “You wanna go green?  / Get some kerosene.”  Christian couple Nathan (J. Todd Howell) and Lorraine Dugan (Sarah Chaney), dressed in whitebred pastels, push their book Bible Code for extra last-minute sales and conclude their number with Howell hilariously speaking in tongues.  The satire is spread throughout though.  As Bee Death Theorist Deedra Witwit, Sarah Kay wears an Annie wig, Malvolio-inspired-striped tights, and carries around a jar of her favorite insects.  “Unlike some people here, I’m an actual scientist,” she proclaims only to reveal major insecurities later.  The demonic, crimped blonde Lady Vavoom (Lauren Andrea Nelsen), dressed in a black miniskirt and sexy bustier, enjoys the power of ultimately bringing all (or most) of the men to their knees (or on their backs) effortlessly making a mockery of all their theories.

Sarah Chaney,
David Haverty

When the news about Xultún (the debunking of the Mayan 2012 expiration date) hits, Suddick changes his tune to “New North,” set to the theme of New York, New York (but sung more in the style of Frank Sinatra than Liza Minnelli).  The “thinly veiled charlatan” with the acrobatically arching eyebrows in the scarlet red ruffled shirt never misses a beat.  A duet-off then transpires between Gale Reed (Jake Regal), an adorable, geeky wisp of a thing, and The Messenger (Mark Bemesderfer) dressed in a fringed leather jacket, sunglasses, complete with a Greg Brady-do.  Their battle pits techie against Luddite with Regal performing “Webbot,” complete with robotic motions.  His Devo vocal styling’s are a showstopper.  That eventually segues into a mashup of Helix “Ballroom Blitz” and “Nostradamus” (sung to the tune of Falco’s “Amadeus”). 

The writing is humorous.  While it goes for gimme’s (regarding The Rapture, one character snidely comments in the Christian couple’s direction, “Did someone get left behind?”), the lyrics are smart and the cast full of energy and vigor.  When the florescent lights come on giving the effect that the show is over, the group sings “We’re Still Here,” including the line “I feel like an asshole.”  The proceedings are a great deal of fun and it’s quite likely that you will leave the theatre singing the refrain from a couple of the songs (namely, the title theme and "Webbot").  Directed by Chris Raymond, The Orgasmico Theatre Company's Doomsday runs through June 23rd (including 11 PM performances).  You can find dates and buy tickets here.  

Favorite Off-stage Moment: I accidentally cut in front of Haverty in the que, who had stepped away from the occupied restroom (I unsuspectingly turned the knob of the locked facility) to say hi to a friend.  After emerging from his turn, Haverty declared the commode didn’t like him, having refused to go down for him. 

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: D Is For Dog

A wrought iron railing incorporating bicycle parts leads up to the raked house of the adorable Hudson Theatre, where there lies its little, but mighty open proscenium stage.  Precious, sometimes jazzy flute music, sounding like the theme to a candy store, by composers Ben Phelps and John Nobori, plays before curtain.  Based on an original concept by Rogue Artists' Sean T. Cawelti, he cowrote the script with Katie Polebaum, et al, about a (literal, figurative, and otherwise) nuclear family, headed by Mr. Rogers (Guy Birtwhistle), who works for the pharmaceutical company Conservation Corporation.  Not only is their house tract, their entire lives are.  The family members are so perfect and well-oiled, they quite possibly poop rose pedals, and, if they don’t, there is probably a prescription they shamefully take for this condition.  Part of the peroxide blonde Mrs. Rogers’ (Nina Silver) duties as wife and mother is to manage the family pill popping with a Stepford stare, especially during emergencies.  The kids burst with energy and speak in sing-songy unison.  The argyle-vested Dick (Michael Allen Scott) is ever eager to please, and the less capable Jane (Taylor Coffman) perks up and repeats her name whenever addressed by her moniker.

Michael Scott Allen, Guy Birtwhistle, Taylor Coffman

The characters don’t live their lives, but go through the motions in spite of themselves, not knowing what they’re feeling and why.  The mother conducts her day akin to Audrey’s I’s fantasy “Somewhere That’s Green” in Little Shop of Horrors, winking at a dinner plate she dries off with a few non-contacting rubs of her hand.  Between their highly questionable home-schooling lessons (Jane provides a soundtrack to the proceedings with a music box), they take fake-tanning breaks with a kind of yoga-like reverence. 

