{"id":4203,"date":"2014-06-12T02:45:26","date_gmt":"2014-06-12T02:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/?p=4203"},"modified":"2014-06-20T23:56:16","modified_gmt":"2014-06-20T23:56:16","slug":"letter-from-the-fringe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/letter-from-the-fringe\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter From the Fringe"},"content":{"rendered":"

CLICK HERE<\/a>, HERE<\/a>, HERE<\/a> HERE<\/a> AND HERE<\/a> FOR MORE HOLLYWOOD FRINGE REVIEWS.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Letter From the Fringe<\/h1>\n

Casual observations, along with reviews of Linden Arden Stole the Highlights<\/em>, and The Wake<\/em><\/h2>\n

By Paul Birchall<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\"theatreasylum\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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With a bit of time to kill in my oh-so-hectic reviewing schedule, I found myself hanging out at the Asylum on Monday night.\u00a0 Not the lunatic asylum, but the Asylum Theatre that\u2019s part of the Elephant Theater complex on Santa Monica Boulevard and Lillian Street, which is one of the centers for Hollywood Fringe shows this month.<\/p>\n

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When the Fringe is on, one of the great things is that you can stay put in a single place and the plays come to you, rotate in and out, and then move on.\u00a0 Don\u2019t like a show you\u2019re seeing?\u00a0 Well, all right:\u00a0 Here comes another one.<\/p>\n

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Another thing I\u2019ve been startled to notice is that folks who keep telling you that LA Theater is dead or dying are completely misinformed:\u00a0 Show after show I\u2019ve seen so far, even in the preview week, have been sold out to the point that the box office folk turn away almost a dozen people each hour.\u00a0 Lord help you if you don\u2019t have an \u201cin\u201d to help you score a coveted seat, even for one of The Complex flea dens.<\/p>\n

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\"lindenarden\"<\/a><\/p>\n

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That was certainly the case for the Monday performance of playwright Colin Mitchell\u2019s excellently moody Linden Arden Stole the Highlights<\/em>,<\/a> a remounting of his original 1994 production which Mitchell wrote and starred in.\u00a0 Mitchell is, as locals know, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the indispensable Bitter Lemons<\/em><\/a> website \u2013 and it’s a pleasure to see him prove that he can put his money where his mouth is — not just opine upon the theatrical issues of the day, but also cut a mean theatrical figure on the stage as well.<\/p>\n

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Linden Arden<\/em> might be best called a character portrait — it\u2019s an attempt to create a living context for the protagonist of a famous Van Morrison song about a small-time crook who steals some cash and hides out in a remote village, until the past catches up with him in a terrifying way.\u00a0 Mitchell\u2019s performance is suffused with geniality that lurches unexpectedly into flashes of rage and madness — it\u2019s a fascinating if inscrutable acting turn that\u2019s not just “organic” and believable, it also seems so natural, we almost wonder if it\u2019s acting at all.<\/p>\n

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The show opens with Mitchell\u2019s Arden greeting us with the easy going affability of a laid back barkeep \u2013 the performer passes out shots of real whiskey to any audience member who says yes to his invitation.\u00a0 And yet, his undercurrents of melancholy and anger \u2013 rather Tony Soprano-like, really \u2013 erupt with terrifying ease.\u00a0 If the show\u2019s script comes across as being a tad light in the narrative scope department, Mitchell\u2019s harrowing turn is enough to keep us engaged.<\/p>\n

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It is an interesting side element of The Fringe that, after a show, folks tend to congregate outside the theater like Stage Door Johnnies, sometimes waiting for the next show, sometimes just hanging out hoping to talk theater. \u00a0The passion of the audience is delightful and palpable.<\/p>\n

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I found myself arguing about the merits of Mitchell\u2019s show, for instance, with a young Colombian actor, recently arrived from New York, where he had worked with Judith Molina\u2019s Living Theater.\u00a0 I asked him what brought him out to Los Angeles from New York, where he had a strong career going in the underground scene.<\/p>\n

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\u201cOh I dreamed about it,\u201d the young actor replied.\u00a0 I noted that many folks have the dream of coming to LA and achieving stardom, but he just shook his head.\u00a0 \u201cNo, you don\u2019t understand:\u00a0 I dreamed<\/em> it.\u00a0 I had a dream in which I came out here, [so I] knew I had to.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a>
The Wake<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

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Even more of a surprise was the delight at the play that followed Mitchell\u2019s opus in the exact same Asylum space — playwright performer Ben Moroski\u2019s hilarious solo dark comedy The Wake<\/em><\/a>, a pleasingly meta-romance about necrophilia and neuroses.\u00a0 Moroski, with impeccable comic timing, portrays a substitute teacher putting on a one-man workshop play in hopes of expiating his conflicted feelings over a simply appalling love affair he\u2019s conducting with someone who might best be called a real stiff.<\/p>\n

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In director Nick Massough\u2019s compellingly dynamic staging, Moroski exudes an insane energy, even as he also appears to strongly resemble every 20-something hipster we\u2019ve ever seen with love troubles.\u00a0 It\u2019s a fast-paced, constantly hilarious, offbeat show that takes the stock parameters of the Fringe’s one-hour format and turns it neatly into something strange, creepy, and joyfully funny.\u00a0 This is likely to be one of the big break-out solo-show\u00a0 hits of the Fringe.<\/p>\n

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PAUL BIRCHALL hangs out inside and outside The Asylum — that would be Theatre Asylum — during the Fringe Festival. He gives a few casual observations and also reviews “Linden Arden Stole the Highlights” and “The Wake.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_custom_body_class":"","_custom_post_class":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-column","entry","has-media"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4203"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4203\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4307,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4203\/revisions\/4307"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stageraw.com\/oldStageRaw\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}