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Eva Heinemann’s Fringe reviews: Once again good plays that ended too abruptly and left me in confusion

1). Barbara Suter’s BEST NIGHT EVER is a present day Noir story where we know who died and who killed her from the start. Peg is a sexy, kinky Blonde (Briana Layon) with a bartender friend (Tiffany Hodges) who warns her about dangerous Jake (Tim Shelton) who has a gay roommate (Ryan Garbayo) who

 always covers for Jake’s misdeeds all because they were baseball buddies in college. A detective (Lou Liberatore) is gathering evidence against Jake.
Since you know who died and killed her, the only excitement is how exactly did she die and why did Jake kill her. The acting more than made up for the limited script. My friend however liked it a lot. Unfortunately I was so uncomfortable by the rickety chair and no air conditioning that it was hard to enjoy anything.
But it was a thrill to see Lou Liberatore whom I have admired since Burn This. Mixed Face that should be Happy

2). Arlene Hutton’s VACUUM has a terrific moral dilemma and dramatic conflict. Gray (Chris Stack) and his wife Amelia (Dana Brooke) have found the cure for cancer. Trouble is his brilliant wife had an accident and has trouble remembering names of things and is content as a housewife and gardener.
Johnathan (David Arrow) an unscrupulous womanizer with a slew of exes (Lynne Halliday, Polly Adams) and current flame (Katie Wren Huard) whom he keeps on the payroll of his nefarious skin care business.
Johnathan wants to use the cure for cancer to improve your skin rather than life and the reason is pretty scary. Will Gray give in for riches or keep his integrity and debts? Can he give up his love for old intellectually equal Amelia and love this new version? Everyone comes to a realization at the end. This was a first rate production with a clever set (Josh Smith) and well thought out costumes (Margarita Delgado).
HAPPY FACE but it did have a tacked on ending with an inexplicable monologue.

FRINGE FESTIVAL: THEATER REVIEWS BY BINA SHARIF
LOLPERA
BY
ELLEN WARKENTINE AND ANDREW PEDROZA
DIRECTED AND CHOREOGRAPHER:ANGELA LOPEZ

AT THEATER 80

Sometime something is so silly that it eventually become funny,not in this
futuristic ambitious opera based on the stupid pictures of cats, all kinds of cats, happy cats, angry cats, black cats, red, purple sleepy cats, catty cats and furious cats. This can sound funny or interesting at least but trust me its not. Though they are making fun of internet in the future which is a great Idea but perhaps I misunderstood, perhaps the idea of internet in the future is that it will be the most banal thing which it already is and you can't just create a whole libretto based on stupid captions of cats on the internet. Internet has millions of other stupid things posted on it, why make only the poor cats the whole focus of an opera?
The performers are very strong with good singing skills but the whole effort seems like a waste. I left at the intermission. Thank god for that ten minute interval amongst the very boring silliness of it all.

FRINGE FESTIVAL:THEATER REVIEW BY BINA SHARIF

MEDEA PROJECT
DIRECTED AND CREATED BY SANDRA BRUNELL NEACE

MEDEA is being put on trial for killing her children. Her Defense attorney claims insanity. In the case of Madea as we all know the murder was committed because she wants to take revenge on her husband Jason who is marrying much younger a woman. Perhaps its revenge plus mental illness but the story of Medea is a fiction and the other killings of children depicted in this play about the contemporary society are much more chilling in this play because those murders are real and staring at our faces as the names of all the mothers are mentioned one by one reminding us that the evil exists because mentally ill are not aware of their actions.
Its a novel idea to bring todays crimes into a greek tragedy but its never as shocking though its happening often. We seem to justify it under the defense of mental illness. Its so sad to hear the names of real mothers who killed their own children.
The performances are all by women and the costumes are silky,flowing and beautiful adding a haunting sense to the story.

