philadelphia fringe festival, 2001

the philadelphia fringe festival is a two-week-long festival of theatre, dance, visual art, music, etc, that fall outside the boundaries of traditional art. tonight, i went with some friends to see a couple of one act plays directed by another friend. the 3 plays were all written by a local playwright who i had never heard of before (not that i follow the scene, so it's not really surprising). they were, in order of appearance, flattering the audience, newspapers, and back in the day. my friend directed the first and last, not the middle.

newspapers was, without a doubt, the single worst piece of theatre i have EVER SEEN. during the half hour of my life that was wasted on that pile of steaming, rotting crap, i alternately wished i was (a) not sitting in the middle of the row, trapped with NO ESCAPE, (b) small enough to crawl through the hole in the ceiling i was investigating quite closely because i couldn't bear to pay attention to the actors, and (c) in posssession of a nice strong drink. the "action" went as follows: a man and a woman sat in chairs on stage, reading newspapers. they spent the entire TORTUROUS half-hour of the show discussing stories from the paper, talking about their neighbors, and trudging through long incomprehensible soliliquies. the woman had inexplicably large hair and was wearing an inexplicable pink sequined dress (wait, weren't they supposed to be sitting around sunday morning reading the paper? does anyone do that in pink sequins? no? i didn't think so.) the actors had scripts (SCRIPTS!) glued inside newspapers, and were reading most of their lines (READING their lines! at a PERFORMANCE! that i PAID MONEY TO SEE!). between the reading lines and the complete lack of any action, this sooooo could've been a radio play. 'cept that it was waaaaaaaaay too uninteresting and badly acted to work even as a radio play. thirty minutes of my life that i can NEVER. GET. BACK.

the other two shows were more interesting, though they could've have been much shorter than they were. the first, flattering the audience, was 3 actors doing just that: flattering the audience. they told us how good we looked, how fashionable we were, how smart and funny and kind and creative we were. interesting idea, but the show went on for about 10 minutes too long (should've only been a 5 minute show). the third show, back in the day, was a one-man show, acted by a talented, very large, man. it was about the recent closing of a west philly landmark, brown's thriftway (a grocery store). brown's thriftway (mentioned by me in this entry), was the last of the locally-owned grocery stores. it was not the place that people with money shopped for food, but rather the place where the lower-income folks shopped (chitlins and collard greens, anyone?). it was dirty, and unfriendly, and poorly stocked. but, it was convenient, and inexpensive, and open til 1am. and surprisingly, they had a really good selection of specialty and ethnic foods. anyway, brown's thriftway has recently become university thriftway (with better service and selection, i might add) and this show was set on the last day brown's was open.

though back in the day was perhaps a bit on the long side (hmmm, i sense a theme with this particular playwright), it was The Most Stupendous Show of the CENTURY (dum dum dum DUM!) in comparison to newspapers. after the three shows were over, we decided it was imperative to drown our sorrows thoroughly in drink.