ARTS . Art

Fringe Week Two!

Our experts keep picking the highlights from this years' festival.


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Published: Sep 4, 2007

We'll Be with You Shortly

Foursome presents 30 minutes of absurdist songs and dances about waiting and anticipation (at the airport, in a medical office, over the phone). It's everyday stuff that can drive a sane person to the brink of battiness, and Foursome zanily expresses frustrations felt by victims of customer service mishaps. The segments — such as one that imagines what phone operators do while we're put on hold — should be gloriously goofy. Can't wait to see this one.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 7, 8, 14 and 15, 9:30 p.m.; Sept. 8 and 15, 7 p.m.; Sept. 9, 4:30 p.m., $5, 3rd Street Gallery on 2nd Street, 58 N. Second St.

Explanatorium

Headlong Dance Theater, Philly's intrepid band of merry dance pranksters, veers off on another imaginative adventurescape with Explanatorium. This time, we're asked to suspend belief within an abandoned church as they help clarify mysteries of science and the paranormal, such as why we're here and how the universe began. While Stephen Hawking would likely argue with Headlong's version of how things work in the universe, everyone else can enjoy the fantastic voyage. The company requests that you come dressed all in blue.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 7, 8 and 15, 10 p.m.; Sept. 8, 9, 12-15, 8 p.m., $20, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St.

Innovative Juggler

Greg Kennedy scored a gold medal in the International Jugglers Association Championships; see him perform and you'll know why. No garden-variety ball and flame tosser, Kennedy draws on his former life as an engineer to devise newfangled props and methods for manipulating objects — frequently a whole bunch at the same time. A captivating kinetic program that truly dazzles, it's one of the few Fringe programs that's certified kid-safe.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 7, 14 and 15, 7:30 p.m.; Sept. 7, 9 p.m.; Sept. 9 and 15, 3 p.m., $10, Greene Street Studios, 6122 Greene St.

Veggie Cabaret

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Ever wonder what Guess Who's Coming to Dinner would look like if it involved a tofurkey and a turducken? Me neither. Veggie Cabaret answers the question anyway, with animal-friendly films, skits and a performance by comedian Dan Piraro. "We're trying to show what life is like for vegetarians in a meat-eating world, poke fun at both sides and unite people through humor," says Lisa Levinson of the hosting group Public Eye: Artists for Animals.

—Will Dean

Sept. 14-15, 8 p.m., $15, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St.

THREE on 3

Two-year-old Sharp Dance Co. is among the more promising emerging arts groups in our scene, due in part to its director and performers having extensive dance experience. Sharp's style of movement merges modern dance with hip-hop. All of their pieces make use of props, and their themes investigate various life sensations — grief, memory and sexual confusion — in sensitive and sometimes unexpected ways.

—Deni Kasrel

Sept. 7, 8 p.m.; Sept. 8, 7:30; Sept. 9, 5 p.m., $15, Community Education Center, 3500 Lancaster Ave.

The Jersey Devil

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What's hundreds of years old, hangs out in South Jersey and is seen only at night? No, not former City Paper copy editor Rick Valenzuela; it's the Jersey Devil, easily the most prominent figure in regional folklore. Local actors Bradley K. Wrenn, David Johnson and Justin Jain, who worked together on last year's Fringe performance The Ballad of Joe Hill, have spent seven months lovingly developing Devil through improv exercises and "vast historical research," according to Jain. In the bingo hall of the Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, audiences will witness a speedily told tale (60 minutes) of a band of traveling sideshow freaks who have (or claim to have) captured the Jersey Devil, with the intention of revealing him before a live audience. Devil's midnight start time makes it the latest show in this year's Fringe. "We hope, in the spirit of late-night cabaret," says Jain, "to attract audiences looking for a fun and wild time."

—Joel Tannenbaum

Sept. 7, 8, 14 and 15, midnight; Sept. 12, 13 and 15, 8 p.m., $10, Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, 723 N. Bodine St.