FRINGE FESTIVAL: THEATER REVIEW BY BINA SHARIF
NAMES OF THE DEAD
BY
VANESSA LENZ NEITHARDT
DIRECTED BY ROBERT GREENE

A bold piece of theater staying away from the usual silly, so called, "entertaining" fringe stuff. Jared,(Michael Nrithardt) a soldier back from serving in Iraq now contemplating suicide because he is not the same person anymore and according to him is followed by the dead, his soldier friends and the civilians he slaughtered in Iraq to free them from being enslaved, Now he hits his wife who has taken his two sons away from him to save them from him. He calls a suicide hot line where he is being calmly helped by Hope, (Kendall Cornell against the idea of committing suicide for the sake of his kids. The actor playing the soldier is very melodramatic in the first scene which doesn't work for him but improves in intensity eventually. Dave,(Robert Green) who also directed plays a fellow dead soldier who appears briefly is wonderful. Its the topic which is worth exploring. The brutal, cruel, evil war which is damaging humanity and human beings in it on both sides and the loss of life and soul is completely meaningless.

LET ME SEE

Let me see if its Ok with you

To love me

Let me see if its Ok WITH YOU TO CONSUME ME ,

DEVOUR ME,

SEDUCE ME,

KILL ME.

THEATER REVIEW:

YOSEMITE

BY

DANIEL TALBOTT AT RATTLESTICK THEATER

REVIEWED

BY

BINA SHARIF

When one walks in the Rattlestick theater one almost shiver with a chill going through

one's bones because of a very effective snowy setting and one is transported to Sierra Nevada

and its huge snowy park, though the setting here is not huge but its most effective done by

Raul Abrego, the set designer.

We sit and anticipate the chilling drama which doesn't unfortunately Unfolds instead of

a big difficult effort of the actors who are quite good but somehow can't grasp the script because the script is very static and if it does move, it moves slowly.

Its a story of a down on its luck family living in a trailer. two brothers and one sister who is holding a dead infant in her lap and the elder brother, (Seth Numrich) digging a fresh grave

(Another wonderful touch in the set designing department) He digs the grave almost throughout the play and Seth Numrich is totally absorbed in his character and is brilliant.

The sister, (Libby Woodbridge) hold the dead infant in her lap and is quiet mellow depicting

the sad tragedy. Often I couldn't hear her. The script has a conflict of the sorts, it has mellow and tender poetry in it and violence but the violence's tension and the climax it would have created is missing, so we wait while the sister announces that the grave is not deep enough and the brother digs some more.

There is the second brother,(Noah Galvin) who stays silent for the most part and sits still but often shivering. He actually is very effective. Some how we feel his pain more severely than the rest of the siblings.

Than a very young looking mother of these children show up with a big gun in her hand and the writer completely gives away the surprise. The mother played by, (Kathryn Erbe) is far too young looking to play the mother and is too soft in her delivery, some times not audible.

In the beginning I thought she was one of the other siblings.

They are all broken people, all damaged souls blaming each other.

The elder son, Seth Numrich has a wonderful scene with the mother when he accuses her of being,"Guilty" He has incredible energy and can hold the stage with his enormous, slender , youthful but powerful presence.

The mother lacks that kind of intensity, kisses her children good bye and is off............

I don't want to spoil the surprise but the ending is not much of a surprise after seeing the big gun.

The script has problems where the characters are not developed, its a good scenario lacking the tension of a great tragedy.

Also it takes so long for the grave digging that one wonders about the security guard showing up..................

and questioning them, after all its a public park and they have a dead baby in their hands.

Wouldn't they rush the action, bury the baby and get done with it. At the end of the play the baby is still not buried.

I enjoyed some of the poetry in the writing and enjoyed the performance by Seth and loved the set but it becomes a kind of nice setting for a lame drama.

REVIEWED

BY

BINA SHARIF

AETSINTERNATIONAL: artsinternational.blogspot.com

Email:binasharif@earthlink.net

Tel: 212-260-6207: cell

A GESTURE........................

A gesture, a remark, a look can ruin one's calm.

For example, if you are sitting in a cafe, calmly sipping your cafe macchiato

reading your book or even scribbling something on a nice hand made brown

paper and all of a sudden, "a so called friend with a high level career" walks in

and comes right to your table and says in a very aggressive manner,"Oh! you are always in a cafe, sitting and reading....."

