Interesting concept: three thirty-something men, old friends. One is a singer-songwriter who is unsure of his direction. Two old pals who are articulate and at times blunt. The former expresses himself through his music and responds to his friends' prodding. They pick apart his confused feelings and, as they say, get in his face. Psychotherapy on the cheap.
One of my faults when shooting at The Fringe is that I do more looking than listening. I did not get the name of the person who performs a show briefly described as "an immersive, participatory, one-woman show about exploring identity. Throw things! Yell stuff! Laugh! Cry!" It contains four parts, each with a different character who begins by reading from her diary. As long as the page is on The Fringe website you can read a more detailed description at https://tinyurl.com/2p9xtycr . Sure, pour a mini bottle of Jaegermeister into your water jug.
Vestals is a new play by Susie Lawrence based on the ancient Roman order of the Vestal Virgins. I won't explain the details of the order here; click the link to learn more. Six women were held in very high regard and were, in a sense, seen as preservers of the Roman state. The setting is late the 4th Century CE, when the Senate acted to cut their budget. In 382, the Christian emperor Gratian confiscated their revenues and the order disappeared shortly thereafter.
The play involves complex themes of duty, piety, male-female conflict, treachery, desire and revenge. A lot to pack into an hour.
Writer and journalist Chris Andoe performed an hour-long monologue about experiences on the gay scene from his home in Tulsa, to the larger Oklahoma City and eventually to St. Louis with detours to San Francisco and New York. Something keeps pulling him back here. His stories were at times wild and raucous, to the delight of a big audience of his fans.
I sometimes have loose associations. His pose in the second picture reminded me of Rembrandt's Aristotle Contemplating The Bust Of Homer, without the jewels and silken robe.
Dreamscape was performed by seven women, in small groups or ensemble, with flowing, emotionally evocative gestures. They sometimes appeared distressed, sometimes gracefully beautiful. The program description says that Dreamscape is about what we experience while we are dreaming and how those dreams affect us in our waking hours.
Times change. They always do, including in schools and on the stage. Two more scenes from the musical Bare. The first was a dance party that I assume was not held under the auspices of the school. (The Jesuits and the Archdiocese of New York would never have tolerated such things when I was young). Boys dancing with boys! Girls dancing with girls! Occasionally girls dancing with boys!
The second photo represents a dream one of the main characters had. It's the young man in the foreground in yesterday's post. He is conflicted by his desires and guilt. One of the nuns from the school appears as the Virgin Mary to comfort him and guide his decisions. She has two backup singer-dancer angels. The crowd went wild.
Bare was a full-length, two act musical, a coming of age story about young people at a Catholic high school (oh, how I can relate) with themes of authority, rebellion, alienation, and a complex web of straight, bi and gay relationships. It was also the most difficult to shoot. There was constant movement, a crowded stage with changes in color, and color LED stage lights are hell on cameras.
I only got to see the first act, an hour and twenty minutes, because I had another show to get to. This is one of my favorite photos of the festival, two young men on the edge of a gay encounter, one full of confidence, the other full of longing, indecision and guilt.
More to come.
It seems like every year Panagiotis Papavlasopoulos and Analicia Kocher produce an unusual one-act comedy that is a bit on the strange side. This year, Checking Out told the story of a woman who has inherited a low-end B&B from her sister, keeping her developmentally disabled nephew as handy man. It takes place in a isolated slice of Illinois, Jersey County, a narrow wedge of land between the Mississippi and Illinois Rivers. The only way out to the east and west are small ferries, giving it a remote feel. The late owner's wake on the premises and her will brings some surprises.
Ann Truka presented a one-woman show called simply Jean. Her website, https://www.anntruka.com/, summarizes the character as
a non-binary children's book author and one-hit-wonder, is trying to craft their next piece of work - but what was once a story about an androgynous puppy exploring fashion is now something much more...adult. Struggling through their writer's block, they invite the audience to join them on an insightful journey navigating family relationships and what it's like to feel different.
As you might guess, there's more to it than that. I hope Ann returns to The Fringe next year.
The kid turned 10 Sunday. We arranged a birthday party at a place called Incredible Pizza (spoiler - it's not). There is a big buffet of cheap pizza, pasta, salad and desserts. The big attraction is the adjacent enormous arcade, with every kind of flashing, jangling, shaking electronic game you could imagine. The children wanted to finish eating and get there as fast as possible. Ellie decided that the most efficient and funniest way was to shove her whole ice cream cone in her mouth.
Comedian Nick Kelly told a tale about a regular, periodic joke his parents played on him in childhood into his young adult years. Every spring, they would devise intricate, elaborate pranks. In this bit, his father told him there was some small but vicious animal in the attic that they must be rid of at once. Nick was told to get a baseball bat to whack the thing to death while his father trapped it in a sheet for disposal. Nick got very worked up, afraid, anxious and full of force. Just as he thought he was about to slay the beast his mother threw a stuffed toy dog at him. April fool!
