Fest Guesses

Our staff handicaps the best bets and must-sees at this year's Live Arts/Fringe Festival

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Published: Aug 29, 2007

Many artists and music lovers hold Jeff Buckley in hallowed esteem even though he recorded only one complete studio album in his short life. Ah, but what an album: Grace, a haunting disc where Buckley pours out his sensitive tortured soul via gorgeous ethereal, often tremulous, vocals. It's the kind of disc that can stick in your head long after playing, and that's certainly so for Beth Eisenberg, co-founder of A Grateful Company, which is why she created a program based entirely on songs from Grace. "It's my favorite album and I wanted to change my own experiences and memories with the songs that had become so familiar. They're so poignant and give you such a mood," she says. A hairdresser by trade, Eisenberg, who plays guitar but has never put on a show prior to this one, wanted to explore experimental treatments of the tunes. "I thought, how about if I give a painter a song, what would they paint?" She asked a painter friend to perform, so we'll find out how that transpires. There's also a playwright who penned a five-minute play based on "Last Goodbye"; a hip-hop remix of "Mojo Pin" featuring live rappers and breakdancers; and a group of teenage girls double-dutch jumping rope while singing the lyrics to "Hallelujah." Eisenberg admits the material itself is downbeat; however, she's looking to present new ways of experiencing Grace. "The mission of the company is to give people a reason to be grateful for your senses."

—Deni Kasrel

Aug. 31, Sept. 1, 8 p.m.; Sept. 13, 7 and 9:30 p.m., $15, Community Education Center, 3500 Lancaster Ave.

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Take a man (Scott McPheeters) and a woman (Bethany Formica), and choreograph a dance for them to perform inside a small plastic house. In fact, make everything onstage plastic. Then have four video cameras peering in windows to reveal the movement. And how's this for the cherry on top? The video cameras will be in the hands of audience members. This is the stage construct Cuban choreographer Marianela Boan plays with for her Live Arts première, Voyeur. "This is a very new idea," Boan says. "The choreography is set, but the audience also will see video images that other audience members film displayed on a screen behind the house." And, oh yes, "at the same time," Boan continues, "the piece has some thoughts about domestic life in America. What does it mean to live a life in plastic?" Or, for that matter, to have strangers videotaping you?

—Janet Anderson

Sept. 6 and 7, 7 p.m., $15, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St.

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Always want to read The Great Gatsby only to realize you're entirely too lazy? Then sit back, relax and let Elevator Repair Service read it to you. The Brooklyn-based theater ensemble will bring their popular and controversial seven-and-a-half-hour production of Gatz to this year's Fringe Festival.

According to director John Collins, the idea of performing F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic story was first proposed in 1999. Before its 2006 debut, the ensemble spent years figuring out how to adapt a novel to the stage. "We decided the best way to do this was to not cut any of it, " says Collins.

That's right. Every single word from Fitzgerald's book is read onstage, and accompanied by acting. The setting begins in an office where an employee finds a copy of The Great Gatsby and begins to read it aloud. Eventually the reality of the office blurs into the fantasy of the novel. "There's a compelling relationship between hearing the book read and seeing it staged at the same time," says Collins.

And while that chunk of time (which does include dinner and intermissions) may seem a bit too long to stay in your seat, Collins believes that there is something rewarding about seeing the performance and hearing the novel in its entirety. "Once you get through the first 25 minutes, it really takes off," he says. "People seem to experience time in a different way. They become completely immersed in the language and the story."

—Deidre Wengen

Aug. 30, 8 p.m., part 1 (3.5 hours with intermissions); Aug. 31, 8 p.m., part 2 (3.5 hours with intermissions, plus post-show discussion; Sept. 1, 4 p.m., parts 1 and 2 (7.5 hours with intermissions, includes dinner); Sept. 2, 2 p.m., parts 1 and 2 (7.5 hours with intermissions, includes dinner), $35 for full show, Arts Bank at The University of the Arts, 601 S. Broad St.

South Jersey has a certain teenage wasteland ennui that, like its fluorescent speckled 24-hour diners, is always open to ridicule. Wawapalooza, the first effort by the Mount Laurel-based production group IdRatherBeHere, is a series of skits, short films and stand-up comedy striking at malls, Wawas and Eagles fans. It's not just for mall rats and people who say "water ice," though. "The show's like a postcard to someone who doesn't live here," says co-creator Eric Balchunas, "like that Bruce Springsteen album cover."

