2 posts tagged “theater”
I fell off the 8 Days of Happiness wagon, and I'm three shows behind. Quickly, then! To the reviews!
Show #11: The Success of Failure (or, The Failure of Success), Cynthia Hopkins, Walker Art Center.
I left the theater in a pretty weird mood and then wrote some trippy space-time, life-death, faith-knowledge stuff that I am too shy to post (plus, I don't have to! This isn't some kind of writing workshop! Ha!) The second half of the show is raw. She is honest and there's rebellion in her. Watching someone enumerate their failings for you in clear, judgmental, but accepting tones is going to make you feel a little crazy and dangerous afterward. I'm not sure I liked it. I'm not sure I didn't.
Show #12: My Never Being Loneliness. Two works by Melissa Birch & Molly Van Avery, Open Eye Figure Theater
I hate to compare shows to one another, but these three all bear the comparison, since they are meta-autobiography-fiction (you know it when you see it?). It was great to see that genre done in three different ways--the extreme fiction/truth spectrum of Cynthia Hopkins, the poetic work of Melissa Birch, and the funny, surreal writing of Molly Van Avery. I am proud to live in a community that supports these two (and their collaborators, Maren Ward and Arwen Wilder).
Show #13: The Infinite Multiverse, by Chris Yon, Bryant Lake Bowl
Man, Chris does not shy away from precision. Daring to hit sound cues so perfectly. It sounds ridiculous but it's true--there didn't seem to be room for error, but it didn't matter because everything in the Ballad of Angry Dad seemed to click together perfectly. In I've Got the Heebie Jeebies, there was a long sequence of unison movement and I couldn't figure out if I was more astounded by the perfect unison of the performers or the shadings of difference that flared up because they were all doing the same thing. It was a trip, and uh, need I mention that his dancers (Justin Jones, Kristin Van Loon, Taryn Griggs) are crazy good at what they do?
The Minnesota Fringe buzz is finally getting a move on. Since I'm not in three shows this year (I'm not in ANY shows!), I am thinking quite seriously about buying an unlimited pass and making a lifestyle of it for 10 days. I figure I may as well start compiling shows I've got my eye on. I'll probably be posting reviews once the Fringe comes to pass.
Fringe shows I'm definitely seeing:
Maximum Verbosity
Forks!
62
DRP Dance
Scrimshaw
Allegra Lingo
Penny Freeh
Deviled Eggs
Through the Dark
Maybe:
Alpha Come Home
The thing I love about the Fringe is that everybody who wants to can make a show (kind of--there IS limited space). Which means you see all kinds of mediocre shows with truly brilliant moments tucked away in them. You end up learning a lot about how to make good theater/dance and you definitely get all filled up with joy and spend an insane amount of time dedicated to the viewing and discussion of performance works! You get to see some truly remarkable shows, too--it's not all amateurs out there.
