The Garden, Three Cannonballs, and Some Sausages
reviews of The Garden: River's Edge, Dead Muse, All Hail the Sausage Queen, The Holy Church of Bezos, and A Bach’eh who wanted to become Bach
Cannonball has a mandatory in-venue mask policy for all of its shows. I appreciate that this is an effort to take care of each other, especially the more vulnerable among us. Personally, I just had COVID-19 a couple weeks ago, so I absolutely recognize that we’ve been going through a COVID surge, and I’m fully aware of the hazards of long covid. But sometimes I get uncomfortable quickly while wearing a mask, which creates an anxious feedback loop in my body, and that’s a real drag. I even resent having to do that when I am at the lowest possible risk to myself and others, but my personal comfort is not really important. I know mask policies make some people more comfortable, including me at other times. A box of non-medical grade masks being given out in the lobby is just theater, however, and not the good kind you’re here to read about.
These measures should be grounded in science, and not April 2020-like superstition that all masks are magic. There is value in a mask policy, especially to protect performers, but what happened to vaccine card checks? The adoption rate for boosters is not good. We’re left hanging by government policy, which eroded trust in itself, and have to navigate the ever-unfolding world of respiratory illnesses ourselves. But key to that is actually trying. It’s time we adopt forward looking policies for respiratory virus mitigation that are based in science-backed best practices, like airflow and filtration, or, at least, using medical masks or graded respirators like KN95s (mea culpa to me, I checked and at the MAAS building, the box of masks are medical grade).
And now, five reviews in the order I saw them:
A Bach’eh who wanted to become Bach
by Deniz Khateri & Bahar Royaee
Not Recommended
This is a show not just about immigrant identity, but also about unwanted pregnancy. I say “not just” because it turns out that the description for this show in the printed festival guide mention this, but was a surprise to me because the website copy is rather different and does not. It’s also not really a show about music, nor of or about music, nor of poetry. Khateri is having a baby, the father sends annoyed and annoying text messages about getting her an abortion, and the baby bump is represented by a pair of instruments. There’s even a few dashed off lines about mental illness added to the mix. If that sounds like it’s unclear, it’s because it is.
Music is very welcome when it arrives, about 20 minutes in and always too-briefly, but by that point my generosity was already strained. The central metaphor, of the instrument-as-child, isn’t strong enough here to carry the show. Unfortunately, neither is anything else: Khateri isn’t a strong enough actor here for a show demanding so much acting. The direction—or lack thereof, no one is credited—is poor: this intimate little show’s static staging is placed far from the audience, and the pacing is set at one moderate speed through the whole 40+ minutes. Even the sound effect audio levels are too loud (the most common one being a text message notification! get me out of here!!).
There also isn’t much poetry, which is occasionally spoken into a microphone-as distinct from all the other lines Khateri delivers. When it does come, maybe for the second time in the show, after delivering a line or two or verse, Khateri turns away from the microphone to her instrument/baby bump and says, “I’m reading my poetry.” Well, yeah.
There are ideas here that could make a nice evening, but nothing ever gels. Khateri is clearly a talented musician, and when she shows off those talents the show is at its best. I wanted more, and I wanted more of Royaee’s composition, which finally has some moments toward the end of the show in a birthing sequence. The most ripe moment is when Khateri is trying to get her instrument to do the impossible, to play Bach on her ghaychaka as if it’s a cello, but Khateri always quickly quiets the discord when it occurs, playing up (overplaying, I’d say) the shame of the failure. This is self-defeating, and as such it has a place in the predictable arc towards acceptance—of the baby, and, even more predictable, her identity as Iranian immigrant. But it’s also theatrically self-defeating. Turning away from such a moment, she denies her audience the vulnerability of that failure, or of the attempt, or of anything at all really. Instead she treads on the surface, leaving the journey vague and even muddled. And that, sadly, sums up the whole show.
The Holy Church of Bezos
TSTMRKT and The Las Vegas Collage Collective
Written by Ernest Hemmings
Not recommended, with redeeming qualities
The Holy Church of Bezos Is a fairly straightforward two-hand show attempting to nail both the corporate world, primarily Amazon and the person of Bezos, though Zuckerberg, BlackRock, and Elon Musk also get mentions, and the church, rewriting the rite of Christian Mass and Scripture.
This is rich material for satire, and it gets off to a great start, peaking when donuts and coffee are substituted for bread and wine. But it doesn't really go anywhere from there: we’re told story of Random Employee 75, John Christ, who has been shit-canned and taken one for the team, and some worship songs and prayers written (or re-written) to fit the show's subject matter. Being somewhat of a former Catholic, I wanted the form of the mass to be a little tighter and more formed, more specific, though I lack much experience with other denominations.
Projections behind the altar/folding table become a little distracting in the second half of the show, as they shift from providing the lines for call and response, songs, or prayers (which are also provided in a hymnal/program, which is a nice touch), into what are almost surely AI generated images of John Christ on his layoff journey. The unironic use of AI is a cardinal sin.
One major problem here is that, despite glancing references to other companies and the stock market, there's no analysis embedded of how capital operates as a system. This shows up in the hymn “Glory to the Billionaires,” which includes the choral lines, “Glory to Zuckerberg and Bezos / and please don't destroy the Earth / Rich men, richer than shit, you can control the weather.” I think that's enough to give you a sense of the flavor of the show, and in the third verse, Elon Musk “could end world hunger / You choose not to because you're so talented.” And I think that's where the show's point of view ends: fuck these guys in particular, because of their personal choices. It could be a much funnier, sharper show, even without a deeper analysis of the market. This church offers no insights, but it lands a few good jokes—only a few. The other major problem is that, like a bad SNL movie, it’s a sketch that’s been stretched out and, Bezos’s mercy, not to feature length.
