In its first week the New York International Fringe Festival can seem vast and impenetrable, one of the few times of year when you enter the theater with almost no idea of what to expect. By week 2, however, reviews and word of mouth spread, and for alert audiences the menu of more than 200 shows shrinks to a few hits everyone’s talking about.
The chance of disaster (and epiphany) decreases as the Fringe becomes more like downtown theater the rest of the year.
Of the Fringe elite this summer, no show has polarized more theatergoers than “666,” a raucous collection of physical comedy sketches from a Madrid company, Yllana, which has created 16 shows since 1991. European reviews ranged from glowing (The French newsmagazine L’Express describes “666” as a “masterwork of black humor”) to groaning (The Guardian of London: “Only for the drunk or dim”).
The good, dirty fun begins after a metal gate opens at the back of the set, revealing four grunting, wordless prisoners (Raúl Cano, Fidel Fernández, Joe O’Curneen and Juan Ramos Toro) hunched in threatening poses, ready to strike. And when they do, it’s best to keep a distance. These brutes, who pantomime spilling buckets of imaginary blood and bodily fluid, pester the audience, laugh themselves silly killing one another and dedicate considerable creative resources to plumbing the comic possibilities of urine. (Trust me: they can seem endless.)
At one point the most timid-looking performer pretends to rip someone’s heart out and then impales it on a giant phallus strapped to his waist — while standing on a seat over a few nervous audience members in the second row.
The Fringe has a long, ignoble history of obscene clown shows. Three years ago Billy the Mime set the bar pretty high (or maybe low?) by impersonating a fetus during an abortion. But make no mistake: as soon as one of the four Spanish performers guns down an old-fashioned mime in slow-motion, his splattering brains represented with economy by a flick of the fingers, the gauntlet has been thrown down.
In an online interview with The New York Times, Juan Urrutia, the producer of the United States production of the show, described “666,” scored to a soundtrack of heavy metal, hip-hop and John Carpenter’s theme from “Halloween,” as Swiftian. That’s the kind of thing that a producer says when he has dreams of Blue Man Group dancing in his head. The truth is that this is very dumb stuff, choreographed and performed with startling elegance.
“The Adventures of Alvin Sputnik: Deep Sea Explorer” and “The 49 Project” — two other leaders in Fringe Festival buzz — imagine political fantasies set in a dark vision of the future. “The 49 Project,” written by the young playwright Mary Adkins, provocatively speculates about what would happen if American women organized and consolidated power, taking advantage of their majority status to pass discriminatory laws against men. It’s either a nightmare or a revenge fantasy, depending on your point of view.
The title refers to a male-rights group run by a true believer, Nathan (Clayton Apgar), whose mission for sex equality seems to be going nowhere. Ms. Adkins, a Yale law student (it’s the rare play where the protagonist proclaims his love for the Constitution), writes in a slickly cinematic style, but she gets bogged down in a courtroom drama that sends the play in a direction less interesting than the conceit promises.
If “The 49 Project” appears like “District 9” for the gender-studies crowd, “Alvin Sputnik,” an endearing Australian solo show told in stick-figure animation and puppetry by Tim Watts, will remind you of a more innocent summer blockbuster. Its unlikely mix of environmental disaster, twee humor and cutie-pie whimsy makes it something akin to a theatrical “Wall-E.”
The ice caps have melted, and Earth is flooded, leaving humanity’s last, best hope an adorable, round-headed explorer looking for the soul of his late wife. This may sound like heavy material, but with a seamless blend of live drawing projected on a round screen accompanying simple animation, Mr. Watts creates a vivid new theatrical world on a slim budget.
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