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My first foray into the land of the Hollywood Fringe
Festival had me standing in line over on Lillian in the newly named Hollywood Theatre District with a whole bunch of very
enthusiastic theatre goers in the middle of a Saturday afternoon. Eventually, we filed into the
space. The Theatre Asylum Lab is a
tiny venue with about forty seats, packed. After the lovely producer,
Laurel Wetzork, guides me to an aisle seat, a tall woman sits down in front of me. Five shows in fifty minutes. I can tough it out.
In the first short play, Kiera
Nowacki’s SPOCK AT BAT, I could only see one of the actors, Jenny Curtis as
Lacy the sports fan. I could not see Robert Seeley. He’s a pal! (disclaimer.. um.. he’s an old pal) and I wanted
to see both actors’ work. I leaned
way out into the aisle and caught most of what turns out to be a somewhat lame
attempt to pair a woman baseball freak and a geek who loves all of SciFi and Fantasy and knows the
difference. Decent performances, but tough sell. Curtain, I slip to the front row where the air conditioning is blowing a light gale.
The second ten minute piece also featured Seeley as Charley,
a guy who needs direction. Turning
on a Bondage and Discipline theme, Nya (Tora Kim) banters heavy dialogue by Caron Tate in
WHATEVER WORKS. It’s a love story. It’s a tough dramatic turn. Seeley is at a considerable
disadvantage as he leaves his geeky kid behind from the first piece and quickly becomes the much older Subordinate to
Nya’s believable Dominatrix. The
intense dedication to some aspects of B and D that I now cannot ‘unsee’ may be
a bit much for this intimate setting.
Juilana Robinson and Kara Ludke come next in a clever turn featuring
the older sister, Paige on the phone from California to her level headed sis
who is across the country. Sarah
Dzida’s DON’T PANIC takes a page from a sitcom with the younger sister ‘talking
down’ the panicky Californian from her intense situation and then the tables turn and
the roles reverse as the younger sister gets upset. Cute and well presented, the least complicated of the
Sirens’ Songs.
Autumn McAlpin wrote TEN YEARS LEFT which features again
Kim, Seeley, Curtis and Ludke with a brisk addition of Bart Tangredi as a fast
talking agent. A nice change up
for Ms Curtis as a writer with ten years to live. A symbolic kitchen timer sits on the stage to remind us, as
the years tick by for the writer.
Her husband, daughter, doctor and agent all plague her to get work done
as she withers from a debilitating disease. Ms Curtis as the writer struggles silently as the others
circle like vultures. McAlpin may
have something here for a full length production.
OUT OF HERE by Laurel Wetzork is a double edged sword. Her SciFi approach brings us a beautiful space alien,
GRA (Tora Kim) armed with some gadgets that may have come from Men in Black as
it becomes necessary to disarm a local good old Missouri boy, Bill (Henry Kemp), who has been
implanted with devices to advance his intellect and prowess far beyond those of
mortal men. He begins to
seduce the GRA whose response drew the best laughs of the afternoon. Kemp must have been speaking English,
but for the life of me understanding him was a major challenge. There might
have been some great lines that I just missed. Kim, then, was the sharp edge of my metaphor and Kemp was
pretty dull.
It's ambitious for a group of women to issue a Siren Call in
the form of five completely different short pieces. Given some
seasoning each author may have material to expand.
Check the Hollywood Fringe site for dates and times.
http://www.hollywoodfringe.org/daily
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