Not even a hello, but the remark.....

But actually they are saying to you of course,(out of jealousy)

"Oh!, you have no career. You are always in a cafe, wasting your life."

"Oh!, I am busier than you are."

"Oh!, I have a career and you don't."

But how do they know that I don't have a career?

My cafe table is my office table. Its marble, its nice, its clean.

My books are on it, my pens and pencils and my note books and some lose

nicely textured papers for me to draw on.

Having coffee in a cafe is my career.

Reading a book in a cafe is my career.

But actually they are miserably jealous of me sitting in a cafe

sipping my coffee and reading a book.

They wish that they could just do that themselves.

They truly wish deep down that they could do what you are doing.

They wish that they could sit leisurely in a cafe and read a book. (It always seems to others as if I am sitting leisurely)................

Little do they know what goes through my mind...........

The thoughts, the memories, the remorse, the regret, the loneliness, the isolation,

the struggle with no results, the un-surmountable mountains of foreign lands,

the trauma of leaving, the trauma of never returning, the trauma of staying, the outsider,

the exile, the permanent exile which is perhaps easy to take in a cafe than in a narrow, windowless, airless dark apartment.

But to them I am always sitting,"Leisurely" sitting and reading without a care in the world.

Good for me...............me without a career and them, oh! them, always late for their career,

late for their business meetings but not late enough to come to me and make that remark,

as if I give a shit.......................

But they can't be honest with themselves, they can't express the suppressed angry wish

of not being in the cafe themselves, in that,"leisurely atmosphere, care free, artistic atmosphere."

But problem is money.

They want to constantly make money and be constantly leisurely too.

Its not possible.

There is no leisure while you are making money. Its all a hustle, at least while you are making

big bucks, I mean mega bucks...billions..There can't be leisure in stealing and scheming,

Your heart rate is at risk while you are stealing and scheming. It goes up, up, up and up.

The higher the number of bills you are going to steal, the higher the heart beat and higher

the heart beat, higher the stress on heart..................

Leisure comes later when finally you do get the chance to get to your luxury boat with a young

teen ager and even then your heart rate goes up...you have to match the coitus with the pretty

young thing on your lap and the heart is so stressed out that you might just die of that

supper heart attack..........

YOU SEE YOU EITHER MAKE TONS OF MONEY WITH THE HIGHER HEART BEAT OR

MAKE NO MONEY AT ALL AND SIT SEEMINGLY,"LEISURELY." IN A CAFE AND READ THE

NEW BOOK YOU JUST BOUGHT FOR A DOLLAR FROM STRAND BOOK STORE...........

EVEN THARE HAVING A STRESSFUL HEART BEAT, THE STRAND BOOK STORE I MEAN,

THEY HAVE RAISED THE USED BOOK PRICE FROM OUTDOOR BOOK STAND FROM ONE DOLLAR TO TWO AND EVEN THREE DOLLARS. NOW THEY ARE TRYING TO GIVE ME A HIGHER HEART RATE.....

BUT ONE DOLLAR OR NOTHING I SAY....

NO HIGHER HEART RATE FOR ME. NO. HIGHER HEART RATE ONLY GOES WHEN YOUR POCKET IS FULL OF DOLLARS AND MORE ARE ON THE WAY.

I CAN'T AFFORD EMPTY PURSE AND STRESSFUL HEART ON TOP OF IT.

I HAVE ENOUGH STRESS ALREADY TO PAY THE BILL IN THE CAFE WHERE MY ,"SO CALLED FRIENDS THINK THAT I AM SITTING,"LEISURELY"

Let me tell you once and for all. There is no money in the cafe. The money in the cafe is only

for the owner who also gets stressed out by seeing me sitting there for so long on a cup of coffee. I know he gets stressed. I can see it on his face and I can hear his fast beating pulse.....

