Theater Review - From the
front row
by Raymond Luczak
The Minnesota Fringe Festival, which ran from July 31st to August
10th this year, is the largest performing arts fest in the Midwest,
with more than 150 shows. For those who don’t know what a Fringe
Festival is, it’s usually a series of short productions featuring
alternative theater and entertainment that wouldn’t be considered “mainstream.” Seeing
that being disabled isn’t “mainstream,” I thought
it would be intriguing to catch shows that might have relevance to
our own lives inside and outside the disability community. What follows
are short reviews.
Boys Don’t Make
Passes at Girls Who Wear Glasses
by
Laura Bidgood and Curt Lund
This show, featuring the seasoned
Minnesota Fringe storytellers Laura Bidgood and Curt Lund, revolves
around the nerd perspective while growing up; the circle of light
in front of their music stands contained dozens and dozens of nerdy
glasses with a silver futuristic-looking bust on the floor. As a
young girl, Bidgood wanted more than anything to get a pair of glasses.
In fact, she said that the most beautiful three words she’d
ever heard were: “Laura needs glasses.” On
the other hand, Lund hated wearing glasses, which he knew made him
look very dorky. Throughout the hour, Bidgood and Lund took turns
sharing anecdotes about their glasses and exploring the associated
notions of intelligence and inferiority. As spoken word artists,
they revealed their gift for the telling detail and yet the universality
of what it means to feel like second-class citizens simply because
of something that’s attached to us. I’d have liked very
much to see a show along the same lines, except that the glasses
in question would be replaced with wheelchairs and crutches. It’d
be interesting to see just how different--or not--the
idea of nerdiness is from the idea of disability itself. Bridget
Sabatke did a very good job of interpreting huge chunks of text in
American Sign Language(ASL).
One suggestion for next year’s Fringe Festival, though: It’d
have been nice if all Fringe venues could be set up so that no matter
the production, there would be an automatic and separate light for
the ASL interpreter. In each show, the interpreter and the Deaf audience
members had to negotiate such spots and were not able to request
an additional light for easier visibility.
An Inconvenient Squirrel
by
Joseph Scrimshaw
If
you have privately felt that most children’s shows are too
simplistic with not enough depth in an effort to pander down to their
audience, An Inconvenient Squirrel, written and directed
by Joseph Scrimshaw, is a refreshing rebuke to that notion. In a
world where names and labels are everything, a particular squirrel
decides that he doesn’t want a name. He simply doesn’t
want to be just one thing. This throws the entire squirrel
village into an uproar. The squirrel with no name travels on a journey
with the Socially Awkward Squirrel, played by Dan Rooney who gives
an affectionate but surprisingly nuanced performance. Along the way
both children and adults learn about societal inflexibility through
a romp of squirrel- and nut-inspired slapstick humor. Although the
show doesn’t touch on the issue of disability, its parallels
with growing up different--or disabled, for that matter, are
very clear. Scott Pakudaitis designed the inventive squirrel costumes
by using gray ballerina net to evoke the unmistakable tails and fake
fur to create the squirrel caps. Even then, I had a ball--or
should I say “nut”?--seeing this show. The ASL
interpreters Rachel Arth and Tammy Hansen provided a good translation;
however, Hansen hasn’t improved in terms of varying her rhythm
and facial expressions compared to her interpreting at the Guthrie’s A
Midsummer Night’s Dream last May. It is my hope that
due to her excellent potential, she will continue to work on her
facial inflections and relax more with her body to convey the different
kinds of characters onstage with her body language. I remain grateful
that the Fringe Festival has continued to provide accessibility whenever
possible.
American Sexy
by
Trista Baldwin
In
this taut one-act, four young people take a detour into Grand Canyon
on their way to Las Vegas. The main character played by Rose Le Tran
pushes the envelope of what’s acceptable between heterosexual
men and women, partly because of the influence of Facebook and MySpace.
