What do you like to see, hear and do when you go out for an evening of fun - or choose to stay at home? Our choices of entertainment in today's society seem limitless. As the house photographer for the St. Louis Fringe, I have an obvious place to look for an example but a huge amount to choose from. These girls from a high school on the edge of the area performed a spin on A Midsummer Night's Dream called A Tale of Puck. Now that was entertaining.
Yesterday was the very rare day with no post. I've been working hard as the St. Louis Fringe's photographer. I've lost track of how many shows I shot this week but I think my right index finger needs a splint.
One of the best shows I've seen working with the Fringe is Jon Bennett's Fire In The Meth Lab. Bennett is an Australian storyteller, actor and comedian, and winner of many awards. This show is about his relationship with his brother Tim, two years older and with serious emotional problems. He tormented Jon when they were children. As they grew older on their family's rural farm, Tim got hooked on alcohol, then marijuana, then psychedelics and finally methamphetamine. He set up a lab in Adelaide to supply a biker gang with dividends for himself. One day the lab literally exploded, leaving Tim with life-threatening burns. He survived.
The story is much more complicated than that. The version produced here was shortened. You can--and should--see the full version at https://www.jonbennettcomedy.com/fire-in-the-meth-lab/
Songs Of A Movement was Toni Schneider Finch's review of feminist anthems from the 19th Century suffragettes to modern popular music. It included Loretta Lynn's The Pill, Lesley Gore's You Don't Own Me and, of course, Helen Reddy's I Am Woman. There was lots more. Schneider Finch was accompanied by violin, cello and electric keyboard. The show ended with a sing along.
I may have trouble keeping up with daily posts for a bit. I'm The Fringe's house photographer. If I shot a full schedule tonight I'd go from 6 to midnight, and tomorrow from 11:30 AM to 11:30 PM, all without a meal break. I'm too old for that but I'll get as many shows as I can and edit the pix, um, in my spare time.
Does your city have a Fringe Festival? When one of the most prestigious arts festivals in Europe re-started after World War II, they would not admit the odd, the experimental and the out-there. So those artists said bleep you, we'll have our own. And thus was the Edinburgh Fringe Festival born.
And now there are offshoots all over the world. The St. Louis Fringe Festival takes place in mid-August. I'm the house photographer and a member of the board of directors. It's the highlight of my image making year. We just had a taste last weekend. Our executive director, Matthew Kerns (MFA, mind you), starred in a production of An Act of God, assisted by actor-comedian-pediatrician Ken Haller. It's a provocative comedy by longtime Saturday Night Live writer David Javerbaum. Matt, as God, has had about enough of us and visits to announce a new set of rules relevant to what we have become. It made you laugh and think.
A couple of things to say up front. First: I simply don't understand dance. I am physically graceless. I have no athletic ability and have iffy balance. Second: no matter how many Fringe performances I photograph, I will never, ever again see something like this.
The young woman who goes by Sky is independent and trying to make her way in the world personally and artistically. We know one another from a couple of past Fringe festivals. She loves to dance and creates her own esthetic, using music, a bit of fabric and her own inner flow.
Her performance at this year's festival had something different. She called it I'd Rather You See My Soul Than My Body. Toward the end, she spread a tarp on the floor. She took a big jar of creamy peanut butter, spread it out with a spoon, and - what's the right word? - undulated, writhed, coiled and uncoiled across it. The aroma of peanuts quickly spread throughout the tent. The bottom picture is one of the less provocative I took. I have no means to interpret it.
You may be wondering about the full title of the show, Get Wet With Deenie Nast. During the performance, Deenie talked about her mastery of synchronized swimming. There was a video illustrating the point, which unfortunately is not on Youtube. Deenie pointed out that this can get complicated with other bodies flailing about.. Her solution was to do it by herself and add digital effects. I wish I had a shot showing that part but this will do for now.
At one point during Deenie Nast's show at the Fringe, she reminisced about a pair of gold lamé shorts she had worn in a starring role in the James Bond film Right Between The Eyes. She still had them and, by God, she could still get into them! Well, it turned out to be a bit of work requiring the assistance of the whole team of male nurses. It may have been exhausting but it was successful in the end.
