TransMasculine Cabaret by Vulva Va-Voom NYC Theatre Fringe Festival at 14th Street Y April 13, 2024 Production website ππ out of 5.
This second slice of Fringe Theatre for the trip certainly worked better than the first. To begin, the artist actually cared and invested in their message and how it was being shared. The story told was of a performer dressed as a female preparing for a cabaret performance that slowly transforms into a performance as a “drag king”. Along the way the performer- they/them shares the journey that they have experienced as a trans performer and how they have been received both off and on stage. The play is wild and offensive, gross and caustic – all good things you expect from a fringe piece.
The Apiary by Kate Douglas Directed by Kate Whoriskey 2nd Stage/Tony Kiser Theater February 11, 2024 Production website ππ out of 5.
The Apiary just didnβt do it for me.Β I am glad that it didnβt take more than 80 minutesΒ to explore its one note look into science vs. morality.Β For me, the play harkened to theme and variation of Little Shop of Horrors – – here, in a laboratory charged with keeping bees alive – bees are found to have a taste for dead humans and if you want to keep the bees alive and multiplying, then you need to supply them with bodies – lots and lots of bodies.Β So, just like Little Shop, the task is easy at the start, but soon becomes grizzly and overwhelming at the end.Β Worse than overwhelming, it just got predicable. Β
The Seven Year Disappear by Jordan Seavey Directed by Scott Elliott The New Group February 8, 2024 Production website ππ out of 5.
The Seven Year Disappear presents a performance art piece about a performance artist working to create a performance art piece about her relationship with she and her son.Β Cynthia Nixon, in the lead roll unexpectedly disappears at the very moment she is to have commission given to her by the Museum of Modern Art.Β The disappearance is for seven long years and leaves even her son puzzled as to its meaning.Β In his motherβs absence, he feels her presence in all of his/her friends, coworkers, strangers – and even the guy he is flirting with in a dark bar..Β Suddenly she pops up and expects the son to join her in being a part of her next piece as if she never left.Β Obviously, the son has a LOT of questions and a LOT of issues to solve with his mother. The play seems to want to explore motherhood, self-discovery, and the skeletons we keep in family closets.
Yira, Yira Co-Directed by Bruno Isakovic and Natisa Rajkovic Queer New York International Arts Festival at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at NYC February 7, 2024 Production website ππ out of 5.
Yira, Yira was more of a doc-theatre piece than an actual play. Co-directors Bruno IsakoviΔ and NataΕ‘a RajkoviΔ spent several months with four Argentinian sex workers, leading to their theater piece, Yira, Yira(Cruising, Cruising,) which reveals aspects of sex work and fights against some of the stereotypes we have.Β Performed by actual sex workers – 2 men, 1 woman, and 1 transvestite – we enter the world of sex work defined both by personal choice and circumstances. We also become aware that at the same time, we are talking about their work conditions in general, demand and supply, healthcare, and other benefits afforded to any other working person in Argentina.
Public Obscenities written and directed by Shayok Misha Chowdhury Soho Reperatory at Polonsky Shakespeare Center February 6, 2024 Production website ππ out of 5.
Public Obscenities
Public Obscenities is one very big play coming in at over three hours. Our playwright involves as many themes, histories and possibilities as he can possibly put into the space given. Truthfully, this play would be best done as a mini series where all of the pieces could fit together and find their proper resolution. The play is at once to long for the audience and two short to wrap up all that it opens up.Β The play centers around a Bangla, American student, who has returned to his native India, for a oddly defined academic project at the PhD level in which he claims to want to study English, anthropology, performance, gender and cinema – – although how that all comes together for one PhD package is a bit hard to figure out.Β