Car

Kate Watson-Wallace started what will become her American Spaces trilogy with House for Fringe 2006. Now, she's moved outside to choreograph Car, a dance for two performers in the front seat of a Toyota Prius and two more outside on the top level of the parking garage of the South Street Whole Foods. The work, which is In Progress, will be performed for an audience of three in the back seat. Next year she'll add Store, the final piece of the trilogy. "The space is so intimate," says Watson-Wallace. "There is absolutely no personal space, so I am focusing a lot on the car's architecture." This performance is stationary, but next Fringe, when the work is finished, the audience will be driven to places. "I love the idea of dance in a moving vehicle." She also admits, "The more I work in a car, the less I want to drive."

—Janet Anderson

Sept. 9, 9 a.m. to 9:30 p.m., sold out, Whole Foods parking lot, top level, 929 South St.

Songs of the Blue Goddess (Complete Blackness)

Rahnda Rize of Headline Theatre Company and local artist Misty Sol present an "interdisciplinary" exploration of the Middle Passage, of slavery in North America, and of the legacy of both for individuals, families and society as a whole. Plenty of value for your money, as it runs three hours.

—Joel Tannenbaum

Sept. 7, 14, 15, 6 p.m., $10, Friends Neighborhood Guild, 701 N. Eighth St.

That's Why They Don't Call It Picnic

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We knew Vagabond Acting Troupe's Christian Lisak before he was famous. Of course, he got famous less for his acting than for his role in a multimillion-dollar marijuana ring that used bike couriers as drug mules (not that he's not a fine actor). Lisak's That's Why They Don't Call It Picnic, the one-man piece he wrote and performs, tackles his time on the inside, serving at a federal prison camp. This is really the first we've heard from Lisak since the sensational coverage afforded the drug operation's bust. We're eagerly anticipating his side of the story.

—Brian Howard

Sept. 10 and 11, 7 p.m.; Sept. 12, 9 p.m., $10, 2nd Stage at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St.

Cabaret Français

From sweet soprano to musette-style accordion, Enchanté re-create the intimate sounds of Parisian boite. The quartet, rounded out with bass and piano, plays Piaf standards and others songs, many in English, that the group terms "mid 20th century" and the rest of us might simply call romantic.

—Mary Armstrong

Sept. 11, 6 p.m., $10, Gallery Siano, 309 Arch St.; Sept. 11, 10 p.m., $10, The Actor's Center, 257 N. Third St.

Addicted to Bad Ideas: Peter Lorre's Twentieth Century

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World/Inferno Friendship Society — a troupe of 11 anarchists who sound like Ben Folds if he wasn't a douche, listened to more soul and wrote punchy songs about stealing shit when you're drunk — will perform a 50-minute multimedia operetta about legendary outsider/actor/filmmaker Peter Lorre. And as lead vocalist Jack Terricloth points out, "Lorre was from Transylvania, and what punk rocker doesn't like vampires?"

Sept. 8-9, 10 p.m., $15, World Life Café, 3025 Walnut St., 215-222-1400.

50 Ways to Kill Your Lover: A Romeo And Juliet Comedy

Just stab her in the back, Jack. Put some poison in his wine, Madeline. OK, it's not really like that, but The Ombelico Mask Ensemble lays things out pretty well in the Paul Simon-meets-the-Bard title. The Commedia dell'arte troupe will attempt to find the funny in Shakespeare's classic tale of woe. I've been saying (or at least thinking) for years that the tragic timing in R&J is borderline ridiculous — a tragedy of errors if you will. And you know what they say about tragedy plus time.

—Brian Howard

Sept. 7, 9, 14-15, 6 p.m.; Sept. 14, 10 p.m., pay what you can, Liberty Lands Park, Third and Wildey streets, outdoors.