I'm skipping ahead to a show I really liked, White Rabbit/Red Rabbit. Perhaps you have seen it it. It was written ten years ago by the Iranian Playwright Nassim Soleimanpour and has been produced all around the world. https://www.nassimsoleimanpour.com/whiterabbitredrabbit
But you probably haven't seen it and I won't be a spoiler. I'll just say that a script is handed in an envelope to an actor or actress who has never seen it. No rehearsals. The Fringe did it three times last weekend, each with a different performer, in this instance with the stunningly talented Jacquelyn Thompson. It involves life and death questions, audience participation, political freedoms and the reasons for writing. Might come back to this.
Small Box With A Revolver is an unsettling one act play about two strangers who awaken in a room, location unknown and no exit apparent. There is a small box containing a revolver and an ambiguous letter of instructions: you must shoot the other. But which is the other, and does it mean shoot to kill?
Then the characters find a coin in the box. It seems to demand a flip, only to lead to the discovery that the coin is the same on both sides. But wait - the box has a false bottom, under which is a second revolver. There is talk of obligations to the Superiors and the possibility of punishment. All of this is subject to intense discussion. It felt like Waiting For Godot comes to the community theater.
Hey, the next play is even gloomier but the whole festival doesn't stay like that.
Late post today. I was up till almost 1 shooting the Saturday late night show. It was fall out of your chair funny but we will come to it later.
The second show I shot was called The Playwright and the Producer. An aspiring writer visits someone who produced his first play, demanding a workshop for his new work. The producer is indifferent, the writer turns desperate and then violent. A romantic triangle unfolding in the background complicates things. Strong stuff but rather too violent for my gentle personality.
The 10th St. Lou Fringe Festival got started Thursday with a couple of productions. There are ten shows spread over four days, much fewer than normal, non-Covid years. Everyone is cautious and the performances have well-spaced seats in open-sided tents.
Things got started with violinist Amy Greenhaigh and St. Louis theater veteran Joe Hanrahan in My Violin My Voice. Hanrahan narrates a history of the instrument, describing how they are made, famous performers and stories involving the instrument. Greenhaigh's playing was exquisite. The show is repeated today, Saturday, at 4:30 and I strongly recommend it.
The St. Lou Fringe is back this weekend for its 10th season, https://www.stlouisfringe.com/. Our executive director, Matthew Kerns, has done an heroic job this year and last to keep the festival afloat. This weekend is all online. Next weekend is live in covered but open sided venues.
This weekend's big hit so far is Andy's Super Fun Happy Magic Show, seen here in a screen shot. There are amazing feats, paranoid conspiracy theories, audience participation and a possible interruption by the FBI. How does he make his eyes do that? Who still uses a reel-to-reel tape deck? It's repeated today and you can watch it from anywhere in the world, considering it's at 1:30 PM / 13.30 US Central Summer Time. Tickets at https://www.stlouisfringe.com/virtual-stage.
Next weekend is an entirely different live line-up. Locals can check it out at https://www.stlouisfringe.com/live-stage. I'm the house photographer so you will see me around. Worth your time.
Like many cities, St. Louis has a Fringe Festival for out-there performing arts. I've been the house photographer for awhile. It's all modeled on the original Edinburgh Fringe.
No live performances this year, of course. Ours decided to go virtual, with all performances on Zoom. (You had to buy a ticket to get an access code.) One, called #txtshow, had a clever premise. A performance artist hosted the meeting. Participants were asked to turn off their microphones and cameras and rename themselves as Anonymous. Everyone could then send chat messages to the user just called txt. The host would read them aloud. Since the messages were all anonymous, the discussion could get wild and raucous.
But you need a bunch of participants to make this work. When I joined on Sunday afternoon there was only me. The second box above is the Fringe's director, the third is the host and the fourth place to send messages. I felt sorry for the guy and hung in to the end, just making inane comments in the chatbox on the right and listening to his responses. Disappointing. It could have been a lot of fun. As it was winding up I took this shot with my phone.
