Last week, the Fringe Festival hit Philly hard with a barrage of theater performances, ranging from traditional to avant-garde, from musical to monologue — hell, from english to slovak. Les Femmes lands somewhere in the middle, mixing historic presentation with theatrical performance, leading the audience through four famous personalities from the first half of the last century.

Starting with Marion Davies, Jenelle Sosa mixes sass and subtlty when describing Ms. Davies experiences (in character, of course) with the first “talkies” and other such anachronisms of the time. Coco Chanel saunters angrily around the stage in the next scene, cursing her friend (offstage) in disagreement, all the while speaking to the audience directly, as if we were old hat. Ms. Chanel, portrayed by Les Femmes writer Kathy Steel, was assuredly the finest act of the show, though repeat performances by both actresses as different, larger-than-life personalities clearly rounded out the just over an hour production.

Les Femmes is produced by the Starving Actors Society and was performed in the Red Room at the Society Hill Playhouse (507 South 8th Street) as wel as the Walking Fish Theater (2509 Frankford Ave.) during the 2008 Philadelphia Fringe Festival.

Les Femmes @ Philly Fringe
www.livearts-fringe.org/2008/details.cfm?id=5018

Post by Kelly White

TIDE is a work in progress, and choreographer Myra Bazell of Scrap Performance Group cannot stress that enough. The progress refers to not only the unraveling of the performance itself, it also extends to the audience who are placed into groups from the beginning and shifted throughout the show. It’s a roving act split into four quadrants of the space. Much like TIDE is ever-building, the setting itself is interwined in the piece. Isaiah Zagar’s Magic Gardens on South St. seem forever incomplete, as though there will always be an inch of space for an errant piece of glass or slightly protruding bottle. Both environment and presentation are incredibly matched.

We begin with the audience as a whole in the outdoor garden before a stage. Scrap Performance’s dance theatre troupe scrambles around, using the rocky, gittering walls of the garden as their jungle gym. Watching all six of the performers scaling the lengths sideways and bouncing off of each other in a frenzied blaze of movements, we gather that the ragtag characters are just as confused as we. After a musical crash, the crowd is split into three groups by color. My brigade, red, is beckoned to another section of the garden, where we are seated on steps in a dimly-lit alcove, giving the dance more of an intimate, raw feel. We are moved three times more, as different chapters of the tale are stepped out in other areas of the Magic Garden. Finally, all of us are brought to a bigger stage, where the story becomes more fleshed out. We learn of a flood and recognize that these are the survivors, and watch as the performers’ bodies regress back into childhood, into earlier stages of man.

TIDE hopes to complete the transformation with additional funding and a full premiere in 2009, but for now, I recommend getting swept up in this work in its unrefined state.

Catch TIDE now through Sunday.

Tide @ Philly Fringe
www.pafringe.com/2008/details.cfm?id=5381

Post by Kelly White

What if you could hear the sounds that don’t make noise? Jordan Harrison’s Kid Simple takes us there through a child prodigy who has invented the machine to do so. The minute she does, you know a bad guy and a virgin are bound to show up and make for a lot of foreboding sounds.

Director Kevin Glaccum is just coming off of spring’s production of Hedwig and the Angry Inch and is a longstanding member of Azuka Theatre, the Latvian Society’s performance space. In Kid Simple, Glaccum continues on his playful streak. The mix of innocence versus technology provides for a quest brought on by cast members Kathryn Petersen, Amanda Schoonover, Keith Conallen, and Delanté G. Keys. How about a machine that allows you to be at more than one Fringe show at once?

Kid Simple: A Radio Play in the Flesh at Azuka Theatre, Through September 13th
525 S 4th Street, Philadelphia, PA 19147
(215) 733-0255
www.livearts-fringe.org

http://www.pafringe.com/2008/details.cfm?id=5687

Post by Jonathan Wetstein

Gabrielle B. C. also-known as Dragoness, has created something I would best describe as a dance collage. Under her choreography and direction, Poet-TREES En Motion blends body movement with the artistic styles of martial arts, multimedia visual projections, costuming with her poetry— all to the sights and sounds of live music. Performing herself in this production, Gabrielle in collaboration with local artists is seeking to bring “Her-stories” of women to life at the Body Rock Studio at 2858 Lancaster Avenue.