Though the setting and attitude is 1950s, the walking advertisements that the Rogers family signify are very current.  It’s never certain when Dog takes place, but its mystical timelessness is part of the point.  The set and costumes may be post-WWII, but the commercially-owned mindset of today (and perhaps the future) is more pervasive than anything.  The mixture of technology creates a non-descript era where the father may use dial-up internet, but it wirelessly communicates with what a appears to be an iPad (if I have that correct). 

Nina Silver, Taylor Coffman

In a possibly risky move to keep old myths alive, the father tells his children the tale of previously existing animals (humorously pronounced by Mrs. Rogers as AHN-eh-mals), in a style referencing Plato’s Cave.  It awakens a primal instinct in the children, which contrasts their relatively unnatural existence.  Once the zebra is let out of the bag, the son begins to develop a Truman Show-like curiosity.  Mr. Rogers’ has an extremely tenuous hold on keeping everything together but sometimes “a blue” can’t “undo,” in regards to a pill that is supposed to solve anything.  Air vent creatures are soon introduced, which sound like the critters from Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark.  Yet, when the visitors emerge (care of Heidi Hilliker and Ben Messmer) like some kind of materialized Day of Reckoning out of The Monkey’s Paw, the audience is treated to some unexpected thrills.  With their heavy breathing and ominous presence, the production seamlessly marries traditional straight theatre with puppetry. 

Guy Birtwhistle

With a live-studio introduction of the Rogers family (the entire cast is exceptional) at the beginning, this is the first play I’ve ever seen offering closing credits.  Several commercial breaks in the story occur hawking the brands of Maxwell House, Betty Crocker, and Aunt Jemima Syrup.  Video is projected onto Polebaum’s beautiful monochromatic-blue kitchen.  The excessive lighting cues run rampant at first with occasionally ill-measured basic spotlighting becoming casualties of the production’s otherwise stunning and quaint visual effects—more outstanding than most film CGI these days.  The window above the sink not only denotes the time of day with a fake view of their backyard, but the entire mood of the household circumstances. 

Dog continues to have some ambiguous fun with some seemingly simulated production choices like pretending to pour coffee and pulling meals out of what is probably a less operable Easy-Bake Oven.  Very little is real here, which is ultimately my biggest criticism of the immaculate production.  Bursting with irony, the play contains little heart.  Outside of the slow deterioration of the ailing mother who can’t keep up with appearances, the audience searches for connection.  The climax comes out of nowhere and attempts to inject the story with a weak sentimentality that vibrates underneath the artificial façade of Polebaum’s remarkable kitchen (did I mention the set is A-maze-ing?).  Like many dystopian science-fiction stories before it, one character asserts the truth has “always been there, you just didn’t want to see it.”  But, we as an audience do, and we want to empathize with it.  D Is for Dog is part of the 2012 Hollywood Fringe Festival and plays the next two weeks on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 PM, with additional Saturday matinees (3 PM).  You can buy tickets here. 

Favorite off-stage moment: A techie briefly poked out from the wings by accident with a trunk that impressively matched the set.  

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Los Angeles Theatre Review: Jennifer Aniston Stole My Life

Director/Producer Deborah Geffner walked onto the stage of the Open Fist Theatre during a Special Event Preview June 10^th to announce the Purple Turtle Productions’ world premiere of Jennifer Aniston Stole My Life.  She has a voice similar to Wendie Malick and once she exited, a drum roll introduces a spotlight hitting Barbara Keegan, who plays down-on-her-luck character actor Rue.  With her redheaded bob with bangs, she looks like an Irish Ann Jillian who hails from the same comedic class as 80s legend Paula Poundstone.  She wears solid green and purple pantsuits and doles out an awful(ly short) bit that lands with a huge kerthunk.  At times, we’re watching yet another sad LA story about an artist just wanting to make a living in their chosen trade.  The play covers the constricting nature of the business that cannibalizes itself and destroys most everything in its path, including many of the strong and just about all of the bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, while touching on the sheer heartless randomness of the industry.  But, the cautionary tale also rises above the subject matter by giving us a fresh, harrowing tragedy. 

Jesse Holcomb as Lo

Rue lives and breathes the business, and prides herself on the “inside scoop” of her most mundane short-lived adventures with television shows like Two and a Half Men (“Charlie had the sniffles that day”), but she keeps relentlessly optimistic (“Look out world, here comes a stand-up girl”), as she is the sole provider of every aspect of fuel for her family.  Her unemployed adult daughter Lo (Jesse Holcomb) has entertainment magazines strewn across the living room.   You can hear Lo obsessively snipping the glossy magazine pages with her scissors as she assembles a colossal collage that slowly covers a pitch-black picture that can be best described as a powered-down 52” flat-screen.   Lo only discusses matters related to celebrity and entertainment, as she spews out rapid fire descriptions of her favorite TV programs. 

