The Quantum Eye

Mentalism is the least impressive form of magic out there: it lacks the glitz of illusion, the energy of performance art, and the risk of escapism. If you're going to make a career out of reading people, you'd either better be infallible, unique, or extremely charismatic. Sam Eaton is, unfortunately, none of these things. He plays the mild-mannered card so much that the stage (not to mention the audience) often overshadows him. The line I heard most during his act, The Quantum Eye, was whether or not his volunteer wanted to bring reading glasses on stage. After a while, it hardly mattered that Eaton was able to act as a human lie detector; predict the times, numbers, and names people were thinking of (not really "show-stopping" secrets); or manage to get people to think they'd picked what he'd already preset before the show. Furthermore, his inability to perform "Transmission" (one out of eight acts), didn't impress me. During "Mnemonics," he seemed to be using physical cues from his volunteers' anticipation rather than the memorization technique he was distracting us with, and while that's probably exactly what he was doing, I'd be disappointed to think that I was bored into figuring it out. The subtitle to his show is "Magic Deceptions"; take the magic out of it, and it's just a series of transparent deceptions.

EAST TO EDINBURGH: Tender

Girl power, perhaps, but Tender was way too soft a play for me. Shapour Benard has crafted four interesting, different young women, but she's left them stranded in limbo, and neither her plot nor dialog give us any conflict, just a lot of consolation and solidarity. The lead character, named Soledad, is anything but solid (whereas Kellie E. McCants is too firm in the role). Her temporary job as a bartender (hence the title's double-meaning) has gone on for eight years, and while that's fine for Sam (Kelly B. Dwyer), her trust-funded punk-loving roommate, she's embarrassed by the recent success of her close friend Anna (Andrea Dionne), a kitschy, semi-conservative music critic who seems overly excited by everything. She turns to an older friend, Julie (Amber Gray), who grew distant after breaking up with Sam (after six years) in order to marry into security, and with whom she shares a dark secret. But that's where it ends: with a weakly argued showdown that doesn't dredge up the past so much as gently trip over it. Benard's energies are well intentioned, but without true conflict -- nobody in the play seems to want anything, except Soledad -- the play is stuck in a mire that can sometimes be amusing (Dwyer is a highlight), but is all too often morose.

EAST TO EDINBURGH: La Femme Est Morte

So much more than any of the other shows currently running at the "East to Edinburgh" festival, La Femme Est Morte captures what it means to be a fringe show. A lighter adaptation of the classic Greek myth of Phaedra, La Femme Est Morte balances between the bloody conclusion of Sarah Kane's Phaedra's Love and the rock band nature of Chuck Mee's First Love by gyrating through the seven levels of pop circle hell. Assembler and director Shoshona Currier has the chorus sing "Date Rape" one moment, and has Theseus quoting Patton the next; Phaedra seduces her stepson, Hippolytus, to the chorus's rendition of "My Hump," and not to be outdone, there's ample samples of the Spice Girls ("2 Become 1"), too. It's like an avant garde take on Moulin Rouge: for all the derivations, the energy and creativity manage to sell the show. The show stands out, however, because of the exceptional choreography from Isis Masoud and Marc Santa Maria (bodies crucified and spun in mid-air), and from the multifaceted performance of Joey Williamson, who plays the effeminate leader of the paparazzi chorus with such exuberance that the story itself makes perfect sense. Great fun!

Minor Gods

Summer Play Festival at Theater Row


As this is a festival production it'd be kinda douchey of me if I were to write a review of something that is (hopefully) still in development. I can proudly announce, though, that the committee did get a Hot Guy Alert out of it! Always worth the price of admission.

Alice In War

Shows at the Summer Play Festival aren't open for review, but I want to say a few things about this one anyway because it's a brand of ambitious and interesting that fans of the offbeat might want to check out this weekend. First, let me tell you that there were at least a dozen walkouts at intermission: this appropriation of Alice In Wonderland, which imagines a modern-day, curious little girl stepping into a topsy-turvy war zone beyond a hole in her wall, is not for everyone and it only sporadically delivers on its strong promise. But when it does deliver it's both smart and engaging for freshness-seeking playgoers. I had to chuckle when Alice, trapped inside a huge rabbit mask that she couldn't pry loose from her head, concluded that "two heads are not always better than one". I loved when she intruded on the historian/philosopher/gardener to ask for water. Annoyed to be distracted from his busy and important work of contemplating the random patterns of warfare, he reluctantly gives her his attention and eventually this great wisdom: she needs water. The scene in the second act, when Alice confronts the war machine, nails the kind of wry satire that I wish the play strived more for overall. Still, remembering that the shows at SPF are usually works-in-progress, this flawed one has enough bright flashes of wit and absurdity to make me hope it is further developed. Also in this production's favor: good low-budget visual design work, and a strong, alarmingly dead-on performance by Lisa Joyce as Alice.

33 To Nothing

Photo/Jaisen Crockett

Good news? 33 To Nothing is a solid, live show. Bad news? There's a play that comes with it, and much as that play fuels the music, it doesn't do much for what increasingly becomes dead time between the musical's eight numbers. It's also almost too realistic for the stage: without any theatricality, musicals often get a little odd: at least this one, which takes place in a rehearsal space, during a rehearsal, can get away with spontaneously bursting into song. Here, it's a way for the alcoholic front man to deal with his emotions: when pressed to talk about them, he sags back behind the safety of his keyboard and starts to play. If only the rest of the band had as much to do as he did, and if only they were all as good theatrically as they are musically. If I only I could just forget the "if" and just rock.

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