Local artist Toni Finch performed a show based on the women's suffrage movement and modern feminism. It was such a hit at last year's festival that she returned for an encore. The music included Helen Reddy's I Am Woman, Lesley Gore's You Don't Own Me and Loretta Lynn's The Pill. It included a sing along about women's votes to the tune of Yankee Doodle. Beautiful singing, moving event.
My friend Kevin Bowman has a long history with the Fringe. He served as technical director for several years but had a story in him he wanted to get out. Our executive director, Matthew Kerns, urged him to put it to paper and thus Heretic came to be. Kevin was raised in an evangelical fundamentalist church and, being an excellent speaker, was steered into preaching. It became a career but with time, over-commitment, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance destroyed his marriage and almost destroyed him. He left his past and started a new life. The story was told with tenderness and roaring humor..
I had never thought of aerial dance as an art form, but it certainly is. Newsam Aerial Dance, https://newsamaerialdance.com/, featured amazingly strong and graceful women performing above the floor on the ring seen here, trapeze and large, flowing sheets of fabric. It was wonderful to see choreography unfolding in the air.
Humans of St. Louis, https://www.humansofstl.org/, is an organization that collects photographs and life stories of the people who live in our area. It's on social media and there is a book collecting the tales and images. Now there is a stage version that received its premier at The Fringe last night. Each player spoke for several characters, talking about the good and sometimes the bad of living here.
Last night was the opening of the St. Lou Fringe, https://www.stlfringe.org/ . Performing arts fringe festivals started in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1947 (https://www.edfringe.com/) and now have local versions around the world.
Our first performance was The Oreo Complex, a powerful one woman show by Lillian Brown, https://www.lilliancbrown.com/, about being Black, intelligent and sensitive in white American society. Oreo is a term that plays on the name of the popular cookie, black on the outside and white on the inside. It's a strong metaphor for the experience of many Americans.
Around the bend in the same artificial lagoon in Forest Park. Pretty bridge, pretty landscaping, and the strange shadings of infrared light images. Our everyday world in a way we can never see on our own.
I needed a couple of days worth of material and, as happens often, I didn't have an idea in my head. Just for something different, I got out my camera that has the sensor modified for infrared and headed to Forest Park.
It was a Saturday afternoon and, as usual in good weather, there were wedding parties out for photographs at the scenic spots. This is the end of what's called the Grand Basin. For a good backdrop, the art museum is up a hill at the other end. Infrared images turn green foliage nearly white. It fits the occasion.
The image inventory will fill up quickly this week. The St. Lou Fringe, https://www.stlfringe.org/, starts tomorrow night and, like every year, I'll be there snapping away.
We do!
Seen in front of the Missouri History Museum in Forest Park, which is more interesting than it sounds. I don't know who the sign is meant for. It doesn't refer to a current exhibit.
The family wandered through the galleries of the art museum while Ellie was on her scavenger hunt. This sculpture wasn't on the list but the kid seemed transfixed by it, at least for the moment. I wonder what was going on in her not-quite 10 year old brain.
Still in the art museum's sculpture garden. The arrangement of the trees may be as interesting as the art itself. Indeed, the landscape is a work of art. This view shows how the different species of trees complement one another.
I had not visited our art museum's sculpture garden in some time. It is located behind the building, not visible as you approach the entrance, making it very quiet. There were attractive changes in the landscaping. Squares and rectangles filled with dark wood chips were placed around the lawn. These boxes contained different species of trees, all of a similar height but with different textures and shapes.
There was an event for children last night st the St. Louis Art Museum, or SLAM. We took Ellie (bright colors, lower right). One of the activities was a scavenger hunt. The kids had to find four paintings inside and four works in the sculpture garden. As we came back in the low sun put a warm glow on the building. There is an inscription on the lintel that says Art Still Has Truth Seek Refuge There.
Just down the path from yesterday's penguins. This puffin was splashing up a storm, just all by itself. It must be amusing for cold weather aquatic birds.
They wouldn't have been amused if they were outside. It was a hot and very humid summer day in St. Louis. This area was indoors and chilly. Walking back outside was a smack in the face.
The St. Louis Zoo has a big carousel with 64 painted wood animals. It's another stop on Ellie's don't miss list. Note that she chose a penguin.
Post pictures of penguins. Who doesn't like penguins? They're fun.
I haven't been out much. Nothing special going on, hot and very humid and my spine arthritis is grouchy. Ellie and I went to the zoo recently (we have an extraordinary one) and headed right for her favorites. Petting the stingrays. Check. Polar bears. Check. Penguins and puffins. Well, here we are. They look as absurd as some of our politicians. You could drop Ted Cruz in here with a gray suit and white shirt and maybe no one would notice.
The word is Yiddish but it seems to apply well to this assortment of sort-of religious knickknacks for sale at the Krishna chariot parade. The feeling is quite similar to what I remember from my Catholic upbringing and still see throughout Europe and the Americas. People need just the right souvenir.