What does it mean to be connected in cyberspace, and how does spending
so much time in cyberspace affect how we behave in real time toward
one another, especially to those whom we desire? Revelation
after revelation, combined with an unsettling gunshot (not against
any of the characters), drive the story toward a far too abrupt conclusion.
I think that if the play was allowed to last another ten minutes
or so, it would feel a bit more complete. If my review has seemed
general, it is not the fault of playwright or cast; rather, the assigned
ASL interpreter did not show up. Sarah Vanzant, a Fringe Festival
volunteer at that show, happened to be fluent in ASL. She did an
incredible job of translating the show without knowing the script.
If it wasn’t for her, I would’ve been completely lost,
particularly because the performers were in the center between all
four walls of seats, which meant that I couldn’t always lip-read
them. Brian Balcom directed the four fine actors, with Rose Le Tran
giving the most compelling performance of all. Angelique Powers painted
the set evocative of Grand Canyon.
The Virginity of Astronauts
by
Daniel Reiva
Because
I had written up about this show earlier in Access Press,
I was truly looking forward to seeing this production ASL-interpreted.
Alas, the assigned interpreter didn’t show up. The volunteers
at the front desk could not contact the accessibility/interpreter
coordinator. I don’t think they knew the correct number to
call. It is my hope that the Fringe Festival will take this scenario
into account when planning next year’s festival and make it
easy for the volunteer coordinators at each venue to contact the
accessibility/interpreter coordinator as needed. I decided to see
the show anyway, and discovered that I couldn’t always follow
the story. As a result, I would be remiss to give such a review here.
Silent Poetry: A Tribute to Marcel Marceau
by
Dean Hatton
Even
though the show wasn’t ASL interpreted, I wanted to see
this production because it was advertised as being nonverbal. Dean
Hatton had studied under Marceau in the 1990s so the show was a collection
of his best work from the last 20 years. The first three skits had
no sound, but after that, recorded sound became integral to his work,
particularly in his “Creation of the World.” While
I could not always understand the choral singing, he conveyed how
the world was created along with whiffs of scatological humor. However, “A
Day at Church” was the closest I’d felt connected to
the performer because as a Deaf boy growing up, I’ve had to
sit in the pew and try lip-reading a lifeless priest without falling
asleep. In it, Hatton sits on a chair and tries to fight drowsiness
while listening to a pastor drone on and on, and soon falls into
a daydream of fantastic proportions, leaping from a disco complete
with a mirror ball to riding a spaceship to parts unknown. Then he
is pulled back to reality, where he finds himself hugging the person
next to him in an inappropriate manner, and soon falls asleep into
another reverie, which ends too quickly and rather unsatisfying.
Even then, “A Day at Church” was a personal highlight
of the show. Now, I realize that as a Deaf person who’s very
aware of the incorporation of pantomime combined with signing when
conveying how another person would talk in ASL, my expectations would
be much, much higher. I don’t always realize how extraordinary
signing can be particularly when the average Deaf signer can orchestrate
imaginary objects and spatial relationships while signing. In that
sense, Hatton’s pantomime skills struck me as extremely sloppy
with little nuance; sometimes he went too fast and lost clarity of
detail. I could not always tell just what he was wrestling with;
he did not always take the time to clarify the object in question.
I was naturally a bit lost here and there. I would have to wonder
how Marceau, who was always unstintingly precise with his movements,
would have critiqued Hatton’s performance.
Attending a Fringe Festival can be like a grab bag. You never know
what you’re going to get until you pick out the next object.
On one hand, this allows for lovely surprises as An Inconvenient
Squirrel and yet conveys the occasional disappointment. Still,
such an amazingly diverse multitude of offerings across all styles
and approaches is what the Fringe Festival should be most proud of.
I am already planning to check out Fringe Festival 2009’s offerings
next year!
Editor’s note: Access
Press is pleased to welcome author and playwright Raymond Luczak
as our new theater reviewer. Mr. Luczak www.raymondluczak.com will
be reviewing an ASL-interpreted plays under the heading “From
the front row.”
