Will Durst: The All-American Sport Of Bipartisan Bashing

photo: Jason E. Grossman

In an age when smug irony and sarcasm characterize most political comedy, Will Durst's relaxed, regular-guy approach seems almost revolutionary. Declaring himself a moderate near the top of his eighty-minute show, and delivering his comic observations and barbed one-liners with so much affable, conversational warmth that you may be tempted to talk back to him, Durst puts us at ease by passing the "just folks" authenticity test. Then the gloves come off. The sharply written, highly entertaining show takes swings both left and right (okay, more right; Durst admits that it's tougher to skewer the Democrats because you can't "make fun of a vacuum") with a few special knockout punches aimed squarely for George W. Bush. (One of the best among them shows Durst at his most wryly amusing: he simply reads actual Bush quotes verbatim. Example: "Increasingly, more and more of our imports are coming from overseas.") Once we're past the awkward but brief video introduction that opens the show, the evening's one misstep, the show never hits anything that could be called a lull. Durst may convince as a smart and cool regular Joe but make no mistake, he's got a showman's intuition for the mood of an audience and knows when to move a bit along. More often, he's got to worry about slowing one down, because many of his bits are so delicious that we want to savor them. His long list of political oxymorons is a case in point: "Republican Ethics Committee", "Democratic Leadership Council", "FOX News". The show is advertised as political comedy for people who have had it with current politics. I'll go further than that: Will Durst is a comedian for people who have had it with current political comedy.

Also blogged by: [Aaron]

FRINGE: "Riding the Bull"

Photo/Jonathan Slaff

In America, everybody's lonely. August Schulenburg's honest satire, Riding the Bull, takes two Southern-grown heroes--an awkward rodeo clown and the rightly named "Fat" Lyza--and looks to connect to, rather than demean, the world around us. In rapid succession, Schulenburg gives us glimpses of loneliness being tackled by focused intensity (on, say, milking a cow), constant sex (otherwise known as "temptation"), money (the American solution), faith, and finally, love itself. That this is all done without bucking us from the saddle is due largely to the likability of the cast and Kelly O'Donnell's intelligent direction.

[Read on] [Also reviewed by: Patrick] [David]

PN 1923.45 LS01 V. 2 (The Book Play)

Penned by Bixby Elliot (really enjoyed his Blueprint at SPF recently) and featuring Everett Quinton, I was expecting this comedy to be one of the highlights of the Fringe Festival. Unfortunately, it needs work, and only occasionally demonstrates how funny and touching it could be after some sleeves are rolled back up. The play has an unusual structure, alternating between the romantic interests of a gay man in 1981 and of a bookish woman in 1951 (the connecting tissue is that each works as the rare books librarian in the same sub-basement, thirty years apart) but the bifurcation doesn't pay any comic dividends until near the end of the play. (The scene where it does pay, however, hits the jackpot.) More seriously idling the play too long in neutral is yet another set of alternated scenes (monologues, actually) in which Everett Quinton, as a gay activist, holds forth in queer manifesto mode. I see the thematic importance of this, but the monologues don't build from one to another: generally, once you've seen the first one you've seen them all. Additionally, the male librarian's story becomes unclear at the eleventh hour - I thought I understood the specifics of his issues with his boyfriend, and then they went for another round of fighting that made me not like or understand either of them. And yet, with all that said, it is clear that there is a worthwhile, potentially moving play here struggling to make itself known that touches on shame and the constant (but constantly changing) danger of not making oneself known to the world.

Also blogged by: [Aaron]

FRINGE: Reader

At its best, One Year Lease does necessary revivals of important works, like the Phaedra x3 project. At its worst, One Year Lease showcases cold, modern plays, like Bed. But their failures are always visually and technically precise (Iphigenia Crash Land Falls On The Neon Shell That Was Once Her Heart) and their actors are always well studied, thanks to the partnership of director Ianthe Demos and dramaturg Jessica Kaplow Applebaum. Reader, Ariel Dorfman's 1995, ends up being a middling play simply because of how muddling it is: the script's overbearing convention of a censor reading the story of his own life ends up conflating too many characters for us to follow, and the descent into this dystopia is positively Dick-like (Philip). Additionally, the political target of "The Man," isn't a strong enough villain and the immediately evil Director is too likeable (played by a spry Nick Stevenson); there's conflict enough between the hero, his son, and his lover, but it's never clear (despite some strained accents) whether it is Daniel Lucas, the censor, or Don Alfonso Morales, his double, who is struggling.

[Read on]

bombs in your mouth

photo: John Scott

In this intimate and often funny hour-long slice of dysfunctional life (by Rude Mechanicals member Corey Patrick, who also co-stars with Cass Bugge) we watch half-siblings Danny and Lily reunite after their father's bizarre funeral service. The old man was full-out crazy and mean (his last will and testament, scribbled on a roll of toilet paper, favors the child who ran out six years ago instead of the one who stayed behind with him) so the two are in no mood to shed tears and share hugs. Instead they deal with the loss by chugging down beers, arm wrestling like growling animals, and lashing out at each other's judgments like overgrown passive-aggressive children. The crisp, believable dialogue and the detailed, committed performances give bombs in your mouth a credibility and a vibrancy that make it ideally realized - I've lost count of how many small two-character Fringe shows I've seen over the years that lacked the skill to achieve the believability (and, ultimately, the heart) that this one does.

Also blogged by: [David]

FRINGE: Helmet

Ah, how quickly potential can be squandered by a poor actor and an unhinged director. Douglas Maxwell's done his homework in writing the video-game inspired play Helmet, and his parallels between the escapism of Nintendo and the reality of America is nicely done. Along those lines, Troy David Mercier gives a gripping performance as the ADD gamer of our current generation: distant and distracting, but not so much that we can't relate. But Michael Evans Lopez is as a scripted a partner as bad artificial intelligence, and director Maryann Lombardi has filled the play with meaningless physical actions and aimless, mechanical intonations, all of which dispel what needs to be, at heart, a realistic story.

[Read on]