{"id":12998,"date":"2014-07-10T11:05:44","date_gmt":"2014-07-10T18:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/?p=12998"},"modified":"2014-07-10T11:05:44","modified_gmt":"2014-07-10T18:05:44","slug":"university-fringe-festival-swings-from-satire-to-solemnity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forallevents.com\/reviews\/university-fringe-festival-swings-from-satire-to-solemnity\/","title":{"rendered":"University fringe festival swings from satire to solemnity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating: 2.5]<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u201cWoman\u201d (Annette Roman) manhandles the title character (Adrian Ramos) in \u201cAndrew Primo,\u201d a highlight of Fringe of Marin. Photo: Gaetana Caldwell-Smith.<\/p><\/div>\n

Edgy, electrifying, out-of-the-box mini-plays.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what I\u2019ve eternally hoped to discover at fringe festivals.<\/p>\n

Typically, I’ve been disappointed.<\/p>\n

I was surprised, therefore, to find a five-playlet Fringe of Marin program mostly satisfying in spite of it leaning heavily on conventional theatrical forms.<\/p>\n

Its playwriting, acting and directing generally were a notch better than I\u2019d expect on any campus.<\/p>\n

The festival is over now, but you might seriously consider going to the next one.<\/p>\n

My favorite piece in Program One at Dominican University was \u201cAndrew Primo,\u201d a lighthearted look at relationships in a phantasmagoric world populated by speed-dating devotees, androids and horny women.<\/p>\n

Writer-director Gaetana Caldwell-Smith cleverly utilized her 20-20 satirical eyes to amuse me.<\/p>\n

Thoroughly.<\/p>\n

And that was sandwiched by two noteworthy shorts \u2014 \u201cFourteen\u201d and \u201cFighting for Survival\u201d \u2014 well-crafted by a lone playwright, Inbal Kashtan, and well-staged and well-paced by a single director, Jon Tracy.<\/p>\n

\u201cFourteen\u201d was a serious look at a self-starving, self-imprisoned teenage girl plagued by the absence of her mother and hospitalization of her cancer-ridden dad.<\/p>\n

Stefan\u00e9e Martin, a young actor with exceptional promise, used nearly every muscle in her face and body to depict her torment as Annie, a girl who makes prank phone calls and convulsively whips off one T-shirt after another to the click-clack beat of time passing.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvival\u201d spotlighted the first-rate acting of Sarah Mitchell as a dying lesbian, Maya, and the comic exuberance of Lucas Hatton as Brent, a wilderness census-taker.<\/p>\n

And it deftly shifted tone from slapstick to solemnity.<\/p>\n

Gina Pandiani, managing artistic director, confided that \u201cwhat Fringe of Marin\u2019s all about for me is developing young talent.\u201d<\/p>\n

She\u2019s already taken giant steps toward meeting that goal, quite a feat considering she\u2019s been at the helm only since shortly after the 2013 death of 88-year-old company founder Annette Lust.<\/p>\n

Moreover, she\u2019s been flourishing without needing to embrace wild experiments.<\/p>\n

This marks the festival\u2019s 18th year (although, because there are annual spring and<\/em> fall versions, it\u2019s also its \u201c33rd season\u201d).<\/p>\n

Opening night, I was quickly able to determine that the double-program festival provided lots to praise \u2014 even when the slightly uneven hour and half of vignettes (that ranged from under 15 minutes to about 35) didn\u2019t quite jell.<\/p>\n

And I was a virgin attendee.<\/p>\n

Regulars, I suspect, became regulars because of Fringe of Marin\u2019s quality.<\/p>\n

Case in point: \u201cLittle Moscow,\u201d the last show in Program One (and the sole reprise for the five-play second), which consisted of a long soliloquy about anti-Semitism and a man tattooed as a traitor because he dared criticize Russian life.<\/p>\n

It could have been terrific if only\u2026<\/p>\n

\u2022 The rich, accented voice of Rick Roitinger \u2014 who squeezed every possible emotion from the Aleks Merilo-penned play as a reminiscing tailor \u2014 hadn\u2019t sometimes gotten lost in the cavernous Angelico Concert Hall in which no microphones were evident.<\/p>\n

\u2022 The actor\u2019s voice hadn\u2019t also been overwhelmed by recorded background music (that nevertheless helped the piece\u2019s moodiness with \u2014 in rapid succession \u2014 melancholic, dramatic and sentimental strains).<\/p>\n

\u2022 The poetic, sensitively written piece in which Roitlinger starred didn\u2019t feel longer than a Russian winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cPre-Occupy Hollywood,\u201d an amateurish glimpse of Tinseltown as background film actors view it, forcing them momentarily to contemplate a revolution, was the weakest link in the evening.<\/p>\n

And it was tolerable.<\/p>\n

Opening night drew only 40 appreciative, supportive theatergoers, and that\u2019s a shame because Fringe of Marin clearly merits vastly bigger crowds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Woody’s [rating: 2.5] Edgy, electrifying, out-of-the-box mini-plays. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve eternally hoped to discover at fringe festivals. Typically, I’ve been disappointed. I was surprised, therefore, to find a five-playlet Fringe…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"yasr_overall_rating":0,"yasr_post_is_review":"","yasr_auto_insert_disabled":"","yasr_review_type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12998","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-woody-weingarten"},"yasr_visitor_votes":{"stars_attributes":{"read_only":true,"span_bottom":"