Recitatif

The outlay is deceptively specific in Toni Morrison's 1983 short story "Recitatif." We know the narrator is black, and we know her childhood companion is white — or at least we think we do. But what makes it a clever piece of literature is that Morrison never actually explicitly states the race of her characters. The reader is left to decode that for themselves through names (one goes by Twyla), actions (one travels to San Francisco with a group of hippies) and other assorted signifiers and cultural touchstones. The Live Arts play that shares the name of Morrison's story — a collaboration between director Adrienne Mackey and actresses Felicia Leicht and Audrey Pernell — attempts the same thing in a loose homage set in present-day Philadelphia. Their interpretation heightens the uncertainty by making our leads a light-skinned black girl and her dark-skinned Italian friend, but again, despite the incorporation of gospel music in one's family and operatic arias in the other's, "Italian" or "black" are never the words employed to describe the characters. "It's the audience's job to use their own interpretations, their biases, whatever, to put those kinds of labels on [them]," Mackey says. While the story and play also serve as studies of memory, perception and the way the characters, as adults, process the racial strife they experienced as unknowing children, the ambiguity is a key component of both. Mackey says that when her Recitatif was performed in its workshop state as part of her residency at West Philadelphia's Community Education Center, "Audience members came out with wildly different opinions about what they saw. In a lot of ways, that's exactly what we wanted."

—John Vettese

Sept. 13-15, 9:30 p.m., $15, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St.

Trad

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Oh no, an Inis Nua play not in a bar?! Director Tom Reing's 2006 fringe hit Crazy Gary's Mobile Disco benefited from the Khyber's smoke and beer atmosphere, but this year's Trad — the U.S. première of Irishman Mark Doherty's gritty comedy — plays at the relatively staid (i.e., no faint vomit smell) Mum Puppettheatre. Don't expect anything less wild than 2005's crusty Tadhg Stray Wandered In or 2004's abstractly violent A Play on Two Chairs, though: Trad recounts the surprising adventures of hundred-year-old Thomas and his even-older Da, hiking across the countryside seeking Thomas' rumored illegitimate son, and features gutsy actors Charles DelMarcelle, Jared Michael Delaney and Mike Dees.

"Trad is about the old Ireland of tradition coming to terms with the new Ireland's changes and modernity," Reing explains. "It's a country who depended so much on emigration now talking about immigrant issues and closing their borders. ... That, I think, speaks to audiences on either side of the pond."

—Mark Cofta

Sept. 12-15, 19-22, 7 p.m., $15, Mum Puppettheatre, 115 Arch St.

Monarch Butterflies/Thank You for Your Patience

"I used to do poetry readings all over South Street," says Mary Pat Kane, who was a City Paper contributor back when the office was up several flights of rickety steps on Sansom. "I'd get huge crowds at the Painted Bride. Gerry Givnish invited me to hear Spalding Gray perform — to 30 people! — and sleep in a sleeping bag in the gallery after. I learned [by watching Gray] that I could do stories." Thus Kane's evolution from poet to performance artist and now? "I'm saying 'humorist' or maybe a 'sit-down comedian,'" quips Kane, describing her current show, Monarch Butterflies/Thank You for Your Patience.

"I always loved when people laugh. As an Irish person I've always thought the humor came close to tragedy, that family stories were a way to cope." Kane admits to having been through some rough patches lately and the humor in her stories is one way of soothing the sting. "When people come up afterwards commiserating ... then I know I've reached somebody, I've hit a chord."

Young creatives take note: It does not get any easier with time. During a visit to Fringe HQ last week, Kane recalls, "I was at the verge of bailing out. How could I have loved the material two months and hate it now?" Then, like magic, Nick Stuccio appeared and asked about her work. After confessing her fears, his simple reassurance, "It is supposed to be a risk!" gave her new resolve to forge on with the posting of fliers and dissemination of press releases.

—Mary Armstrong

Sept. 8-9, 15, 2 p.m., $10, Villa di Roma Restaurant, 936 S. Ninth St.