"Money, money, money, he is thinking and less, less, less money from the table number so and so, he is thinking....Thats a lot of stress he is getting just from me and I am still paying for sitting there.

Trust me you pay, when you sit in the cafe. There is no money to be made. You pay just

to sit there and you have to eat or drink there.

You can't just sit there, you have to put calories in your mouth and weight on your big fat asss

which is getting bigger and fatter by the minute and all think that I sit there,"LEISURELY"

while they are thin like a stick.

You see when you make money, you run around, your heart rate goes up and you don't eat running around, so you burn more calories and you eat nothing....for me thats leisure but they all got their definition of the leisure wrong.................

I am sitting there gaining a hell of a lot of weight and thinking of my background when I was thin and young and sexy and had servants............oh! the servants, the servants, oh! how I miss the servants...............

Instead of coming here for equality and liberty and what else the first world offers? money I guess, i should have just stayed with my servants.

You see over there you never pay money for sitting. You just sit and sit and sit and your servants run around and bring you coffee and then you get old and fat because

you sat on your ass for so long.........................

But I sat here on my ass and got fat without my servants..............fat without servants, thats a travesty ...................a horror.............there is no fat woman back home without servants..........

I assure you. There is no fat woman without servants and money.

Only one immigrant in America.............fat servant less and money less woman sitting in cafe's being the envy of the career ladies.

But they, the jealous ones don't realize that I have to pay for sitting there. I call it, "RENTING THE TABLE IN THE CAFE."

You have to pay the rent and rent is money and I am still sitting there paying the rent and making the millionaire angry.

"I am spending money instead of making it.........you hear me, get off my ass."

But its alright with me but not alright with them. They don't pay my cafe check but they always come to me and give me their aggression and miseryand discontent and un-happiness.

They always say this to me, "YOu are always sitting in a cafe and reading."

And mind you not nicely either but with ANGER which is not so HIDDEN either.

"You are always in a cafe."

They say.

What should I say to them?

'Go fuck yourself."

Yes, thats what I should say to them but I am such a polite person, I learnt politeness by being with my servants at an early age.............after living here for such a long, long, long time I am still such a, "POLITE." person..............

Perhaps thats my career beside sitting in a cafe....................

TO BE CONTINUED

LITERATURE

"THE STORY OF,"YOU"

CONTINUATION OF DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF THE,"STORY OF YOU."

"YOU" IS A METAPHORICAL STORY OF,"ART" VS, "MONEY"

"ARTIST" VS POWER OF WEALTH WHICH THROWS A FEW DOLLARS AT THE,"ARTIST"

AND EXERTS A POWERFUL, DEGRADING, SILENT CONTROL.

"YOU" IS MANY DIFFERENT VERSIONS OF BASICALLY THE SAME STORY HOW THE

MONEY TRIES TO CONTROL THE FREEDOM OF ART.

"YOU" IS TOLD AS A STORY BETWEEN TWO CHARACTERS WHO HAVE

A DIFFICULT RELATIONSHIP WITH EACH OTHER WITHOUT MUCH UNDERSTANDING

OF AESTHETIC AND CAPITAL.

"YOU" IS THE STORY OF BROKEN RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MONEY AND BEAUTY

WHICH WAS GOING TO BREAK AWAY ANYWAY BECAUSE OF POETRY'S FRAGILITY.

"YOU" IS THE STORY BETWEEN PRAGMATISM AND IMAGINATION'S DREAMS.

A LITTLE BIT OF MONEY WITH TOTAL CONTROL ISSUES INVOLVED COULDN'T HELP THE ARTIST BECAUSE ART AND IMAGINATION COULD NOT PREVAIL UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF CONTROL AND ,"MONEY" IS NOTHING BUT ,"CONTROL" AND,"ART"

IS NOTHING BUT,"FREEDOM OF THE SPIRIT AND SOUL."

"THE STORY OF,"YOU." IS A PROSE/POEM

A FEW VERSIONS WITH THE SLIGHT VARIATIONS OF IMAGINATION OF THE SAME

OLD STORY OF,"MONEY" AND, "ART"