—Will Dean

Aug. 31, 7 p.m.; Sept. 1, 9 p.m.; Sept. 2, 3 p.m., $10, The Red Room at Society Hill Playhouse, 507 S. Eighth St.

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Merián Soto presents two pieces inspired by movement investigations in Wissahickon Valley Park. Based on what she calls "performance practice," these works play with ideas of moving into and out of stillness as well as working with balance and gravity. The title work includes a videoscape shot in the park, so the audience can at least get some sense of how this might unfold in a natural setting. Soto aims to craft an atmosphere that transports the audience to a reflective space. "I would hope that people just calm down," she says.

—Deni Kasrel

Aug. 31-Sept. 2, 7 p.m., $15, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St.

Blade Runner and many, many other politically minded sci-fi ventures have their roots in Metropolis, the first cinematic dystopia (1927). Produced in Weimar-era Germany a few years before everything went totally off the rails, Metropolis (like H.G. Wells' The Time Machine) took a searing indictment of 20th-century capitalism and projected it into the future.

Metropolis is now remembered for its groundbreaking special effects and inspired architectural vision. But it was also a silent film, leaving an opportunity for subsequent generations of experimental musicians and composers to interpret and reinterpret.

Local violinist Kurt Coble will do just that, providing the film with his original score. Here's the hook, though: Coble will be accompanied by his frequent collaborators, the Partially Artificial Musicians. PAM are ideal cohorts for Coble because they are never late, never ask to be paid, and never get so drunk they can't perform. This is because Coble built them himself; they are robots.

Coble, artistic director of the University of Bridgeport Robotic Music Laboratory, has had his hands full moving his accompanists from Connecticut to Philadelphia in time for the performance. "The settings of the mechanical devices are extremely precise, as slightest changes to position of moving parts will result in distorting the rhythms or tone," he says. "And sometimes that's not a bad thing, either."

—Joel Tannenbaum

Aug. 31, 7 p.m.; Sept. 1, 2 and 7 p.m., $10, Mitchell Auditorium, Bossone Research Center, 3141 Chestnut St.

Phil Kline is all about music in motion. At an experimental music festival in North Carolina a few years back, he gave out boom boxes to approximately half the crowd, and told us to press play. All in attendance were invited to take a stroll around the outside of the club. The composition morphed as you strolled, your distance from various sound sources fluctuating. Kline scored Group Motion's Sonic Dances, something of a public art tour wherein your guides are sinewy waifs decked out in iPods and speakers who do cryptic interpretive dances about art, government and civics. Weird.

—Brian Howard

Aug. 31, Sept. 4 and 7, 5:30 p.m., free, beginning at City Hall courtyard, Broad and Market streets; Sept. 1 and 8, 5:30 p.m., beginning at Dilworth Plaza Courtyard, City Hall, 1400 JFK Blvd.

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For Kaibutsu, all the world's a stage (their Guided Tour was performed on a real-life traveling trolley in '04 and '06). This time, Kaibutsu takes over a beauty salon. The action begins as one might expect in such a scene — a woman offers cosmetic tips and color theories — but soon things get surreal, spinning off into the realm of Greek mythology. Sibling rivalry, self-sacrifice and, of course, tragedy, ensue.

—Deni Kasrel

Aug. 30-Sept. 1, 7, 8, 14 and 15, 9 p.m.; Sept. 2, 3, 6, 9, 10 and 13, 8 p.m., $20, Signatures Salon, 116 S. 19th St.

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In BEAST, choreographer/director/dancer Devynn Emory uses the habits dancers traditionally strive to train out of themselves as raw material for a video-infused duet performance with dance partner Meg Foley. Together, they seek truth in colliding bodies. "We spent a lot of time feeling the reverberations of smashing body parts together," says Emory. "It led to some aggressive-appearing movement, but I believe that digging through this fear that often arises during a body's fight-or-flight moment, we found some deep-rooted trust and tenderness." The performance may look like a ring of bison bulls butting heads, a high school football practice or a galaxy swirling in on itself, but this is incidental. Emory has never considered the appearance of her pieces when working on the choreography, despite her fascination with film and projection. "I work from inside the dance, basing all my decisions on how it feels, sounds, tastes and smells, not knowing what it really looks like," she explains. "By being inside of it in this way, I can understand when to change rhythm, when the moment is over, what should happen next — it's decisions based on sensation, and pacing, and on trying to stay true to a natural instinct rather than one based on what looks best for performance." Her performances attract fans of all media because of her eclectic blend of interactive video, voice-over, elaborate costumes and spliced-together music selections.