Barbara Keegan, Diana Wright

She’s a self-destructive former child actor dressed in pink spandex with a closet full of woolly and colorful leg warmers.  When Rue takes on a tenant to help cover the cost of their two-bedroom NoHo apartment, Shari (Diana Wright) makes the mistake of recognizing Lo from her once popular series, Homework Hijinks.  “You never sing that song,” Rue implores her new roommate.  It’s a hilarious bit that soon becomes bittersweet as we learn just exactly how disturbed Lo is, as mother medicates mentally-deranged daughter with pills, when TV isn’t enough.  “Hold on, I’ve got your magic potion right here,” Rue consoles her before sending Lo off into a somnambulist state.

Diana Wright

Shari is a thinly-veiled Scientologist who looks like a blond Sarah Silverman, but is impressionable enough to accept the help of Morty (Barry Gordon), Rue’s neighbor and friend dressed in fake yellow snake-skinned boots and black Levi’s.  He’s of ill-repute, but he’s there for Rue and always willing to lend a hand (as far as his lecherous hand will take him).  Both Wright and Gordon offer delightful support.  Eventually, fate takes its course, and Rue is often found freezing time, addressing the audience, at one point explaining the source of the title.  The almost myopic take on the business sometimes loses sight of its audience, but keeps things clipping along.  Puzzle pieces of Lo’s collage come together through scene transitions.  The title, like Lo’s art piece has a randomness to it that at first rings false, but the final assembly eventually serves as a hallow emblem of the lives that have become of these women.  The title of the play works in spite of itself.  

With a business filled with so many talented people who want to work, an actor whose entire world is their craft can only pass blame for their lack of success on bad luck and/or those who make it instead of them.  Jennifer Aniston does play the victim card in a way and why should we care about these characters?  At the heart of the script is the love Rue has for daughter, as screwed up as it is, and their relationship is further strengthened by the chemistry between Keegan and Holcomb.  The duo are a couple of lost souls with only each other as road maps.  Nervous at first, Keegan’s TV-sit-com delivery eventually settles into the production and runs much deeper than meets the eye, especially after it's finished and you allow the performance to simmer within you.  In the teary-eyed conclusion, Rue’s normally perfunctory wink carries with it an unexpected pain. 

Wright, Barry Gordon, Keegan, Holcomb

Playwright Jon Courie’s biting wit whirls around every scene, especially the more entertainment-focused satire.  One of Lo’s favorite reality programs involves convicted pedophiles who work for a maid service where producers “just want to see how close they can get to the children without getting caught.”  And on her mother’s work with The Curious Case of Benjamin Button: “She was just an extra in the nursing home scenes.”  When Shari asks lascivious Morty if he handles actresses, he replies, “If I’m lucky.”  

Director/Producer Deborah
Geffner's first role was in
the Bob Fosse classic
All That Jazz

The other day, there was a unrelated function going on before a show I saw at the Stella Adler. I don’t know what the deal was about, but, on the surface, there appeared to be a lot of stage moms with their eager daughters, kind of reminding me something out of Toddler’s & Tiaras.  I could have been completely off on my superficial impression of the scene (and they may have been there for an event that had nothing to do with acting), but my more skeptical reactionary side immediately leapt to the imaginary “defense” of the preteen and teenage girls not enjoying a childhood free of anything remotely Hollywood.  (Isn’t it bad enough that they, and a contingent of young men, likely judge themselves, at least partially, for not measuring up to a physical ideal set by the media?)  But, then, you always have a Jodie Foster and Elle Fanning in the pack who possess a preternatural intelligence, confidence, and healthy sense of self, that can handle the cruelest LA environments and were born stars.  But, they are the exception and not the norm. 

Barry Gordon teaches college
courses, has a law degree, ran for
US Congress, was the longest-serving
SAG president ever, runs his own talk show,
and still had time to star in this play

There’s a Pauline Kael line from way back that questions Linda Blair’s parents, et al, contemplating how anyone in their right mind would allow their kid to try out for The Exorcist.  I try not to be judgmental of others, especially parents (when I’m not even one myself), but it too leaves me scratching my head.  How could anyone put their child through that extreme form of prostitution?  What's the price and is it really worth it, whether the child begs for it or not?  I don’t get it.  But, Jennifer Aniston provides a mother who genuinely loved her daughter (up until a point), where the entertainment bug was buried deep in her immune system from such a young age it immediately set root in her daughter.  “I’ve been in the business of show since I was 16 years old,” Rue repeats herself.  The industry was kind to Lo initially, but its very branches that gaveth, tooketh away, leaving an empty shell of a person with no self-value.  This is what becomes of off-screen movie causalities.  If it’s not drug overdoses, suicide, it’s something else equally heartbreaking, and Jennifer Aniston presents an original interpretation of that disease in our culture. 

