September 9-15, 2004

artpicks

So Far, So Fast

by A.D. Amorosi

performance art

As a nattering satirist with hands in nearly every pie in Manhattan — pop cultural tweaks for Newsweek and Nerve.com, book reviews for the Times, fashion features for Paper and Surface, an advice column for Out once upon a time — it's no wonder that Mike Albo's overly sincere new one-man performance is titled I Can Only Come So Far. By this point, you'd think the silly, cutting monologist would have run out of ideas if not steam itself. Au contraire. Having seen his new show (following in the footsteps of previous productions, Sexotheque and Three Women in Indecision) at the recent Howl Fest at Fez, Albo's So Far pits him as an endlessly name-dropping gadabout whose constantly topping rhetoric is as clearly shallow as cellophane in its mix of E! True Hollywood Story-speak, Carson Daly-callow-Last Call chatter and McSweeney's hornswaggle. He bumps and grinds. He kvetches. He winces.

All motions are committed with equal passive-aggressive passion. He takes on Jim McGreevey's recent travails as if to empathize (I think?) with the "sweater queen" made to apologize for his sins. Most potently, as "the Underminder" (based certainly on his Bloomsbury-due book, The Underminer: The Best Friend Who Casually Destroys Your Life) Albo so pessimistically eats away at any convivial possibilities that he happily leaves the room oxygen-free. "This is sort of my "Please, someone, give me a break and help me move my career to another level before I go crazy, move to Pennsylvania and tattoo the words "Fuck the World' on my forehead like some human-hating Ted Kasinski [sic] guy kind of gig a showcase of sorts!" says Albo on his Web site. Somehow I agree.

I Can Only Come So Far, Sat., Sept. 11, and Sun., Sept. 12, 7 p.m., $10, The Five Spot, 5 Bank St., 215-413-1318.