play

Fringe review: Mr. Boniface the Wise

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By Wendy Carson

Zany doesn’t even begin to describe the characters in “Mr. Boniface, the Wise,” by KT Peterson, playing in the IndyFringe Basile Theatre. In fact, the titular character, Mr. Boniface — a goat-man who lives in the youngest child’s wallpaper and tells her what to do – is the most normal one on display.

We have: the aforementioned youngest child, Gerty, who may be either schizophrenic or just a clairvoyant genius; Angora, a certified scientific genius, who is so bored with the level of education at her school, she has been expelled for her little pranks against the other students; Inga, their harried, narcoleptic mother who is determined that Angora get back into school so that she can succeed at fulfilling her scientific potential; and Mr. Capshaw, Angora’s science teacher, who is madly in love with her and her brain – so much so, that they plan to fake their own deaths and run of to Wisconsin so that she can be part of a pig-cloning team.

Needless to say, hilarity ensues throughout the show as everyone tries to get what they want, and it seems that only Mr. Boniface will persevere.

While Mr. Boniface’s Presidential bid was never revealed to any of us during the play (the actors are distributing campaign stickers around the festival), I hope to eventually hear more of his platform as he seems to be one of the more reasonable possibilities for the 2016 ticket.

So, for a wacky, fun time enjoy this little insight into a family that will make yours look totally normal.

Fringe review: The Wizer of Odd

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By John Lyle Belden

“The Wizer of Odd,” performed by Gift of Gab productions at Firefighters’ Union Hall, is an interesting modern take on the classic movie (based on the works of L. Frank Baum). Set in the modern day, our young woman is aware of the Oz story, but not that she’s living it. She doesn’t listen to the wisdom of her “scarecrow” friend, tramples the heart of the “Tinman” she encounters and misunderstands the courage of the “lion” who tries to help her. When she finally finds Oz, he does not provide the happy ending she is looking for.

The best aspect of this fable is that, instead of song-and-dance breaks, we get well-crafted hip-hop poetry, very well delivered by a talented local cast. Hopefully this show will return as one of the performances the IndyFringe stages host throughout the year.

Fringe review: Threads

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By John Lyle Belden

Tonya Jone Miller presents “Threads,” the story of her mother, Donna Jean Miller, whose life took her from Indiana to Vietnam in the 1960s and ’70s.

Donna married a sailor, which meant traveling, including to Hawaii, where she studied at the University to become a teacher in the Far East. While her marriage collapsed, she found love with a fellow student, a Vietnamese man. This leads to a teaching job in Saigon in 1968.

While the war raged elsewhere, the effects were often felt in the South Vietnamese capital. She deals with teaching while shells crash outside the building, and helping care for orphans who have little hope of survival. Years after her return to the States, with the fall of Saigon imminent, she goes back to make a desperate attempt to go help her boyfriend’s family, in spite of being nine months pregnant (with Tonya).

Miller tells of the threads, figurative and literal, that bind people and lives together, and how we affect one another. We get a fascinating look into a war-torn city, and through Donna’s brother, a glimpse of how war changes those who fight it. The story is non-linear, but easy to follow, as we trace the threads of time back and forth across two decades. Every tale is well told, fascinating and revelatory. We feel through Miller the love for her mother and what she went through and gratitude for the little events that led up to her own creation.

“Threads” unspools at the IndyFringe Basile Theatre.

Fringe review: Kill the Column

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By John Lyle Belden

Written by former Evansville (Ind.) Courier & Press columnist Garrett Mathews, “Kill the Column,” presented by mamaproductions on the Theatre on the Square second stage, presents aging veteran columnist Grinder, played by Mark Atchison, who has just been demoted to beat reporter, as the paper will no longer run his column.

In fact, in a reflection of the state of many newspapers today, Grinder isn’t the only person seeing his job picture change. Numerous other staffers have lost their jobs altogether, and from the inside it looks like the paper itself is doomed. One of the few remaining newsroom denizens is Marilou (MaryAnn Mathews), a society writer resigned to adjusting with the changes and enjoying her work while she has it. She even refuses to take the bait when grumpy Grinder gets more surly than usual with her.

After Marilu exits, Mathews returns minutes later as a much different character – one able to help Grinder escape his grind. But the decision will come at a cost, and not just to him.

This twist drives the subject of the decline of newspapering to the background, as the plot is revealed to be more about family, love and what is truly important. So you don’t have to be an ink-stained jaded journalist like me to appreciate this little comic drama with a surprising amount of heart.

By the way, Garret Mathews told me that some of the odd things that Grinder relates happened in his career are based on actual events that happened to Mathews or his journalistic peers. It’s an interesting life, trust me.

Fringe review: Sarge

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By John Lyle Belden

In this one-woman play by Cincinnati’s Clifton Performance Theatre, “Sarge” is the nickname of Dorothy Sandburg, the wife of a popular football coach who is facing allegations of sexual assault by his players and boys who he cared for in his youth foundation.

If this sounds familiar, playwright Kevin Crowley says the plot is based on the recent Penn State scandal. However, the focus is not on the indicted coach but on the woman who stood by him, firmly entrenched in her state of denial. Christine Dye brilliantly plays Dot as a woman who can’t feel anything but devoted to the man who had for decades been the keystone of her world – without him and the myth of his virtue, it all falls apart. And we can’t help but feel her pain and her struggle to maintain her fragile reality in the face of mounting evidence that she is wrong.

