Up close and personal
These Orlando Fringe Winter Mini-Fest performers have personal tales to tell: About healing and about hope, about strength and about love. In other words, about life. Here are reviews of four shows seen this weekend at the downtown theater festival; they all repeat today, Jan. 15.
Award-winning performer Erika Kate MacDonald is no stranger to whimsy, and her latest show “The Barn Identity” has plenty of that — from made-up children’s games to using the audience, literally, to create a scene.
But there’s an intriguing darkness hanging over the proceedings — a recorded flashback of an oft-told story jars the audience in puzzling fragments. Something happened to MacDonald … but what?
It turns out the specifics of the “what” aren’t as important as the lessons learned from the experience. MacDonald frequently reminds us that the show is about falling-down barns — those proud but ailing structures that dot America’s countryside. What do “that Fourth of July feeling” or two old ladies staying warm in a snowstorm have to do with falling-down barns?
With a light but engaging touch, MacDonald will fill you in. She’s backed by Fringe veteran Paul Strickland adding suitable underscore.
A deliberately shocking moment feels a bit like cheating in a story otherwise so real, but watching details and incidents gently come into focus is a worthwhile ride with MacDonald as a charming guide.
“The things that hold us up can be so very small,” she says. “The Barn Identity” will give a lift to anyone who feels like those falling-down barns: Battered and bruised, but still standing.
In “The Awkward Ballerina,” Kristin Govers shares her true stories of growing up with cerebral palsy.
Govers came from a “followyour-dreams kind of family,” she tells the audience, and her dream was to be a dancer because of the ballerinas’ grace in their movements.
“I’ve always wanted to know what that would feel like,” she says wistfully.
In a series of scenes from her youth, she engagingly paints a picture of coming to understand how she differed from other children. And although it’s no pity party, she conveys the rawness of emotion she felt. The casual cruelty of kids certainly comes through loud and clear.
As directed by Fringe veteran T.J. Dawe, her story is lightened by Govers’ funny use of language — she worries that skiing will end up with her in “a make-out session with a tree” — and reminders that even in dark times there are people who will share their light.
The final vignette could use a dash more pop to make it stand out from the others, but each tale — from joining a soccer team to anxiety over a high-school dance — shines with her spirit.
With her medical condition, a career in professional dancing was not in the cards. But Govers has found a different — and better — purpose on the stage.
During “The Real Black Swann,” Les Kurkendaal mentions he did not plan on sharing his own experiences as a Black American in the show.
The show’s subtitle — “Confessions
of America’s First Black Drag Queen” — gives a clue to the real subject at hand: William Dorsey Swann, a former slave who donned a dress and became “The Queen” in the late 1800s.
In his engaging solo show, Kurkendaal combines historical information on Swann with his own present-day life — and most important, his coping mechanism, which involves the favorite mode of transport of Glinda the Good Witch from “The Wizard of Oz.”
However Kurkendaal came to mix the old and the new, that juxtaposition is what gives “The Real Black Swann” its spark. We’ve heard stories of drag queens and we’ve heard about the racism Black Americans endure, but by combining them this show frames the deeper issues in a new way and raises new ideas: What does it mean to be brave, what does it mean to take responsibility for change, what does it mean to be alive?
The show is also dosed with humor and a nice sprinkling of pop-culture references (Soap diva Susan Lucci starred in a “Christmas Carol” adaptation?)
Kurkendaal is approachable, believable and, with effective vocalization, draws two distinct characters. In this history lesson for today — especially relevant given the recent spate of politically motivated attacks on drag culture — you never feel like you are at school. But under the laughs there is plenty to learn.
In “Sing Out Proud,” Natalie Doliner tells a love story set to the music of The Carpenters with the help of Sarah-lee Dobbs and Ned Wilkinson. That’s a talented trio right there, and the talent shines through in this mostly sunny little show that gives new meaning to hits such as “Rainy Days and Mondays,” “Top of the World” and “Closer to You” as they slot into the story line.
Both wryly and in chipper fashion,
Doliner recalls the history of her love life from an ill-fated boyfriend to her realization that women captured her romantic fancy.
There are deeper undertones about being true to yourself and not settling when it comes to affairs of the heart, but on the whole this quick-moving hour feels like a celebration — of personal growth, of authenticity and, yes, of love.