[7/2 UPDATE: After a successful sold-out run at the Hollywood Fringe Festival (including a nomination for Best in Theatre--ahem, the only show I voted for which got any recognition), the cast will return to the Hudson Guild Theatre and perform through July 22nd.  You can buy tickets here or by clicking on the Plays 411 logo to the right.]

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Hollywood Fringe Festival Theatre Review: The Indian Wants the Bronx

City noises, whistling, and chatter from offstage are overheard while bewildered Gupta (Sean Burgos), not speaking a lick of English, wears a turban, holds a suitcase, and waits worriedly by a lonely telephone booth that serves as a New York City bus stop and his unwelcome introduction to the United States.  He’s a stranger to this dangerous, anonymous part of the Bronx, while contending with two young hoods.  At first, the aggressive kids dressed in jeans and oversized, woolly thrift store sweaters appear to be all bark and no bite.  They even have a Heathers’ moment when one pins down the other and forces him to say, “[Your mother] humps turkeys,” an ironic reference to their foster mom, who they disparagingly refer to as “Pussy Face” across their neighborhood and throughout the play.  The obnoxious hooligans are not the brightest bulbs, as Murp’s (Casey Adler) argument for the nationality of their new acquaintance: “Any jerk can see it’s a definite Turk,” because “Indians don’t wear fancy hats.”  Joey (Andre Stojka), no smarter, expects the man who so clearly cannot understand the Americans to follow every word he’s saying.  The boys oscillate between respectful and abusive, as one minute they’re breaking through communication barriers by teaching him how to say “thank you” and “you’re welcome,” and the next, they’re recreating the heart-pulling scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom; absconding with a Polaroid of his son; or, well, much, much worse.  They have a primal perception of the world and engage in juvenile antics which includes a “spin game.”

Casey Adler, Andre Stojka

The play's language, as well as its tone is dated; the look and feel is of a New York City of yesterday.  The story plays with the audience almost as much as Gupta, as you know something horrible will probably happen, but you’re never fully convinced it will.  These kids are a couple of rats with lives going nowhere and completely open dance cards.  Fucking around with an innocent makes no more of a difference to them than kicking over a garbage can or helping an old lady cross the street (which they've probably done at least once in their lives with quite possibly ulterior motives).  With the source of their empathy and hatred coming from the same place, their random violence can turn on a dime and the delinquents have no idea the effect their actions have on others.  Their youthful ways of expressing frustration are emblematic of a rough, unsupervised upbringing having given them no other tools than a threatening, blunt form of physical manipulation.   

Sean Burgos

Of Mice and Men, it’s not always clear who is George and who is Lenny.  As Murph, Adler displays a rawness similar to Sean Penn, who looks and talks like he stepped out of Welcome Back, Kotter’s classroom.  And, he’s a spry little thing too, getting air underneath his feet like Brad Pitt’s Achilles slicing the neck of his opponent in Troy as Murph lodges a carefully executed noogie atop Joey's head.  Andre Stojka's performance isn’t as fully realized, but he provides a hefty sounding board for his partner.  Burgos is impressive in a role that is spoken mostly in an East Indian language.  

The angry kids finish The Indian Wants the Bronx as they started, singing “Baby, you don’t care” as they walk along the lonely streets of the spacious stage.  Israel Horovitz' play was originally produced in 1968 starring Al Pacino and John Cazale (who collaborated together a great deal in both theatre and film) and won several Obies, including Best Play.  It was also part of Steppenwolf's first season, directed by John Malkovich and starring Gary Sinise.  The last play I saw on the stage of the Stella Adler was Danny and the Deep Blue Sea from five years ago, which was equally dark and depressing.  There are much better things you can do with your time than watch an Indian man get taunted (and, not surprisingly, much, much worse) for an hour, but the playwright strives to make this anatomy of a beating express greater truths about the criminal mind and ignorance and director Tamiko Washington helps bring them alive with her capable cast.  Disturbing, at times, uncomfortable to watch, but engrossing, Bronx is part of the 2012 Hollywood Fringe and plays at 8 PM, June 15^th, 16^th, 22^nd, and 23^rd.  You can watch the well-produced, suspenseful trailer of the Actors Circle production here.  You can buy tickets for the show here.

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