Wounded by Jiggs Burgess Directed by Del Shores P3 Theatre Company February 4, 2024 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
Wounded is one of the rare productions at a Fringe Festival that is a traditional play with a protagonist and a forward moving plot. The story revolves around a “wounded” man, Carrol, who over-compensates with everything (food, affectation, gossip, babble, etc.) to make up for feeling like a nobody. Soon to enter is his high school classmate, Robert, equally “wounded” now an addict, living with the parents – – in his fifties unable to get started in life. The play focuses on how an unhealed past simply feasters and feasters until it damages everything its path.
Saw the Musical: The Unauthorized Parody of Saw Written by Zoe Ann Jordon Music and Lyrics by Patrick Spencer & Anthony De Angelis Directed by Stephanie Rosenberg AMT Theatre September 17, 2023 Production website NO 💉 out of 5. ☠ TOTAL POISON
This was, without question, THE VERY WORST PLAY/MUSICAL that I have EVER seen in NYC. It was a torture unlike any torture that the Saw movie franchise could have ever devised. Here are just 10 of the reasons sitting in this musical made me want to “saw” my arm off and run to the streets of NYC shouting, “Free at last! Thank God; Free at last.”
Truth’s a Dog Must to Kennel Written and performed by Tim Crouch Fringe Encore Series by the Soho Playhouse January 5, 2023 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
This was a weird one – even for the land of Fringe Theatre. The heart of the play was one man, Tim Crouch wearing a virtual reality set of goggles. With the goggles on he places himself in the role of the Fool in Shakespeare’s King Lear. He describes being in the actual role during a live performance of Lear where actors and scenes are playing around him as he describes what he is experiencing. Perhaps even more interesting was his X-ray like vision of the audience.
The Stakeout Written by Martin Dockery Directed by Vanessa Quesnelle Fringe Encore Series Soho Playhouse December 23, 2022 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
I adore Fringe Festivals. No matter the city or the country they pop-up in, they are always the best and worst of theatre – often in the same evening. The Stakeout was really sharp. I was worried at the beginning with the cliche “actors sitting on the stage already in character before we arrive but that can be overlooked. The play was a most clever blending of Waiting for Godot and a family drama about an estranged father and son.
I Wanna F*ck Like Romeo and Juliet Written by Andrew Rincon Directed by Jesse Joe Jamie Lloyd Company at A New Light Theatre Project 59E59 Theatre October 22, 2022 Production website 💉💉 out of 5.
Okay the “F” word, especially spelled out in asterisks, caught my attention and even encouraged me to buy tickets just to see something “bad” – because sometimes a show can be so bad that it is irresistible – granted sometimes you are doing more laughing “at it” rather than “with it”. And the show did start off quite badly. It was way too campy and played way too “bigly” for the very small theatre. Cliches of Cupid and St. Valentine were neither believable or funny.