Dead Muse
by Almanac Dance Circus Theatre
written, choreographed and performed by Adam Kerbel
continuing on September 15
Recommended
This is a very pleasant, warm-hearted solo show about connecting, or trying to connect, with people. Composed mostly of fairly short scenes, often punctuated by an exit and entrance, the piece skips along with scenes on auditions and dating (or, maybe, both?), about family and origin, and some exuberant dance with the audience. I’m not convinced this adds up to a fully coherent evening, but as tender, light fare—which I don’t mean in any derogatory sense—I’ll gladly take it. I wasn’t blown away by Kerbel’s choreography, but he’s a very likable and competent performer, even when speaking (which can’t be said of all dancers), often connecting with the audience, and the writing is consistently charming.
In a recurring series of date/auditions, Kerbel often sits with a microphone after introducing himself to an implied casting director and occasionally takes notes, adjusting his performance during a date, from that director. Punctuated by “disclaimers,” there is an appealing formality here. In one of these he repeatedly moves his chair slightly, a clever little bit of staging that keeps things interesting.
Kerbel mimes lightning a cigarette while driving, only to lose it out the window of his car. He mimes a cigarette and asks for a light, and when he gets it from an audience member in the front row, this forms the basis of a series of deeper connections. Another scene, with loud traffic noise, has Kerbel at the far end of the stage from us, waving over a highway and shouting over the traffic at an apparition of his grandmother. The multiple distances invoked here heighten the moment’s impact, even as it transforms, somewhat but not quite Frogger-like, into an effort to cross the unbridgeable distance to her.
All Hail the Sausage Queen!
by Claire Pitts
continuing September 23
Not Recommended
Sausage Queen! starts off strong as Pitts drives a decked-out Power Wheels-type kids car into the room and onto the red Buffalo-plaid tablecloth covered alley—or rather catwalk—playing area. Getting out of the car, she’s harassed by a videographer who gets in her face, singing praises and innuendos. But the show doesn’t really have anywhere up to go from there, and in something so short—not much longer than a half hour—there shouldn’t be anything that’s less than sharp.
This is in part because the show is a downer, as the titular Sausage Queen is thrown off the heights of her title, which is not only not what she thought it was, but exploitative to boot, has an abusive boyfriend who doesn’t bother showing up, and gets injured (and puts on a boot). When she dresses in a humiliating sausage and condiments outfit for the pleasures of the mustard bottle-phallus wielding pervy photographer, it’s not so surprising (especially because it appears in promotional materials) and gross, but sad and gross.
Critique of beauty pageants is a major theme here, how they’re weirdly sexual, especially the way they sexualize children, but this is well-worn stuff now and it’s all very on the nose (complete with a mention of JonBenét). I think Sausage Queen is trying to dance a fine line between being gross and fun and making it’s critique, that it wants to make us uncomfortable and implicate the audience, but it wasn’t fun or lurid enough to keep me with her. In each of the several scenes where Pitts complains about the bad boyfriend (all to the same audience member, when I saw it), loud noise is brought up over her dialogue that makes it impossible for anyone not near her to make out. Though it’s possible the show will tighten before the next performance, that was the vibe on Monday: uncomfortable and trying to figure out just what is happening.
The Garden: River’s Edge
Nichole Canuso Dance Company
Choreography by Nichole Canuso
Recommended
The Garden is site-specific, and its first iteration premiered at Philly Fringe a decade ago, when Philadelphia wasn’t yet a glimmer in my eye. As it’s been performed in many venues since, and has been brought back by FringeArts, my expectations were raised (even as I disagree with the programming choice). On my walk to the Arch Street Meeting House, where the show is performed, I got a phone call about 5 minutes before curtain as I rounded the corner from 3rd onto Arch (The 5th St/Independence Hall MFL station being closed for the Presidential debate), making sure I’d be there. About a minute later, I was greeted by the gentleman who called me, and when everyone else had gathered, we were asked around a table full of headphones and handed color-coded ones by name. How did they decide who got what headset, I wondered to myself. Volume was carefully adjusted for us all. Another audience member had requested his headset to be in Italian. From the very beginning, The Garden establishes a personal touch.
What unfolds over the next 40 or so minutes, as we follow instructions individually, or in pairs (matching headphones), is a beautiful, quiet show that takes us around the meeting hall and meditates on its specific place. It wears its influences on its sleeve (several Borges books sit on a table in the lobby, alongwith CAConrad and Braiding Sweetgrass). The Garden: River’s Edge invites us to observe, to think of ourselves as interconnected with performers, to watch people on the street, to mirror, to contemplate the moon, and to engage with the history and future of where we are. Not only the past as we often think of it, not only to the Lenape, but also to the deep time before there was anyone at all and that extends beyond us into the far future. This is a show where the land acknowledgement actually means something. The show is, itself, a kind of acknowledgement.
I think I would have liked this even more if I weren’t myself in the performing arts. Finding myself mirroring a dancer is lovely, and probably more profound if you’ve never done that kind of thing before. I was charmed by the appearances and disappearances of dancers and objects. A chair is placed behind me—for me—while I’m sharing a moment with a dancer through a window, which I am told of after being instructed to close my eyes, and when I open them, the dancer is gone. That the headphones afford such magic is not something I had anticipated, and it’s lovely throughout. I was moved, and I was grateful for the quiet contemplation on an extremely loud day in Old City. After the show, we’re invited to stay as long as we like, to contemplate, to view what others have shared, and to write a letter. This isn’t a performance that is, itself, profound, but it points to all of the things around us that deserve contemplation and respect.
I’m going to try not to overwhelm your inboxes and continue to bundle reviews together where it makes sense. Expect the next Fringe dispatch in a couple days—and in the meantime, please share and subscribe.