Hunter Canning Phoebe Silva and Michael Criscuolo in “Decompression.”Tickets go on sale for the Fringe Festival today, meaning the explosion of cutting edge, experimental and just plain out-there theater is right around the corner. It also means that a mountain of intriguing press releases have once again landed in The Local’s mailbox. Here are our 10 favorite excerpts from the 61 releases accompanying next month’s annual celebration of the avant garde.
I Married A Nun: “Recounts the wild life adventures of 78-year-old, ukulele playing, world traveling, bisexual, Bostonian, Jewish gal — Ms. D’yan Forest. Through her tales of fun with the nun, their tragic divorce, forbidden nights in the demimonde of Paris, humorous mishaps of falling off a camel in Tibet, the courageous Ms. D’yan Forest exposes her inner self for all to see. Throughout the show, the story is interspersed with meaningful parodies performed on her uke.”
Alice & The Bunny Hole. Josiah DeAndrea and Michelle Wood in “Alice.”BANG! The Curse of John Wilkes Booth: “Features one actor playing 30 roles in this twisted shocker performed in verse, song, magic, sideshow antics and stand-up comedy. You’ll be astonished at how your American History books lied to you about Booth in this theatrical extravaganza that was banned from performance in Booth’s hometown of Baltimore! Plus, there’s a mummy involved! Was Booth really captured and killed by Federal troops in a burning barn in 1865, or did he escape, aided by a secret society, and live under various aliases until he committed suicide in Enid, Oklahoma Territory, in 1903? Prepare to be amazed!”
Alice & The Bunny Hole: “A 21st century sex comedy by way of Lewis Carroll’s 19th-century funhouse. What’s inside Elixir Productions’ version of The Bunny Hole? Swinging twinks. Height-altering cocktails. Clues to the mathematical mysteries of online matchmaking.”
The Dick And The Rose: “Hold on to your heart, it’s a bumpy ride. Every third day in the U.S. a mother kills her preschool child. Writer/director Robert Biggs asks why would a mother do such a thing? And why aren’t the fathers called to account? He wrestles with that issue using physical theatre, puppets, including a mischievous 15-foot long phallus, and stubbornly live music.”
Songs Of Love: A Theatrical Mixtape: “Consists of nine short plays, or tracks, each one complemented by an original song performed live onstage by a singer-songwriter. The plays run from comedic to heartbreaking and feature decapitation, amateur porn, genital warts, sex with breakfast foods, epilepsy, and mothmen. Each piece is connected by the central theme: the insanity of romantic love.”
The Abduction Of Becky Morris: “A journey across Oklahoma with a slightly psychic, pregnant woman, the convicted murderer who loves her, and a cast of colorful characters from quirky locals to TV’s favorite alien-chasing FBI agent.”
Oasis: Everything You Ever Wanted to Know about the Middle East but Were Afraid to Dance: “Through the prism of desert/oasis and magical/real, the piece explores issues of identity, veiling, torture and spirituality moving through what is familiar; what is imagined or mythical, what is actual; what is out of the Middle East and what is inside it. The desert can be experienced as beautiful and exotic even as it is harsh and potentially lethal.”
Decompression: “Katie’s ecstasy isn’t working. Amanda never liked it anyway. It’s Burning Man Decompression night and eight bored hipsters invent a lottery. Things turn ugly, alliances shift, and an unexpected guest changes everything. A year later, they’re still coming down.”
Gil Kuno’s Six String Sonics, The: “Feeling that one player on six strings hindered what was possible in guitar composition, Gil Kuno created a way for six players to simultaneously play one-stringed guitars. The resulting compositions sound much more colorful than standard guitar music, as the group is capable of reaching many more chords and melodies.”
LOLPERA: An Epik Opera About Teh Internets: “The libretto is assembled entirely from the Internet’s “biggest inside joke”: the multi-user-generated captions and images of the LOLCAT meme. Set in dystopian Catcotopia, LOLPERA is the story of our epik quest for meaning in our modern world…told entirely through stupid cat pictures.”
The Fringe Festival, August 10-26. Check here for individual showtimes.
