Snoop's Theatre Thoughts

The 2017 St. Lou Fringe Festival is over now, and the biggest regret I have regarding it is that I didn’t see more shows. It’s a great festival celebrating all kinds of performing arts, especially theatre in the more “edgy” or experimental vein. The four shows I saw this year reflected the Fringe’s attitude in different ways. From complex experimental pieces, to outrageous comedy, to challenging drama, the best of what theatre can be is there at the Fringe.

I missed last year’s Festival, so it’s been a little while since I was able to soak up the Fringe atmosphere, and a few things have changed since the last time I attended the festival. Generally, the festival seems more streamlined and polished. Gone are Fringe badges and playing cards for tickets, and the area of the festival isn’t as spread out as it used to be, focusing more on a few blocks of Grand Boulevard in Grand Center. Also, the newly renovated Grandel Theatre makes an ideal venue for the festival’s headline shows. It’s still the Fringe with all its quirkiness and variety, but it’s also showing signs of having matured somewhat. The Festival is even more cementing itself as a fixture in the St. Louis performing arts scene.

Here are brief reviews of the four shows I saw:

Snow White

Directed and Adapted by Lucy Cashion
Equally Represented Arts

Julia Crump, Will Bonfiglio (right) and cast
Photo by Meredith LaBounty
ERA

This year’s local headline act was this new production from the innovative ERA and its fearless leader, director and adaptor Lucy Cashion, who has given audiences a Snow White like they have never seen before. Like ERA’s versions of Shakespeare and other classical works, this isn’t a straightforward telling of the story. In fact, its non-linear nature is highlighted in an “instruction sheet” handed to audience members before the show. There’s a lot going on here, with various versions of the fairy tale being mixed with pop culture influences, cultural criticism, philosophy, and psychology, exploring issues of identity, sexuality, race, authority, and more. There are a lot of concepts thrown together here, and it can be a challenge to sort through everything, but it’s definitely a worthwhile and fascinating exercise. It’s one of those shows that I really wish I could see more than once.

There are some echoes of the Disney Snow White here, but there’s a lot more as well, and the characters are here but they’re different. Here, the story is narrated by Snow White’s imperious, German-accented biological mother (a terrific Katy Keating), and acted out on a simple, abstract set designed by Cashion and comprised mostly of various movable pieces of furniture and surmounted by a giant video screen. The use of music and video, composed and designed by Joe Taylor, is impressive and clever, with the magic mirror becoming a unique character called Hogo DeBergerac, voiced by Randy Brachman but being “spoken” through the mouths of the characters themselves on the giant video screen. The characters take turns addressing the mirror, and Jane (Maggie Conroy), the haughty “Wicked Stepmother” figure, is obsessed with it, and also to a different degree with Snow White (Julia Crump). Here, Snow White is a pampered and somewhat bossy princess who lives with seven men—Bill (Mitch Eagles), Clem (Alex Fyles), Edward (Anthony Kramer), Henry (Carl Overly, Jr.), Kevin (Reginald Pierre), Hubert (Gabe Taylor), and Dan (Pete Winfrey).  The men, outfitted in coveralls with name tags, have their own issues to sort out, not just in relation to Snow White but toward one another and within themselves. There’s also Paul (Will Bonfiglio), the prince figure, who likes to take baths with his typewriter, blows bubbles, joins a monastery for a time, and undertakes his own personal quest for purpose, that may or may not involve Snow White in some way or another. If there’s a lot of vague language here, that’s fitting, because this is a play about concepts as much as it is about characters. There are some striking visual moments, aided by Cashion’s striking design and Marcy Wiegert’s stylish, whimsical costumes, as well as by Taylor’s music. There are moments of bursting into song, as well.

If this sounds odd, it’s because it is. It’s ERA, and nothing is conventional. The casting is excellent across the board, with excellent moments for all of the characters, and there are a lot of ideas even if the story isn’t always exactly coherent. I hope ERA stages this again elsewhere, because I would like to see it again. It’s new, it’s old, it’s different, and it challenges conventional thinking about a well-known story and characters. In short, it’s what Cashion and ERA do best.

On the Exhale

by Martin Zimmerman

Directed by Seth Gordon and Starring Elizabeth Ann Townsend

This short one-woman show is intense, poignant, and an excellent showcase for its star, Elizabeth Ann Townsend. It only runs about an hour, but there’s a lot of drama in that hour, told from the point of view of an unnamed English professor and single mother whose conception of life and the world around her is shaken by a school shooting. It’s a highly personal account even though the character isn’t given a name, and the echoes of the Sandy Hook tragedy are unmistakable. Told in a first-person narrative style, the structure of the play makes the character’s journey immediate and personal, as Townsend explores issues of family, grief, fear, and the problematic politics of guns.  It’s a tour-de-force performance by Townsend as a woman whose journey of grief takes her in places she never thought she would go.  This was a simply riveting production.

Liberals vs. Zombies vs. Conservatives

Written and performed by Dan Viggers, starring Sarah Porter, Matt Pentecost and Zak Farmer

This is a timely, satirical musical taking prominent issues from the day and combining them with music and zombies. I guess a zombie apocalypse is as good a premise as any to bring disparate characters together and force them to work out their conflicts. Here, composer and writer Viggers has crafted a simple, goofy story full of jokes and caricatures that has some tuneful songs and provides a lot of laughs. With jokes about everything from man buns to Fox News and more, it tells the story of two liberals, Lena (Porter) and Oliver (Pentecost), who are fleeing from the zombies and come across the homestead of a conservative, Trump-supporting loner, Ted (Farmer). Forced to confront their differences and figure out what to do about the crisis situation, the three end up learning more about one another than they had wished. All three performers give good performances, with great voices and comic timing, and most of the jokes are funny, although the twist ending is somewhat abrupt and the final “message” is a little simplistic. Still, it’s an entertaining show, and a good example of the kind of variety that Fringe has to offer.

Dead Gothics Society

produced by Alicen Moser

This show is just a whole lot of fun, especially for anyone with an interest in literature. Producer Alicen Moser, who also acts in the production, has brought together a team of performers and crew (including Jimmy Bernatowicz, Andre Estamian, Katie Schoenfeld, Hannah Grimm, Tori Thomas, Ryan Lawson-Maeske, and Ben Lewis) to play an intriguing game. Hosted by Satan in Purgatory, a collection of dead writers and poets including Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, and others take turns acting out stories they’ve written that range from the simply bizarre to the downright creepy, with a lot of humor thrown in for good measure. The audience then votes on their two favorites, who then go head-to-head in a trivia contest with the winner receiving a ticket to go straight to Heaven, and the loser getting a ticket to Hell. It’s a smart, clever, funny, and irreverent production that’s a whole lot of fun to watch and participate in as an audience member. There are some fun running jokes and some great performances by all, with Lawson-Maeske as probably the MVP for his memorable turns as Byron and the Marquis de Sade. This is another excellent example of the kinds of shows a festival like Fringe showcases so well.

Overall, my Fringe 2017 experience was enlightening, energizing, and entertaining. I enjoyed the shows I saw this year, and I look forward to seeing more of what the Fringe brings next year.