The venue could not be any more perfect for this energetic show. Body Rock Studio is this work-out boot camp-esque facility that offers space for aerobics, dance, weight training, and various effective forms of body-weight exercises.

Before any of these performances were ever conceived, her talents were focused on the words in her poetry, and from a pad and paper a whole new media of sight and sound has come into light. This individual not only joins vibrant interdisciplinary forms onto the stage, but also keeps busy with designing jewelry as well.

Poet-TREES En Motion is a great performance for all ages. For many who may not have time to enjoy as much that Philadelphia art has to offer at the Fringe festival, this is a great opportunity to a variety of forms and expression all at once. Poet-TREES En Motion will be showing on Saturday September 13 for two shows back-to-back (15 dollars each), as well as a third showing Sunday September 14.

Poet TREES at Philly Fringe
www.livearts-fringe.org/2008/details.cfm?id=5632

Post by Kelly White

ef·flu·vi·um \ n, pl –via \ often sing in constr or - vi·ums [L effluvium act of flowing out, fr. effluere] 1 : an invisible emanation; esp : an offensive exhalation or smell 2 : a by-product esp. in the form of waste

This free performance commissioned by the American Philosophical Society Museum is a series of historical rants on our fine-and-sometimes-grimy city. Tales of Civic Effluvia, from Nightjar Apothecary, will kick off two minutes before sunset during each scheduled run. The former site of Dock Creek is the twilight-basked setting between Carpenters’ Hall and the First Bank of the United States. Many of us don’t know much about the creek that still flows beneath the land, but it happens to be the oldest exit for Philadelphia’s waste. Does that explain why Old City has its charming smell?

Based on a sculptural installation called Drawing Dock Creek, performance artist Brett Keyser’s act is tribute to the little tidal creek below and whatever flows with it.

Tann, Horns, & Dead Dogs: Tales of Civic Effluvia
Independence National Historic Park, September 5-13
143 South 3rd Street, Philadelphia PA 19106
(215) 597-8787
www.livearts-fringe.org

In case you hadn’t noticed, the once a year Philly Fringe Festival is nearly over, and there are still a lot of plays to check out. Today I present you with a little rundown on the latest from the Starving Actor Society, “Les Femmes.” Written by Kathy Steel and performed by Jenelle Sosa (as well as the aforementioned writer), “Les Femmes” is broken up into four “vignettes” and stars four separate American Icons: Marion Davis, Natalie Wood, Coco Chanel and Greta Garbo.

Running around one hour, “Les Femmes” has been adapted from previous successes within the Starving Actor Society. The troupe hails from South Jersey and has been going strong for a handful of shows. Original inspiration for their latest production came in the form of Ms. Steele’s side project with Border’s Books, where she was tasked with performing as Lizzie Borden, the famous murder suspect. Though not quite as dark a tale as the one that inspired “Les Femmes”, we expect the show to impress audiences regardless. Catch their last performance tomorrow, September 12th at the Walking Fish Theatre. For a full list of showtimes and locations, visit the Official Philly Fringe Site here.

Les Femmes @ Philly Fringe
www.pafringe.org/2008/details.cfm?id=5018

Post by Jonathan Wetstein

This new play by Steve Hatzai takes a closer look at the final days of Socrates life after he is brought to trial for challenging Athens’s conventional sense of justice. Annually a sacred ship would set sail around the Island of Delos, and until its return, Athenian society would not partake in public executions due to religious observance. Because Socrates trial at Roayl Sota and sentence occurred during this period, much of the play jumps between the hearing as the 70-year-old Athenian philosopher defends himself, and the jail cell where he awaits the return of the ship from Delos and fate to follow.

The play is presented by Norristown’s Iron Age Theater Company, for more than twenty years this organization has created theatrical performances with cutting edge cutting edge “environmental/site theatre” solely for the Philadelphia Region. The visual experience is not your typical theater set.

