Political Snarkasm

The program sums it up well:

A One-Night-Only Cabaret with Sandi and Richard Riccardi. A dynamic comedy and cabaret duo, the Riccardis mix solid musical chops with satirical lyrics to lightly skewer contemporary society. It's all done in good fun, but with a definite attitude. Their show "Polical Snarkasm" will be featured at the Fringe Festival. This show is intended for Mature Audiences.

Well, that's a bit of an understatement. This was brilliant musical satire aimed, for the most part, at Trump and his minions. Non-stop laughs beautifully performed. And no, I don't remember why she was wearing the hockey team's jersey.

Ectopic

The word ectopic, according to Google, is defined as being in an abnormal place or position or as in ectopic pregnancy, a fetus attaching to the wall of a fallopian tube rather than the uterus. That's a very dangerous condition. The program tells us that:

A young woman dances around the issue of her hypersexuality as it starts to affect her various relationships. Does everyone around her simply reflect a culture that dislikes exceptional sexual behavior or is she hiding something deeper behind the facade of sexual exploration? Written and Directed by Taylor Gruenloh, featuring Laurell Stevenson & Darrious Varner .

This is a family-friendly blog, so to speak, and some of the images I got are too steamy for publication. But that's the Fringe.

 

Intermission

A day's break from Fringe Festival pictures. The show I'm working on now is difficult, for a couple or reasons.               

But there is a lot of other stuff going on here this weekend. One of them is Paint Louis. There is a long section of the Mississippi flood wall south of downtown where graffiti and wall art are permitted. Once a year spray can artists are invited to renew it. It's going on now. Back to The Fringe shortly.

The Bothered

I confess that I didn't exactly get this one. Spooky things in the attic or something. As always, the problem may have been that I pay more attention to my viewfinder than the play itself.  According to the program:

Why do we hide away the things we fear? We answer it with, “because we fear it.” But it is much more than that. A simple answer is not what we are looking for. Utilizing the five senses we delve into a world much like our own, but then again, different in every way, forced to confront these lingering anxieties and the enigmatic occurrences that come to follow. There are ideas lurking that we try to force away, but we do not have that choice anymore. They are here and the only question left is what will remain, and who?        

Perennial Growth

Sorry for no post yesterday. &%^$@* work got in the way of my photo editing. 

Anyway, the next show up is Perennial Growth, one of the most interesting at the festival. No words, just dance and gesture set to an original score. It was hard for me to get the meaning but then, as usual, I was paying attention to images. Apparently scientists create a super-plant, which proceeds, with its kin, to quash humanity and take over the world. The goal might be to save the planet. Or something like that. It was quite beautiful. I'm more concerned, though, with artificial intelligence systems gaining the ability to learn and recursively self-improve. If that happens it will be, as they say, a whole new ball game. 

I edited way too many pictures for a single blog post. All of them will be on FB shortly.     

Pain

 SAINT LOUIS DAILY PHOTO - PAIN  

Tony Marr, Jr., presented hard story that needed telling. A young black man finishes school but can't find more than a low-paying entry level position. He is unable to provide for his girlfriend, sick with advanced kidney disease, and their child. His mother won't help him and her boyfriend is threatening. He turns to crime, which ends in disaster. The burden is unbearable.

This show was really tough for my camera. The lighting was all blue and dark. I wasn't happy with the results in the color shots but sometimes you can convert to B&W and get good images. It works well with the somber themes.

There are many more of these photos, too many for a blog post. I'll but them all on Facebook.         

A Couple More

I have to double up on some of the smaller scale productions or I'll never get through all of them. The first of these is titled Now Playing Third Base For The St. Louis Cardinals...Bond, James Bond. It features veteran St. Louis actor Joe Hanrahan telling stories and musing. The program description summarizes it well:

*A Fringe Award Winner - Lifetime Achievement* It's a play about theatre. And baseball. In St. Louis. So it's about race. And the weather. And it's about James Bond. And The Beatles. And WWII. And killing a President. But mostly, it's about theatre. A new play by and starring Joe Hanrahan, directed by Shane Signorino with video projections by Michael Perkins.

Scroll down for another show.         

Next we have The Countdown. I didn't get the name of the actor. The program describes it like this:

After losing his family in a tragic car accident, a man wakes up to see timers hovering over peoples heads that count down to their death. After coming to terms with the fact that he can’t beat death, he finds his own timer over his head. Locking himself in a hotel room, the man recounts his cursed tale while trying to figure out how to survive the dreaded countdown. In this production, we find Cameron Cooper sitting on a bed in his hotel room as he recounts losing his family and the curse that followed. Through the 45 minute play, Cameron goes through every possible stage of death while he comes to terms with his own impending death. The audience will bear witness to the raw emotions of a man that’s completely broken from the pains of his past and the possible absence of a future. 

I found this a bit odd (not that the whole Fringe isn't). The premise was a bit of a stretch for me. In the end, the narrator's countdown clock reaches zero. Cut lights to black. Maybe I was paying too much attention to my viewfinder.