- OTHER MEDIA
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- Fringe on top
Fall's wildest fest unloads a mixed bag of Tenderloin tricks and treats
- review in the San Francisco Bay Guardian
- by Robert Avila
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- There's a crisp fall edge to the heady pee-asma of the Tenderloin as
huddled, roaming packs of theater scavengers move hourly among the tolerant
local traffic — two unmistakable signs of the SF Fringe Festival.
How like Halloween it all seems too, the greedy devouring of tricks and
treats at the Fringe, that 12-day carnival of the theater world gleefully
unimpeded by judges' panels, censors' boards, or the general plague of
good taste.
- The open-door policy of the Fringe makes for a thoroughly unhinged
program of nearly 40 local, national, and international acts, all under
an hour and all under 10 bucks. In this situation, word of mouth and capricious
fortune serve as the principal guideposts for sporting patrons ricocheting
from one show to the next among 10 different venues, including such nontraditional
environs as Original Joe's restaurant-bar and the mobile fiesta known as
the Mexican Bus.
- Amid opening night's offerings Sept. 6 came the latest from Fringe
superstars Banana Bag and Bodice. Something of a superstar satire itself,
The Fall and Rise of the Rising Fallen explores, exclaims, and explodes
the mass-cultural phenomenon ("mass retardo reactions") surrounding
a legendary band, the Rising Fallen, six years defunct since playing just
one glorious gig.
- Part one of a longer piece, Rising Fallen unfolds as a pretentious
and outlandish presentation by a grad student expert (Christopher W. White)
writing his thesis on the "post-wave neo-nick nick scene." His
quickly wayward lecture includes testimonials and reenactments featuring
former lead guitarist Taylor Taylor (Dave Malloy), number one groupie Janey
Jane (Rebecca Noon), and some other dude (a roving protean presence played
by Joseph Estlack). Amid a couple of microphones and practice amps, an
electric guitar, a handheld light source, a video monitor, and a suitably
quirky musical score by Malloy come various ego-refracted takes on the
myth and mystique surrounding the band's long-estranged lover-founders,
Jacko and Grandma Mo. They are played remotely if indelibly via some recorded
images and a pair of cell phones by BB and B's New York founders, Jason
Craig (who cowrote the piece with Malloy) and Jessica Jelliffe.
- Word-struck, wryly antisoulful, but only fitfully inspired (especially
by comparison with their previous shows), Rising Fallen never quite finds
its legs. Ironically, Craig’s and Jelliffe's charismatic but elusive
personae might have held the piece together more had the actors actually
been live onstage.
- The following night saw two premieres with strangely similar themes
by SF companies. Get It? Got It. Good., an absurdist three-act play by
SF playwright-director Dan Wilson (Vagina Dentata), begins as a desperate
hunt by two losers (Catz Forsman and Sam Shaw) for an elusive "it"
sought by their clients (a frustrated couple played by Kevin Karrick and
Stefanie Goldstein) and ends with an inquiry into the nature of good and
bad that devolves into a Luigi Pirandello–like unraveling of the play
itself. Although the play tends to substitute volume and verbosity for
more penetrating writing at points, Wilson and his capable eight-person
cast reach several high notes (not least actor Hal Savage's Catholic sermon).
- The ghost of Pirandello haunted the stage once more that evening. This
time it was in the back room at Original Joe's on Taylor, where RIPE Theater
unveiled its latest, @six, an amusing set of interconnected scenes written
by the company that eventually turns its purported premise — a series
of coincidental encounters between two antagonistic couples (Sarah McKereghan
and John Andrew Stillions; Mark Rachel and Deborah Wade) and a silent bystander
(Noah Kelly) — inside out. Some uneven writing and thematic unraveling
aside, great ensemble acting and consistently sharp humor held this one
together.
- Other promising fare in the SF Fringe Fest couldn't be sampled in time
for this column, including local legend-in-his-own-right Dan Carbone's
new show, Bay Area playwright Ian Walker's Stone Trilogy, and the anticipated
sequel The Thrilling Adventures of Elvis in Space II. For the whole enchilada,
including audience reviews, visit the fest’s Web site.
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