What also makes this performance so insightful is how Hatzai and Director John Doyle take us a step back from Socrates impending execution and poses the question could Socrates have saved himself but chose a position as a martyr?

The Last Days of Socrates final showing will be at the American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Hall, 427 Chestnut Street in Old City, Philadelphia, on Saturday, September 13th, at 3, 6 & 8 PM. Tickets are $15 and will be available at the door.

Last Days @ Philly Fringe Festival
www.phillyfringe.com/2008/details.cfm?id=5655
American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Hall
427 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA

Post by Kelly White

For some reason, I assumed that Killer Bass was about a vampire. I even told my guests that it was about some blood-sucking fiend. I read the musical’s description more than once. Still thought vampire slasher, until about 3/4 of the way through, when I realized that fictional bass player Alfred is but a pale, thin serial killer. Fine, I’ll take it.

The Whipcrack Shivers rip right into this one like we’re at an indie rock show. It’s not quite Johnny Brenda’s, but maybe the stage at the Fire? Because Killer Bass’ fake band haven’t quite made it yet. They come home from tour to their less-than-glam pad to find two guests waiting for them–one is a Dannon yogurt rep looking to offer the Shivers an advertising deal.

The intense comedic timing of Michael Cosenza is upstaged only by his dance moves. The other is G-Man, an FBI agent tracking a serial killer that is targeting the band’s fans. Is that Ryan Reynolds? No, but Jeremy Hilsinger is just as funny, if you like well-delivered zingers. He also nails every Reynold’s expression you can think of.

It doesn’t matter if we know who the killer is from the start. Or the vampire that we want the killer to be. This one is worth getting there. Lead singer Jess (Kelliane Quirk) is the most fun to watch, with her throaty vocals piercing your ears. Her lines are practically sung at you with confidence. It’s loud, in a good way. The only quiet one in the entire play? That’d be our alabaster-skinned, sensitive psycho Alfred (George Murphy).

Killer Bass at Philly Fringe Festival
www.pafringe.com/2008/details.cfm?id=5468

Near the end of Lady Dove’s one-woman spoken-word show Little Girl Blue, she calls upon her audience to “take the infinite beauty that is within and spread it throughout the universe.” And that is just what Lady Dove, also known as Pheralyn Dove, has been doing for years, not just with her poetry and spoken-word performances, but with her reporting for the Philadelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Tribune and her educational work at Southwest Philly’s Shaw Middle School and Temple University’s Pan African Studies Community Education Program. A true artist-activist, Lady Dove sees her art as being an essential part of her efforts to make the world a better place.

To Lady Dove, whose poetry has been featured on albums by vibraphonist Khan Jamal and whose poetry book Color In Motion has a foreword by legendary drummer Max Roach, Little Girl Blue is the culmination of decades of work as a poet and community activist–and decades of dealing with life’s trials and tribulations. It is her response to the hatred and discrimination she has experienced as a black woman–but it is much more than that, too. The piece combines narrative, monologue, poetry, movement, photography, video, and live music (composed and performed by bassist Warren Oree of Philadelphia’s Arpeggio Jazz Ensemble) to bring to life 17 different female characters who face issues such as domestic abuse, HIV/AIDS, and relationship troubles.

In the past Lady Dove has performed Little Girl Blue for audiences including female residents of a halfway house, Philadelphia youth under the jurisdiction of DHS, and jazz fans at the Jazz a la Villette Festival in Paris. Now, lucky for us, she brings this unique piece to the Philly Fringe.

Little Girl Blue
written, performed, produced, & directed by Lady Dove
with original music by bassist Warren Oree
(for mature audiences)

Wednesday, September 10, 7:30 P.M. at the Ethical Society
1906 Rittenhouse Square, Philadelphia, PA 19103
www.livearts-fringe.org

Post by Jonathan Wetstein

This one-man show brought laughter, suspense, sorrow, and relief to audience members at the Black Lodge Friday evening. For one hour actor Paden Fallis took all of us into the final three minutes of a closely scored NCAA tournament as head coach. Armed only with a water cooler & cups, eye drops, clipboard and suit Mr. Fallis took to the stage. Sounds, lighting and our imaginations brought us all up close to the game.

