Fringe Festival Reviews: Day 1
Image credit: American Shakespeare Repertory
Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece is minimal and unsatisfying—as it should be.
By Will Wlizlo
Rape is the most carnal trauma, and victims of such violent lust have their share of complicated emotions to work through. William Shakespeare teased out some of these psychological pains in The Rape of Lucrece, one of only two epic poems penned by the world’s most famous playwright. In the poem, Tarquin, a power-drunk and silver-tongued Roman soldier, rapes his comrade’s wife, Lucrece, which ignites a series of tragedies. The American Shakespeare Repertory’s minimal dramatization of Lucrece, playing at Theatre in the Round, is like rape itself: oppressively intimate in the moment, but leaves you feeling exposed and morally grasping.
That’s not to say it was a bad performance. Lucrece, played by Cara Kluver, dashed between emotional extremes—from simpering fear to murderous fury, rational lucidity to bottomless grief—with endurance and skill. Justin Alexander had a challenging part, too: As the poem’s narrator (not to mention director), he occupied the throats of Tarquin the deflowerer; Colatinus, Lucrece’s absent husband; as well as a smattering of auxiliary characters. Although occasionally rushed, the two actors’ delivery of the meter was generally passionate and clear.
After being raped, Lucrece plummets through various stages of grief. She plans her next move, running through her options with the professional fastidiousness of a librarian at a card catalog. She wishes that someone could erase her memory of the ordeal. She curses the night for its power to conceal. Her convolutions become increasingly complicated: She feels shame and self-hatred, then resolves to ensure that Tarquin suffers for his sinful deed. “Let him have time to tear his curled hair,” she seethes. “Let him have time against himself to rave.” At the same time, Lucrece worries she will bring dishonor to Colatinus. Lucrece weighs the consequences of her revenge and, upon her husband’s return, confesses her violation. Then she kills herself with a dagger concealed in her cloak.
Colatinus reacts in a way that is utterly unsatisfying to a modern audience. He and his cohorts carry Lucrece’s blood-smeared body through the streets of Rome in an attempt to sway public opinion against Tarquin. It’s a posthumous objectification of her body, further victimization of the victim by her patriarchal society. What’s worse: Lucrece’s tragedy gets spun into politicking veiled as justice.
Theatre in the Round
Friday, 8/5 8:30 p.m.
Tuesday, 8/9 10:00 p.m.
Thursday, 8/11 5:30 p.m.
Sunday, 8/14 7:00 p.m.
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Ten Reasons Why I'd Be a Bad Porn Star's May Lee-Yang broaches sex positivity in Hmong culture.
By Morgan Halaska
The synopsis of this one-hour, mostly solo show lies within the title of the production: May Lee-Yang enumerates and analyzes 10 reasons— via a PowerPoint presentation—she would never be a successful porn star. Despite its explicitly sexual theme, the show is all business with little play; Lee-Yang opines that a career as a porn star is an economically prudent path, complete with the numbers to back up her argument.
"I talk too much": reason No. 8 on the list. Each point Lee-Yang makes in her argument against herself sparks a digressive stream of consciousness that is, at times, difficult to follow. But this isn’t to say the content isn’t funny or passionate or smart. Being a Hmong woman who has taught sexual health education and makes a living selling sex toys, Lee-Yang has plenty to say about the way she reconciles these two aspects of her life. Her comedic insight into her culture’s view of sex imparts diverse knowledge onto the rest of us.
But, it’s BJ the Polar Bear who stole the show with his workout video for aspiring porn stars. Weird originality at its finest.
Intermedia Arts
Sunday, 8/7 7:00 p.m.
Tuesday, 8/9 5:30 p.m.
Saturday, 8/13 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, 8/14 7:00 p.m.
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You Only Live Forever Once is the most rewarding sort of pointlessness.
By Quinton Skinner
Previous Four Humors Theater Fringe offerings (i.e., Mortem Capiendum, Bards) have balanced the cerebral with the goofball, but this year their thumb is pressed firmly on the silly side of the scales with a James Bond riff that entails a joke-a-second charm and appealingly shambolic approach. Secret Agent Dave Johnson (Ryan Lear) bumbles about while trying to foil Wealthy Industrialist Kitty Cougarton (Matt Spring, with drawn-on whiskers and a tendency to purr); the lissome Gretchen Femme Fatale (Rachel Petrie) joins the mix as a double, then triple agent amid cheesy props, purposefully bare-bones puppetry and a defiantly incoherent plot that dares you to take it remotely seriously (don’t). Pure crap, then, done quite well with an above-average laugh-out-loud quotient—the most rewarding sort of pointlessness.
Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater
Sunday, 8/7 8:30 p.m.
Wednesday, 8/10 5:30 p.m.
Thursday, 8/11 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, 8/13 5:30 p.m.
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