Kaleidoscope

Fringe-o-Scope

Published: Sep 16, 2009

Theater/Elizabethan Smut
Shakesploitation II: Iambic Boogaloo (through Sept. 19) lives up to its name, exploiting lurid niches of modern entertainment (e.g. R. Kelly's rap opera Trapped in the Closet) to breathe freshly profaned life into three Shakespearean plays. If you can't forget that the events onstage are renditions of the greatest literature in the English language, then recall the Shakespearean consolation: "What's gone and what's past help/ Should be past grief."

—Julia Harte


Theater/Temporary Blindness

I'm glad I didn't let my irrational fear of participatory theater stop me from embracing EgoPo's Company (through Sept. 26) — or from letting it embrace me. Upon entry, 15 of us were asked to take off our shoes, put on blindfolds and let our "angels" guide us to the floor, where we lay supine to hear a reading of Samuel Beckett's eerie novella about an old man whose lifetime of memories flash before his closed eyes. "You are on your back in the dark," my angel whispered into my ear, and suddenly the man and I were one and the same.

—Carolyn Huckabay


Theater/Clowning around

David Gaines' solo clown adaptation of Kurosawa's Seven Samurai, 7 (x1) Samurai (through Sept. 19) is a virtuosic performance — Gaines approaches this barrage of giddy pantomime, slapstick and broad caricature with a discipline and physical precision worthy of a true samurai warrior. Nuttiness notwithstanding, the piece demands a comparable level of focus from the audience: Sticking with the narrative through Gaines' gesticulations requires considerable attention, making this a show best suited for those who are serious about their humor.

—K. Ross Hoffman


Theater/Sensitivity Lesson
Who Will Carry the Word? (through Sept. 26) emphasizes individuals, making 20 women's concentration camp stories vividly personal: Actresses hang actual victims' photos on the theater's wall, then silently remove them as each dies. They first enter in colorful modern clothing before donning gray prison garb in their captors' attempt to smother their identities. Their harrowing struggle against delirium, despair and death is hard to take, but it's an eloquent testament that we need to experience.

—Mark Cofta

Comments

i thought this article was both informative and descriptive.The critics took each individual play and gave me the reader a clear image of what each play was about. The articles gave me a huge insight as to how the actors and actresses feel as their characters in each show. I am not only disappointed that I was enable to see these showings, but excited at the same time to know that meaningful art is still in exsistence in today's world. In the Shakesploitation 2: Iambic Boogalo,Hart explains the comparison between the current television screening reality, and the reality of the play. Th play seems to be meaningful and inclusive to what goes on in our world today. The play takes three of the worlds famous writer Shakespeare and transforms them into a updated version of our generation. Therefore not only will it be better understood to its viewers, but solidifythe knowledge of Shakespeare's work. In Ego Po's Company Huckabay tones us into the knowledge of a rare acting technique such as trusting not only oneself, but those eternal beings that surround the theater. This looks deeper into the theater relm and offers that connection to the audience. The concluding two articles speak on two productions with serious tonings and sensative subjects. The productions deal with the transformation of freedom into the captivity of the historical callings, and humorous notions of being human. All of these performances tell a solid story,entertain, and are filled with great productive qualities.
by Chanel Holland on September 27th 2009 2:31 PM



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