—Sam Tremble

Aug. 31-Sept. 2, 9:30 p.m., $15, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St.

The son of a preacher, writer/director/former Sunday school teacher Mark A. Dahl ditches his conservative roots with Uncut Productions' Assembly: Junior High. The irreverent comedy starts when the audience is summoned to an emergency assembly by "Scare Tactic," a music group that addresses issues such as disabilities and terrorists (they may be in your own family!). After Internet cowboy Digital Dave sings about cybersex, the story follows troubled students from five different decades. Turns out awkward sex and gross misinformation aren't unique to your own upbringing.

—Monica Weymouth

Sept. 6, 6 p.m.; Sept. 8, 2 p.m.; Sept. 9 and 14, 6:30 p.m.; Sept. 11-12, 9 p.m.; Sept. 15, 5 p.m., $10, The Playground at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St.

No shortage of dystopias in this year's Fringe, but Sean Glass' Gloaming Productions' ASHES is the only entry purporting to tell the whole sorry story of humankind from start to finish. Odds are it doesn't end well. In addition to the bleeps and blips, expect some screaming. Loud screaming.

—Joel Tannenbaum

Sept. 6, 8, 9, 14 and 15, 9:30 p.m., $15; Black Lodge, 1508 Brandywine St.

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What's better than a '70s low-budget movie about sex? Well, you could make it a musical. To the Wall Productions' comical, lyrical version of Debbie Does Dallas comes complete with full choreography and a proper dose of sexual innuendos and direct language that may make the conservative folks a little uncomfy. TtWP co-founder Christiana Molldrem elaborates, "The original script and score is so funny and strong that I think it would bea mistake to alter it. There's an orgy dance number, a banana blowjob dance of encouragement ... cheers, songs, all kinds of stuff that is definitely suited for a more mature audience." Keeping in line with their mission to re-create classics in nontraditional spaces, DDD will take over the top floor of Sisters Nightclub. Cast and crew include five alumni from the University of the Arts and contributions from Barrymore choreography nominee Samuel A. Reyes.

—Deesha Dyer

Aug. 31, Sept. 1, 4-8, 10, 12-15, 7:30 p.m., $20, Sisters Nightclub, 1320 Chancellor St.

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The Absinthe Drinkers are local perpetrators of "litpop" — the setting of verse by mostly European, mostly 19th-century famous poets to sparse Motels/Gang of Four-type jingle-jangle. This is actually really cool if you think about it — The Absinthe Drinkers really, truly do not care if you think they are a bit pompous. There is even the vague hint that you, with your fixed-gear bike and your bullshit "I'm-not-being-ironic" love of Hall & Oates, are in fact the one who is being pompous. Their Tritone shows have a rep for being way theatrical, so it stands to reason that whatever it is they've put together for the Fringe — something to do with monsters tormenting small children, if the press photo is anything to go by — will be more so.

—Joel Tannenbaum

Celebrity escapades have degenerated from being mildly entertaining to just plain sad. In their satirical comedy sketch Reviving the Lecture Circuit, Meg Favreau and Rob Baniewicz create public personas worth watching. Giving props to humorists and speakers from the mid-1800s such as Artemus Ward, Bill Nye and Mark Twain, this tag team presents a group of laughable characters in the lecture style. The show includes a puzzled peace-prize winner and a presidential candidate who wants to put a wolf in every American backyard. So stop reading about Lindsay Lohan's latest cocaine bust and take in a lecture.

—Deidre Wengen

Sept. 6, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 7, 8 p.m.; Sept. 15, 7 p.m., $5, Walking Fish Theatre, 2509 Frankford Ave.

