BASH'd: A Gay Rap Opera

photo: Ian Jackson

Two white gay rappers who go by the names T-Bag and Feminem: sounds like a one-joke Fringe Festival show, doesn't it? But BASH'd isn't the parody that its come-on might lead you to expect; it's exciting, trenchant musical theatre and boundlessly invigorating entertainment. Using hip-hop's naked aggression and its uncompromisingly explicit language, the all-rapped show is both a convincing, affecting gay love story and an unapologetic in-your-face rallying call for equal rights. It's also the best case I have ever seen made for the stageworthiness of this genre of music: the dope beats and rhymes in BASH'd are always in service of storytelling. So what if there are a few gay-coming-of-age cliches and who cares that the message, as befits rap music, is ultimately blunt? That matters not at all, thanks to the freshness and the vitality of the presentation. I caught the show's last scheduled Fringe Festival performance but I don't believe that New York has seen the last of this show.

FRINGE: Hail Satan

Mac Rogers must have made a deal with the devil; his plays always seem to have great production values, excellent direction, and phenomenal ensembles. So it's appropriate that his new show gives credit where it's due: Hail Satan, a satirical look at religious and familial values through the surprisingly balanced and hellishly interesting theories of Satanism. Tom (Matthew Kinney), the new guy, is lured by curiosity and lust into taking part in a conjuration ritual: before he knows it, he's the caretaker of Satan's daughter, Angie (Laura Perloe). As Charlie (Sean Williams), his gentle, affable, Satanic boss calmly espouses the values of screwing over others, Tom begins to realize that he's in over his head. Is it possible to describe such a play as "delightful"? Yes.

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Also blogged by: [Patrick]

Long Distance

Leprosy that glittered like scales, making a bed sandy enough for one to dream, tossing and turning of the beach... such is the disturbingly normal writing of Judy Budnitz, whose work is well-adapted in Long Distance by the Ateh Theater Group. The three nontraditional stories about the gulfing spaces between us come across extremely well on the chashama stage, and between directors Bridgette Dunlap and Alexis Grausz and actors Elizabeth Neptune and Sara Montgomery, there are enough variations in styles and characters to keep the evening running smoothly (yet unsettlingly).

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FRINGE: Double Vision

Photo/Jim Baldassare

Double Vision is an eerily gripping play about love's collapse in the closed-off, urban atmosphere of modern relationships. As the title implies, perception is a big part of the play, and the characters are all tormented by their unyielding imaginations. Barbara Blumenthal-Ehrlich manges to find clarity, but she leaves understanding the characters up to the audience, which doesn't quite work, especially with the compressed, unhappy conclusion. Still, the actions of the cast are clear, especially from Quinn Mattfeld and Rebecca Henderson, and it's been a long time since I felt such empathy for an apathetic character (Christopher McCann's low-key portrayal of Ben).

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John Goldfarb Please Come Home

If Rip Van Winkle started his nap in 1964 and woke up this week at this (Fringe Festival) musical, he'd think he hadn't slept a day. As if untouched by time, the miserably unfunny early '60's comedy is now - for no good discernible reason - a miserably unfunny stage musical, presented reverently as if the tired, hopelessly square material is timeless comic gold: is there anything more dated than the toothless satire of yesteryear? Set mostly in the fictional Middle Eastern kingdom of Fawzia Arabia, where an American pilot is coerced into coaching a football team and an American gal reporter is belly-dancing undercover in the King's harem, the smell of mothballs competes with the stench of curdled jokes long past their expiration dates. There are a few good melodies in the score, which does its job of approximating the style of the era, and there are a couple of standouts in the supporting cast: Hope Cartelli does a deadpan turn as a Russian spy masquerading as a harem girl, and Adam Hargus steals focus whenever he's on stage even with his groanworthy material as The President. Otherwise, this is a waste of time.

Mark Baratelli's Improv Cabaret

Is it crazy to thumbs-up a show that will be completely different at each performance? Maybe, but I'm going to do it anyway, because Mark Baratelli's completely improvised forty-five minute cabaret set (at the Fringe Festival) slapped a huge, silly smile on my face. With no planning and no suggestions from the audience, quick-thinking Baratelli not only makes up the cheesey imitation American-songbook numbers on the spot but also the faux-confessional banter in between: the result is a light, affectionate send-up of the genre's illusion of emotional intimacy between performer and audience. The joke is that the intimacy here is fake but he delivers it with the portent and the heightened emotional pitch of the real thing: at the performance I saw, his increasingly ludicrous story about a childhood spent with corn husks for friends segued into a ridiculous uplifting anthem about finding one's way home to the corn. Mark Baratelli knows a thing or two about shucking corn and getting a bite out of it.