Be a pirate, trombonist or whatever your heart desires
Today’s Orlando Fringe Festival reviews, based on press previews: “Be a Pirate!” (Highly recommended), “Generic Male: Just What We Need, Another Show About Men” (Highly recommended), “A Solo from the Pit,” “Stag Night” and “The Walk in the Snow.”
Ahoy, matey. Thom Mesrobian’s ”Be a Pirate!” (Orange, 60 minutes, highly recommended) is one of those delightful shows that starts out as one thing and then turns into another — smoothly and entertainingly.
Fringe veteran Mesrobian (“Simpleton,” “Callbacks”) starts out almost like a children’s TV host — pirate garb, the arrrr’s and yo-ho’s. Even a sea shanty (Fringe mini-trend this year?). But after a spell, as Sharktooth Sam tells you about his life, you realize this isn’t a show for children.
It’s really an inventive and cleverly designed show for adults who work as shopkeepers but secretly long to be pirates.
Mesrobian has a winning way with character description: “He smelled of the sea and cruelty,” he says of Sharktooth’s pirate father. “If you ever saw him smile, you’d better turn and run.”
As Sharktooth’s tale unwinds, it calls to mind all sorts of life lessons — love someone who supports you, parents also teach children what not to do, don’t settle.
Mesrobian’s original songs are lively and catchy, and he keeps things light — while still finding genuine emotion in his story. And there’s something appropriate about the childishness of the setup — isn’t childhood the time when we don’t let practical concerns stop us from dreaming big?
“Be a Pirate!” is strong enough to make me want to shut down the laptop and head for the sea.
Elias Faingersh also is thinking
about the choice between conventional security and following your dreams. In his case, detailed in the engaging ”A Solo from the Pit” (Green, 60 minutes), that dream involves a trombone rather than an eyepatch.
Faingersh, from Sweden, tells of how he landed a plum job playing with the Metropolitan Opera in New York City — and then chucked it to create his own music and take his show on the road.
His show cleverly uses real-life opera plots or characters to inspire related tales from his own life. (Don’t worry, no prior opera knowledge is needed.)
His playing is first-rate. Using electronics, he adds effects, his own voice, percussive sounds and more to create original compositions that fascinate; opera fans will recognize familiar melodic strains as a bonus.
Faingersh performed the show in Orlando years ago, and for this go-round the balance seemed slightly off to me: A bit too much time spent explaining the opera plots, not enough time on his own personal feelings. Supporting characters can be sketched too quickly — a German girlfriend barely makes an impression — and when he wonders what his parents will think of him giving up a “dream job” for most musicians, he leaves the audience wondering what exactly they did think and do.
Still, “A Solo from the Pit” is a beautifully musical meditation on the joy of letting your heart lead you. And you’ll never look at a trombone the same way again.
If that show depicts virtuosity in the arts, ”The Walk in the Snow” (Yellow, 75 minutes) shows us prowess in the sciences. While English performance poet Jem Rolls opens our eyes to history, he also shows us misogyny, anti-Semitism, insider politics and all the reasons many of us don’t know the name Lise Meitner — or the role she played in the development of the atomic bomb.
Rolls, an acclaimed
Fringe veteran, has a rhythm of speech that turns his words into a form of music — repetition to make a point, alternating complex sentences with simple phrases, rolling off dates in rapid succession, using deliberate rhymes.
In 75 minutes, it begins to feel as if some of the information has been repeated and he seems to reach a climactic ending more than once.
But this is a fascinating story and one well worth hearing; if only professors knew how to relate information in such an entertaining and moving way.
Speaking of misogyny, we turn to two very different shows that have that topic in mind.
First up is ”Generic Male: Just What We Need, Another Show About Men” (Silver, 60 minutes, highly recommended).
Darren Stevenson and Ashley Jones of Push Physical Theatre combine playfulness, theater of the absurd, social commentary, strength and grace to create a mesmerizing look at nothing less than the patriarchy. But this is no rant; this is true art.
In various skits, the pair examine masculinity through movement — a dance with their hands down their sweatpants in some kind of macho posing gone askew, or a game of Russian roulette with a balloon that displays masculine competitiveness.
A soldier’s life plays out as mime, with a haunting underscore. An artistic balancing act accompanies a father-son discussion, showing us one man affecting the next generation.
And it’s all delightfully meta — the show starts with apologies to the audience for the toxic masculinity they will see. This is the type of inventive, thought-provoking, relevant art the Fringe was made for.
”Stag Night” (The Abbey, 60 minutes) also creates social commentary on gender. Billie Jean Aubertin, a Critics Choice winner for her 2021 play “Judas,” has written a skewering look at those reality-romance shows. She calls them out as not only damaging but downright deadly.
In the high-stakes TV show “Stag Night,” women compete to marry the dashing Kyle (Bjorn Backman, suitably clueless as to how awful Kyle is).
Among the women: driven Becca (Jane Soliman), marriage-minded Rachel (Ashleigh Ann Gardner) and sweet but nervous Skye (Aubertin). They vie for the so-called “prize” under the watchful eye of the oily show host (Joe Llorens).
Aubertin has fun with the conceits of such “Bachelor”-type shows — the contestants identified by name and initial (“Here’s Lauren A.!”), the confessionals, the teary dramatics. She has a lot to say about how these shows diminish everyone, how it’s impossible to be authentic in a world that puts stock in such manipulative nonsense — but in an hour doesn’t get enough of that in for a maximum emotional punch.
We never really get a strong sense of the mostly one-trait characters, so it’s hard to be too concerned about their fates. But this is a strong show concept full of entertaining surprises and important ideas. It just needs a little more flesh on its bones.
Orlando Fringe Festival
Where: Most shows take place at the Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Orlando Repertory Theatre, Orlando Museum of Art and the Renaissance Theatre at or near Loch Haven Park. Show venues in those locations are identified by color; off-campus locations are identified by name.
When: Through May 30 Cost: A $10 button is required for ticketed shows; then individual performance tickets are a maximum of $15. Schedule, tickets and more info: OrlandoFringe. org
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