Inspired by the challenges of sports, where two opposing teams are given a confined space with a limited amount of time, The Play about the Coach is not simply a performance for the basketball fan. Mr. Fallis uses these fundamentals to create a universal theme centered around his character, the coach. As a methodical thinker for his team, the coach manages the challenges of his personal life with similar logic of as he does on the court. For this character, life is a simple equations where winning buys time, and time adds space between the present and from many of the life’s difficulties one may face.

By the performance’s end, I found myself impressed in many ways. Mr. Fallis’s acting overall was not only well received by the audience but was also very convincing. I especially enjoyed how he was able to take the final moments of a closely scoring sports game— often a cliché in the world of entertainment, and turn it into a cleaver metaphor set in a unique stage format.

The Play about the Coach completed it’s final four live performances for the Philadelphia Fringe Festival this past Sunday. However, Mr. Fallis who is also responsible for the play’s production company Rocketship Productions, hopes to bring this performance out on the road in the near future.

As a former theater student, and somewhat of a dramatic person in general, I love a good suspense plot. Nothing has me riveted to my chair quite like a murder mystery, or a Hitchcock film, or a high-stakes episode of Degrassi.

I love not knowing what’s going to happen next; not knowing characters’ tumultuous pasts; and not knowing what bizarre and outrageous event is about to occur that will turn everybody’s lives upsides down. (This is especially true for Degrassi.)

Given my predilection for surprises, it should be no shocker at all that I was drawn to The Widow’s Blind Date, an intimate and gripping drama running this fall as part of the Live Arts Festival.

Written by esteemed playwright Israel Horovitz and directed by John Gallagher, the Widow’s Blind Date centers around three childhood friends who are reunited for the first time in 15 years when one returns home to visit a dying brother. It soon becomes clear that all three suffered a tragic past, from which they never quite recovered.

Kirsten Quinn plays Margy, the widow from the title, and an NYU English professor who returns to sleepy Wakefield, MA to meet up with friends, and gloat about her education and culture. Nathan Emmons and Gene D’Alessandro play Archie and George, former classmates and, as Archie points out, former best buddies, who years ago had a brief and dramatic tryst with Margy.

The Widow’s Blind Date is often considered one of Horovitz’s best works, and it’s easy to see why. The characters are expertly drawn and the carefully unfolding plot is nothing if not harrowing. Grab a friend and a stick of gum (to save your hands from inevitable nail-biting) and head to the Walnut Street Theatre for this enthralling tale of suspense and betrayal.

The Widow’s Blind Date at the Walnut Street Theatre, August 29 – September 13, 2008
825 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA 19107
(215) 574-3550
www.greenlightplays.com

We enter a room full of chaos. A room that threatens to fall apart before our eyes.

So writes Jon Refsdal Moe in the program notes for louder, a completely unclassifiable piece presented by Norway’s Verdensteatret at the Live Arts Festival. It seems like any descriptor that one might apply to louder will inevitably fall short. You can call it an audiovisual installation, but that implies a certain static quality and louder is anything but static. It’s also been called a “symphonic collage of music and visual art.” Closer, perhaps, but what about the gaping puppet jaws chasing flocks of small metal figures across the room? Perhaps it’s best to abandon our preconceived notions of genre and discipline and just experience louder as the entirely novel creation that it is.

Verdensteatret, based in Oslo since its founding in 1986, is a group of artists from different fields–animation, sound engineering, painting, music, videography, and more–who collaborate on various types of stage productions and art projects. While each participating artist might have a different specialty, the group’s work is characterized by a blurring of artistic boundaries and a seamless integration of the different elements that comprise a piece. In louder there are video projections, puppets, objects moving on wires, sounds blasting from megaphones, and live performers all at the same time.

Although this production was inspired by a boat trip that the artists took up the Mekong River in Vietnam last winter, don’t expect anything even approaching a conventional plot. Nor should you focus too much on the concepts underlying what you see and hear. Think of it more as a journey into a new world, where your experience might be vastly different from that of the person sitting next to you.

Oh, and did I mention that there will be a gigantic mechanical spider looming over the proceedings?

