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FRINGE BOOK

• maximumverbosityonline on 2009-07-15 said...

  There’s a lot to admire here – I’m a huge fan of the source texts, and they do some pretty clever stuff with them, both in terms of writing and staging – which left me scratching my head as to why I wasn’t enjoying it more. This is definitely the first show I’ve seen in the Festival that really seemed to suffer from its assigned space – it’s a movement-heavy show, and their main set piece takes up a huge chunk of the playing area, meaning that the performers are struggling to move up and down a single narrow strip – I really wished I’d had the opportunity to see what they could do with broader, more sweeping movements. Kudos to the actors for committing to their choices with enthusiasm, but I question a lot of the choices that were made – some seemed obvious or heavy-handed (e.g. the toy soldier’s fantasy sequence of the ballerina while on the boat), others emotionally manipulative (although that may be symptomatic of the source material, as well – Andersen has an obsession with the purifying power of suffering that presents some problems for me, so that may be wholly personal). There are a few cool and inventive images – like the girl with her neck and wrists caught in webbing (though I wish they could have found more things to do with it). Her performance was surprisingly intense in that particular piece, and they played a bit with audience discomfort – which I think could have been pushed even further. I also found the emotional cues provided by the music to be jarring – nearly all of those moments (particularly the ending) would, I think, have been much more powerful in silence. (Also, I don’t know how I feel about the closing image – of having salvation equated with food. Of course, I’m the dude whose Savior is regularly eaten once a week, so this may again be a personal issue.) Okay. The fact that I’m jumping around and nitpicking so much suggests that I’m having a hard time pinpointing exactly what the show was missing for me. But while there’s a lot of formal inventiveness on display here – and a set of very appealing actors who are prepared to be quite vulnerable with us – at the end of the show, I’m forced to say that I didn’t connect emotionally with the stories that were presented. There was a large and responsive audience present, so I suspect that there’s some barrier that I’m bringing: whatever the case, while I wasn’t glaring at my watch and antsy to get out, I can’t say that I was left with a really transformative experience. more reviews available at wombwithaview.wordpress.com