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Fresh from a stint at Scotland's Edinburgh Festival Fringe (where she scored a Fringe First Award), Madi Distefano bursts onto the Philly scene with Sweetie Pie. A modern interpretation of a tragedy she prefers not to identify (but if you know your Greek mythology or Freudian psychology, you might be able to guess which one), the show is the third part of a trilogy, the previous installments being Eye-95 Re-tarred and Popsicle's Departure, 1989. Distefano's take on the unnamed tale doesn't reproduce the story so much as pull from its themes, but her adaptation does retain certain elements that one might expect from a classical piece. "It has a Greek chorus," says Distefano. "The protagonist's fate is predetermined and there is no running away from it."

At least two different storylines develop and intertwine, things go terribly awry and both the action and the dialogue are sexy dirty. It deals with the perils of fame and fortune, among other things, and "lots and lots of blood is spilled." Distefano, however, "can't explain the deaths — that gives it all away."

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 1, 2, 4-9, 11-15, 7 p.m., $20, Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey Place.

Perfect for persons with really short attention spans, Xtreme Folk Scene & Mick Choder Productions' Song Shuffle presents a heap of 50 different folk acts who each perform four-minute sets. There's but a few seconds between the end of one set and the start of another. Sound impossible? FYI: It's been done before to much acclaim. These are not Idol wannabes, but real acts — some well-known, others not so much, but legitimate players nonetheless.

—Deni Kasrel

Aug. 31, 7 p.m., $15, World Café Live, 3025 Walnut St.

Is there a required reading list for dancer-choreographer Nichole Canuso's Wandering Alice? No, but, "There are two primary sources of inspiration: Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Haruki Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle. But you won't find any characters from these novels in the work." This work, Canuso explains, "is inspired by the spirit of the stories." Instead of a rabbit's hole, the wandering begins at Christ Church Neighborhood House's front door. "It is our aim," Nichole explains, "to take Alice — and the audience — on a journey in which the rules of reality are continually shifting." Since this is the In Progress version of Alice (the actual première isn't until Live Arts 2008), there is only one performance.

—Janet Anderson

Sept. 10, 8 p.m., free, Christ Church Neighborhood House, 20 N. American St.

It wouldn't be Fringe without a Brat Productions show. And, of course, it's a snarky piece wrought with warped characters. Written by indie theater pioneer John Clancy, Fatboy is an over-the-top satire where bigger is always better — or is it? Fatboy, the insolent central character, looms large as a symbol of excess that may have metaphorical connections to certain real-life persons and/or governments. As this is full-tilt theater of the absurd, the lines are savage and vulgar — but that doesn't mean they don't ring true.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 1, 14 and 15, 7:30 p.m., Johnny Brenda's, 1201 N. Frankford Ave. Sept. 2 and 9, 2 p.m.; Sept. 6, 8 and 13, 9 p.m.; Sept. 7, 10 p.m., $15, Plays and Players Theater, 1714 Delancey Place.

Philly's long-standing devotees to new and experimental music offer up an authentic chance encounter when they celebrate the music and ideals of John Cage. Like Marcel Duchamp, Cage took an open-minded approach as to who can call themselves artists and what constitutes art. Relâche fully honors that philosophy by allowing anyone who darn well pleases to participate. Sing, scream, recite a poem, bring your ax and play music. Whatever you feel like doing. It's cool.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 5, 6 p.m., free, Washington Square Park, 600 Washington Square South.

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They're named after the woman who shot Andy Warhol; they performed a play called Telepathic Alcoholic Teenage Punk Rock Psycho Sluts for Fringe '04 in which a Nazi skin made out with a dude. How will the Valerie Solanas Players top themselves? With Destroy All Children!, which features, among other things, an Amish girl kidnapped and ransomed by a coven of witches. Oh, and now they're called Church of the Valerie Solanas Players. Preach on!

—Joel Tannenbaum

Aug. 31-Sept. 2 and Sept. 7-9, 8 p.m., $10, First Unitarian Church, 2125 Chestnut St.

The latest from Theatre Catalyst's Eternal Spiral project, Project X/X weaves a dystopian tale about a near future where "heterophobia" trumps homophobia as a social ill and someone named Zola runs for mayor and presumably some sort of hijinks ensue. Not entirely sure. This one looks awesome but, even by Fringe standards, cryptic.