Verdensteatret’s louder
Thursday - Saturday, September 11-13, 10 P.M.
Black Box Theater next to Festival Bar
625 N. 5th St (5th & Fairmount), Philadelphia, PA
www.pafringe.org

“The Waitstaff”, who received the award of “Hardest Working Comedy Troupe” from the ‘City Paper’ in 2004, returns this year to the Philly Fringe Stage with “Waitstaff Wit”. The show consists of monologues about seemingly familiar topics that the writers and performers have turned into usually witty, sometimes satyrical comedy. Granted, in some of the pieces the wit and satire come across much funnier than in others, the show overall kept my attention and found me wincing only a few times for jokes that didn’t hit the audience in the way they were intended.

The troupe prides themselves in their tight fluidity that captivates their audience even in skit transitions, which in this performance can be accredited to Starzina Starfish-Browne, who serves as the show’s unique MC, while mostly remaining a part of the audience. There are nine monologues in all, but the show still only runs a total of 55 minutes, which seemed perfect.

So as not to ruin the surprise that is a necessary element of comedy, I will highlight the topics only of the 3 monolouges that I enjoyed the most. The first involves a newborn baby and a jealous cat-overgrown man in generic cat costume–hilarious! Later a middle-aged long island housewife drops her mis-knowledge about the current presidential campaign. Finally, my favorite– a 13 year old boy and his loss of virginity by the fault of his grandfather–well and of course a hooker. Perfect for the final monologue, I left feeling a little sore in the sides and mascara a tad smudged from laughter.

“Waitstaff Wit” @ L’Etage Cabaret
625 Bainbridge St, Philadelphia, PA
$15. tickets www.livearts-fringe.org
more about the troupe. www.thewaitstaff.com

Beginning September 2nd, the beautiful and decadent lounge L’Étage Cabaret will host A Streetcar Named Durang: Two Burlesques and a Nightmare, as part of the 2008 Fringe Festival.

Described as “three wonderfully disturbing shorts,” the parody master Christopher Durang brings us Desire, Desire, Desire; The Actor’s Nightmare; and Stye of the Eye with darkly playful nods to authors Tennessee Williams and Sam Shepard. Directed by Tina Brock, the performance comes straight from the Philadelphia-based theater company Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium, whose mission is to present classic absurdist theater to audiences in the region.

A Streetcar Named Durang will have six performances:
• Tuesday, 9/2,
• Wednesday, 9/3,
• Thursday, 9/4;
• Sunday, 9/7;
• Tuesday, 9/9,
• and Wednesday, 9/10.

Curtain is 7:30 pm for all shows; doors open 30 minutes prior. Tickets are $15.00. Seating is very limited, reservations are recommended. Cash or checks will be accepted at the door.

This performance, and many, many more will make up the edgy, evocative, and quirky – you name it– events that take over Philly as part of the Fringe Festival this time each year –and thank goodness. The 2008 festival begins August 29 and runs through September 13.

Streetcar Named Durang @ Philly Fringe
www.livearts-fringe.org/2008/details.cfm?id=4870

L’Étage, Cabaret Français
6th & Bainbridge Streets, above Beau Monde Crêperie

Working themselves hard into the Philadelphia Comedy Scene over the past 5 years, “The Waitstaff”, who received the award of “Hardest Working Comedy Troupe” from the ‘City Paper’ in 2004, returns this year to the Philly Fringe Stage with “Waitstaff Wit”. The troupe prides themselves in their tight fluidity that captivates their audience even in skit transitions.

Though I’ve never personally experienced this captivation in a live performance, their clever website leads me to believe in its validity. A group who can make a mundane activity such as mouse clicking into kitschy fun AND boasts that their new show fashions itself in the witty style of “The Onion”– yes I am intrigued. Oh, and reportedly, there are guest stars.

Waitstaff Wit @ Philly Fringe
L’Etage Cabaret
625 Bainbridge St, Philadelphia, PA
9pm. 9/2, 9/3, 9/4, 9/7, 9/9, 9/10
$15. tickets www.livearts-fringe.org
more about the troupe. www.thewaitstaff.com