Fringe benefits
County residents take on the Capital Fringe Festival
Things to do: Watch a Molotov Theatre performer pull out his victim's toenails with pliers, get hypnotized by a lovesick Farah Lawal, peek at Word/Dance/Theatre's take on Isadora Duncan's crazy life while down the street await the return of Hamlet, this time as "Herbie: Poet of the Wild West." And for a real laugh-fest, check out Oscar Wilde seducing an Islamic terrorist in John Morogiello's "Irish Authors Held Hostage."
As long as there's a place to perform, "anything goes" at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival, says Julianne Brienza, the festival's executive director, who then qualifies her statement: "You can't say you are going to kill a real person."
And what a polyglot of places they've taken over, from a former cigar shop vacant since the 1968 riots to a German cultural institute to an old restaurant to a historic church and a long-standing, independent performance venue.
With this Fringe frenzy, Montgomery County artists have heeded the call as well.
And this is a good thing since production costs are so high, traditional theaters can't luxuriate in a "do your own thing" mentality.
Besides with the hams running around town, "it's a chance to be noticed," observes Tara Garwood, founder of Molotov Theatre, which specializes in Grand Guignol, a French horror genre developed in 1897. "After last year's Fringe, four of our male actors were seen by a Studio Theatre director and got work."
"We have the same mission as other theater companies — to explore humor and other fruit loopy stuff — but we wanted to create a theater you wouldn't bring your kids too," Garwood says, admitting, "We add as much gore and violence as we can," and so far, "we always get great reviews."
Last year, Molotov won the Pick of the Fringe Award for Best Overall Show.
In "Irish Authors Held Hostage," Gaithersburg playwright John Morogiello says he's "paying homage" to a host of famous authors' styles." The premise is simple. In separate vignettes, a variety of terrorists, including a gun-toting American and a Somalian pirate, kidnap authors, ranging from James Joyce to the brothers Frank and Macaley McCourt.
While the terrorist is begging for someone to listen to his point of view, each is confounded by egotisical authors that at times are verbally "incomprehensible."
Joyce, for example, drives his captor crazy, talking in "Finnegans Wake"-style, while the McCourts argue about who gets to put this experience in their next autobiography.
"You don't need to know anything about the authors. We have program notes and scene clues," Morogiello points out.
The Fringe venues are small, with 50 to 100 seats, and the performances are limited to 80 minutes, yet the Fringe has grown exponentially in just four years.
"The first year, we thought we might get 50 performers, but we got 94. And now, this year, some 124 groups will perform, and without the room, we had to turn some away. That's unheard of," Brienza says.
Ticket sales are also going through the theater roof. In 2008, presales were 2,500 on the first day, while this year, a whopping 7,000 were sold.
Brienza may be delighted, but she's also a little nervous.
"We have to organize all these people into [the venues] in just a few blocks," she explains. "I've spent the morning talking permits with the D.C. government."
The Montana native came to D.C. via Philadelphia where the Fringe Festival is alive and well. Upon arriving in D.C. and realizing the region was missing this artistic outlet, she started the Fringe. The festival began in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1947 and has grown to include Fringe festivals scattered throughout the U.S. and Canada.
While the shows don't have to be perfectly honed, some performers "realized they were not ready" after their first experience. The caliber of work has greatly improved since the Fringe's first year, Brienza notes.
In its brief life here, the Fringe has come to include a mix of newcomers and local stars.
After Word/Dance/Theater's sold-out performances last year, the company was invited back to perform "Revolutionary! Isadora Duncan."
Masses of folks may be coming to the Fringe, but Word's founder refuses to "dumb it down." Instead, the choreographer has created a play about Duncan's life using an actress and dancers. And her story is worth the price of admission. Seems Duncan, who grew up poor, took a few ballet lessons and realized she disliked the limitations of classical ballet. She was incensed that the dancers wore tightly woven corsets — no spandex in the early 1900s — and pointe shoes that caused deformed feet.
Moving to Paris, Duncan began to study the ancient Greek statues in the Louvre. She was impressed that "culture had such high esteem for the human body," Word notes. Change was in air, when Duncan danced shoeless "wearing a tiny silk tunic. She was not trying to be seductive, but beautiful and divine."
Like Duncan, Farah Lawal isn't afraid to fly solo. The recent University of Maryland graduate is taking her one-woman show "So Do You Love Me Yet?" to the Fringe.
"I've never done this [one-woman show] before," she says.
While the Silver Spring resident uses her poetry to talk of love and heartbreak, she knows she also needs to remember "to breathe and not rush."
While Lawal is talking love, Jason McCool of Silver Spring takes up sex and religion in his play, "Riding the Bull," about a rodeo clown and his girlfriend.
The mix makes complete sense when McCool explains, "My father was a former Roman Catholic priest."
He readily admits, for some religious folks, the play is "over the top."
And that's OK, since taking it to the limit is the Fringe.
Capital fringe festival
Word/Dance/Theater presents "Revolutionary! Isadora Duncan" 7:30 p.m. July 9, 7 p.m. July 10, 2 p.m. July 12, 7:30 p.m. July 15 and 11:30 a.m. July 25 at the Mountain at Mount Vernon, Plaza United Methodist Church, 900 Massachusetts Ave., NW.
Doorway Arts Ensemble will perform "Herbie: Poet of the Wild West" 10:30 p.m. July 15, 9 p.m. July 18, 9:30 p.m. July 22, 5:30 p.m. July 24 and 2 p.m. July 26 at the Warehouse Theatre Main Stage, 1021 7th St., NW.
John Morogiello's "Irish Authors Held Hostage" is set for 7 p.m. July 10, 5 p.m. July 12, 7 p.m. July 16, 11 p.m. July 25, and noon July 26 at The Bodega at the Trading Post, 1013 7th St., NW.
Farah Lawal will perform "So Do You Love Me Yet?" 8 p.m. July 10, 7 p.m. July 12, 6:30 p.m. July 16, 2:30 p.m. July 18 and 6:30 p.m. July 25 at The Bedroom at Fort Fringe, 612 L St., NW.
Freedom of Information Actors will perform "GS-14" at 9:30 July 12, 5:30 p.m., July 15, 6 p.m. July 18, 8 p.m. July 23 and 11:45 a.m. July 26 at The Bodega at the Trading Post, 1013 7th St., NW.
"Riding the Bull" is set for 9:30 p.m. July 10, 1:45 p.m. July 11, 11 a.m. July 18 and 6:45 p.m. July 25 in The Bodega at the Trading Post, 1013 7th St., NW.
Choreographers Chris Dohse and Nancy Havlik will present "Leave a Tone After the Message" 8:30 p.m. July 10 and 2 p.m. July 12 at The Apothecary at the Trading Post, 1013 7th St., NW.
The Georgetown Theatre Company will present "Jack, the Ticket Ripper" will be performed at 9 p.m. July 11, noon July 12, 6:30 p.m. July 16, 6 p.m. July 18 and 2:30 p.m. July 19 at Goethe-Institut, 812 7th St., NW.
Spooky Action Theater will produce "The Lost Ones' a prose text by Samuel Beckett and directed by Richard Henrich at 7 p.m., July 10, 8 p.m. July 15, 1:30 p.m. July 19, 7:15 p.m. July 23 and 11:45 p.m. July 24 at The Warehouse-Next Door, 1021 7th St., NW.
All tickets are $15 (plus a one-time purchase of a $5 Fringe button). They can be bought online at www.CapitalFringe.org or by phone at 866-811-4111. Tickets also are available at the Fort Fringe Box Office, 607 New York Ave., NW.
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