—Joel Tannenbaum

Sept. 4-6, 9 p.m., Sept. 12-14, 6:30 p.m., $15, 2nd Stage @ The Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St.

On a dark and stormy night, three sisters living in an insulated house by the sea receive a strange visitor who spurs jealously and murder. The eerie plot plays out in cinematic fashion as SCRAP utilizes the ornate architecture of St. Andrew's Chapel to beguiling effect. With the audience literally sitting inside the story, where sound, lighting and video imagery accompany abstract dance, the atmosphere assumes a mysterious and magical tone.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 4-9, 8:30 p.m., $15, St. Andrew's Chapel, 4201 Spruce St.

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True-life pre-wedding day parties often devolve into off-the-wall affairs, so you have to figure that when New Paradise Laboratories throws one, it's going to be slightly nuts. But we're not talking Delilah's or Chippendales here; the setting is a bachelor/ette party, but nothing is quite what it seems — men will turn into women and vice versa. The stage is rimmed by 9- by 12-foot screens to afford the audience a 360-degree view of all that goes on, with at least three perspectives presented at any given time. A 4-foot-high box conceals 40-some costume changes. "Every time we go into the box, it's something different," explains NPL artistic director Whit MacLaughlin. "[In one scene], you sort of dive into one of the character's nipples. Then we are in a 20-story stairwell and we go down to a bar where there's our version of a satyr at a pool table … it's those kind of weird illusions where it just keeps modulating away from what you think of as reality. It's really disorienting — and it's fun."

—Deni Kasrel

Aug. 30, 8 p.m.; Aug. 31, Sept. 4, 6, 7, 11, 13 and 14, 8 p.m.; Sept. 1, 8 and 15, 6:30 and 9:30 p.m., $20, Mandell Theater, 3300 Chestnut St.

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Must Don't Whip 'Um does its share of genre-hopping: It's a live concert, a documentary and a mystery all rolled into one. The general gist concerns a '70s female pop-rock star, her unexplained disappearance, and her daughter's subsequent attempt to conjure the ghost of her long-lost mother. "It's about somebody who is trying to reconstruct a person after they're gone," explains Cynthia Hopkins, who plays both the mother and the daughter here, though the latter is heard only in voice-over. Hopkins' portrayal of the '70s singer is spot-on; she fronts her for-real band, Gloria Deluxe, which she assures "definitely sounds like that era. There's a horn section and a wah-wah pedal and it's pretty bombastic." Baby boomers especially will enjoy the many hippie-dippie touches in the costuming and the storyline, though it would spoil things to give too much away ('cause that's part of the mystery). The piece plays on concepts of memory, sanity, religion and abandonment; all serious topics, though Hopkins claims it ain't that heavy: "It gets sad in parts and there's a real struggle … but I think of it as a dark comedy. It's also very celebratory and ultimately uplifting."

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 12-14, 8 p.m.; Sept. 15, 2 and 8 p.m., $25, Tomlinson Theater, 1301 W. Norris St.

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Jazz poet Pheralyn Dove, aka "Lady Dove," plays a broad cast of characters whose stories are interspersed with poems, many of which were published in her book and heard on her CD of the same name, Color in Motion. The characters suffer a variety of maladies — sexual abuse, domestic abuse and severe lack of self-esteem — still, Dove assures that "it's not all doom, gloom and darkness … inspirational, humorous and spoken-word aspects of the show brighten up the serious content." While the characters may be troubled at the start, by the end many find a more positive mind-set. How they arrive at these better places is as varied as their assorted circumstances, because as Dove notes, "It's not always a clear-cut path to success."

She hopes to facilitate relief and reconciliation. "This is my way of asking people to heal from their own experiences, and also a way to ask people to relate to experiences that may not be germane to you personally, but are definitely real in our society." Joined by bassist Warren Oree, Dove aims to act as an agent for social change. "I'm trying to educate and entertain," she notes, "but I also want to do some consciousness raising along the way."

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 5, 7:30 p.m., $15, Ethical Society Building, 1906 S. Rittenhouse Square.

Fringe Takes On the World
Sticking To It
Global Warming
From Afar
Off Script
Improv (No Lines!)
Exquisite Corpse
Cooking With Gas