This may be the most intense drama of the Fringe. I highly recommend this show, playing at Musician’s Union Hall, but brace yourself for a very dark ride.

Fringe review: Camp Summer Camp

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By John Lyle Belden

Taking on “camp” in more than one sense of the word, Defiance Comedy gathers some wildly-talented local actors and distills memories and movies of summer camps with their horny counselors and creepy killers into “Camp Summer Camp” at Musician’s Union Hall.

It’s summer 1984 at the titular Canadian camp, and the counselors gather: One is determined to “become a man,” but the object of his desire has dedicated her body to Jesus; meanwhile another girl wants to throw herself at him, if she can find her glasses to see whom she is throwing herself at. Another guy isn’t taking it well that he’s not senior counselor, and the new guy from the States is eager to show off his falconry skills. Keeping this all together are the very, very close siblings who run the place, promising a lot fewer fatalities this year.

The antics that ensue are nonstop funny, clobbering cliches and trampling tropes all the way – even adding goofy touches like shouting “Ow! Ow!” when someone resets the cardboard prop “campfire” upright. And, there’s the fun sing-along of the “Camp Summer Camp Summer Camp Song.” You’d best sign up in advance for remaining camp sessions, as a lot of people are dying to get in (or was that get out? Hmm…).

Fringe review: I’m Not Gay

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By John Lyle Belden

Senator Bobby insists, “I’m Not Gay,” but in this comic drama by Matthew Barron, presented by Submatter Press at the Marrott Center, no one believes it. The press seems to prefer taking the word of the man he was sleeping with.

Russell Lee Watson plays the Indiana Senator, who doesn’t understand why no one believes him. He’s sure that all men have his urges, but since being gay is wrong, they just suppress them better than he does. This is frustrating to his wife Margaret (Kerra D. Wagener), who accepts him regardless, and his closest advisor George (Aaron Cleveland), who has been in love with him for years.

These characters struggle to sort out how they feel and what they mean to each other, generating quite a few laughs on the way. Daniel Klingler rounds out the cast as gay bar worker Billie Joe, who dispenses much-needed wisdom as only a way-out-of-the-closet bartender can.

The play doesn’t come down too hard on hypocrisy or the state of politics today, focusing on the very human struggles of three personalities stuck in a world where appearances are everything and you are only as good or relevant as your last soundbite or headline. Between these actors’ performance and Barron’s words, they actually make us feel for a conservative blowhard; yet that may not be a bad thing.

Fringe review: Speedthru

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By John Lyle Belden

For those who tread the boards, acting can be a stressful business. Even during rehearsals, when someone doesn’t show, it’s a hassle working around the missing person and getting those lines down. For this company, portrayed by Eclectic Pond’s Matt Anderson and Kate Homan, no one else in the cast of “The Importance of Being Jeff” has shown up – but theatre company board members have, and they want to see a run-through of the show. This is further complicated by the fact that the two actors didn’t pay much attention to the script beyond their small parts in the third act.

This sets up the “Speedthru,” playing at Firefighter’s Union Hall, in which the two play all the roles as best as they can recall them – and it’s not like anyone else has read this obscure play – as fast as possible before the folks paying for this show catch on that they don’t know what they’re doing.

Homan and Anderson show immense talent, as it takes a lot to look like you’re just winging it and still be entertaining. This slapstick quick-change farce, with wry commentary on classical plays thrown in, is a treat for all audiences ages teen and up, but especially for thespians who remember being in similar binds themselves.

Fringe review: Interrupting the Sermon

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By John Lyle Belden

“Interrupting the Sermon,” presented by First Hand Theatrical at Musician’s Union Hall, commemorates the late Wayne C. Olson, a minister who had congregations in New York state and Indianapolis, portrayed by his son Kevin Olson as well as John Kohan and Perry Hunt.

The show combines poetry, true stories and a sermon, all written by the elder Olson. The message, “My Bible: Then and Now,” is set up with “interruptions” of recollections from his life or verses of his poems. He tells of being awed by a dying girl’s enthusiasm for her faith, and appalled by the treatment others give an AIDS patient who seeks his help. And he relates how his dealings with others always have lessons for him, especially in how he relates to the scriptures on which, as a minister, he is expected to be an expert.

“Sometimes there is more grace and forgiveness outside the church than within it,” Olson muses, as he grapples with what that means in the bigger picture of his sacred mission.

This celebration of life and faith inspires and challenges us – as a good sermon should. Yet it’s not too “preachy” – no fire-and-brimstone or altar call. Kevin Olson does his father proud, and Kohan and Hunt smoothly stitch the show together into a satisfying whole.

Fringe review: Cocooned in Kazan

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By John Lyle Belden

Inspired by Ukrainian author and satirist Nikolai Gogol, British troupe Royal Kung Foolery presents “Cocooned in Kazan,” playing in the Marrott Center, the story of a ladies’ man in 19th-century Russia who finds he must settle down and marry to inherit his parents’ estate. But this requires going to his little home town of Kazan, where all the women know him, and not fondly. So Konstantin instead pines for newly-arrived Katya, while his maid, Tatiana, has her eyes on him.

This results in a lot of comic situations and creative physical humor, helped along by occasional anachronism and several fourth-wall moments. Yet as manic and goofy as things get – even when a character walks offstage to share a drink with an audience member – the story never falls apart.

This is easily one of the most entertaining shows of the fringe, and a great example of how wonderful it is to draw in such international acts.