FringeNYC has the best interest rates, The Personal Shopper says

 

 BY AVNER KAM

Yep, FringeCENTRAL is standing amid the ruins of that bank branch on Fifth Avenue and East Eighth Street. Every year since 2004, your subservient Personal Shopper is cutely fitting the headline to our FringeCENTRAL location. Yes, we will keep your rate of interest high. Your Personal Shopper provides entertainment, discussion, titillation and even that feeling of rage that makes you want to smack someone. You wouldn’t, though. This is New York theater and it is too darn hot. So sit back, relax and let me lead you through a sample of our checking and savings plans as well as the silliest statistics that immortalize the inane.

And what will this year bring? Among the usual freaks and geeks shows, we can spot some trends that reflect where the country and its creative juices are at this moment. What are the political shows about? What celebrities will be dragged through the mud this time around? How many Shakespearean remakes do we offer and how smartass-y will they get? Step right up to teller No. 1.

 

Sex, sex, sex!!!

So let’s start in the gutter. For the sooner we start, the sooner we can take our heads out of it. Only two shows–Shh! (“constitutionally questionable!”) and Mobius (“beneath lies a secret!”)–feature the nudity "warning" this year, which is a relatively a low count. On the other hand, a high number of shows describe their content as sex-related. For these shows, the creators used “sex," “sexy,” “sexual,”and/or “sexuality” in their description. Staycation-wise though, only one show labeled itself as the “Lingerie and DVD” store: SHINE: A Burlesque Musical. The creators only used the “sex” word once in their description. (Don’t they know what sells?)

 

Opposite Marriage!

This year, we finally give voice to the silent majority in Heterosexuals (“how much we just want to fuck!”) and a mere 95 percent of all other shows. Homosexuals, the other white meat, are noted in main or supporting roles in 46 shows (we are getting used to it!) Some notables:Veritas (Harvard homosexuality!), The Twentieth-Century Way (“public restrooms in 1914”), Dear Harvey (activists!), Miss Magnolia Beaumont Goes to Provincetown (Southern debutante!), open heart (thoughts on monogamy!) and BUNKED! A New Musical (sponsored by Logo!) Also in the brotherly love vein: Friends of Dorothy: An Oz Cabaret (Pasties and glitter and drag? Oh my!) and Over and Over (negotiate sexual history!)

For a little XX-on-XX action, look no further than Jen and Liz in Love (trapped in the kissing booth!), The Secretaries (composed by The Five Lesbian Brothers!) or As I Am Fully Known (a 25-year-old Catholic lesbian and the wrath of God!) If mix-and-match is your thing, be sure to check out Singapore's Ah Kua Show (transgender woman activist and entrepreneur!) or the truly mixed, multinational Manon/Sandra (a Catholic woman devoted to God and a transvestite dedicated to sex.)

 

Mommy vs. Daddy

FringeNYC is the battlefield in the epic struggle between your mom and your dad (who do you love more?) Seventeen shows include a reference to mom in their descriptions, including the blatantly titled Happy Birthday, Mom (Mom clad in leather!) There's How My Mother Died of Cancer, and Other Bedtime Stories (cast her family as themselves!) and Questions My Mother Can't Answer (women of a certain age!) To make the point, three mothers are getting buried in My Three Moms.

Dad is mentioned in only 13 shows. There's Daddy Day (summer holiday with his daughter!) For balance, My Dad's Crazier Than Your Dad: A Scientific Inquiry (you’ll cringe!) With such a forceful tag of war, no wonder we have shows about therapy such as Have a Nice Life (group therapy!)

 

To Mosque or Not to Mosque?

2010 has an impressive number of shows dealing with Muslim issues. How timely is that? From Scandinavia, we have FOR KINGDOM AND FATHERLAND (Norway's most famous Muslim comedian!) From Washington, D.C., there's Headscarf and the Angry Bitch ( 'The Muslim Weird Al!') Los Angeles brings us SHAHEED: The Dream and Death of Benazir Bhutto (Pakistani leader!) and DRIVING THE SAUDIS (Saudi royal family meets mega-shopping !) For a local flavor, look no further than AK-47 Sing-Along ("Sesame Street" on Hamas TV!)

There is also some South Asia representation with A PERSONAL WAR- STORIES OF THE MUMBAI TERROR ATTACKS (survivors!) and FASTER THAN THE SPEED OF WHITE (high-energy poets!) Find divinity in Swaha: Rituals of Union. If you have an appetite for the Far East, try Burning In China (comic culture collisions!) and MADE IN TAIWAN (a Chinese-American Sandra Bullock!) To finish off, feast on the aforementioned Singapore noodle, Ah Kua Show.

 

Jew Have to Be There!

If you know the word schmuck, you know Yiddish! Come learn some more from the French show, A Gilgl Fun a Nigun (The Metamorphosis of a Melody) (Yiddish with English translation supertitles!) THE MAD 7 - A Mystical Comedy with Ecstatic Dance is also based on Jewish folklore and seven mystics. For biblical references, there's My Name is Ruth set in a 50s-era Minnesota.

We also have Omarys Concepcion Lopez Perez Goes to Israel (to speak to God at the Wailing Wall). The name says it all! In Feed the Monster, an Orthodox Jew morphs into a mock-rock-goddess. If you are looking for further misuse of the word “Jew” and lots of kvetching, tryJew Wish.

For a mix-and-match, there's Abraham's Daughters and Interfaith Understanding with The Rev. Bill & Betty (unusual practices of non-Christians!)

No Scottish Play!

Oh, two sweet princes! FringeNYC features Hamlet Shut Up (without all that pesky dialogue!) and HAMLETTES (three pre-pubescent girls are staging the play!) For more Shakespeare, we have As You Like It (eight actors, 21 characters and one trunk!), Julius Caesar: The Death of a Dictator (with music by Metallica) and RICHARD 3 (in a nuclear wasteland). Finally, someone gets to feed The Bard his own medicine in Getting Even with Shakespeare (five tragic heroes walk into a bar and they're pissed!)

Some other cultural references: Tangled Yarn (Antigone and Ismene) and Tristan & Isolde (to marry his uncle!) There's An Idiot (retelling of Dostoevsky's "The Idiot" with alcoholics and porn stars!) and Heron & Crane (from a Russian folktale with a new ending every time!). Then there is the non-angry 12 Incompetent Men (And Women!) about stolen six cats, and one runaway juror! The Beatitudes is set to poetry and music from the Beat Generation, while The Altoona Dada Society Presents The Velvet Gentleman features composer Erik Satie in an extravaganza! Finally, William Blake rears his head in the Italian entry, ETERNITY IN AN HOUR.

TMZ Time!

Enter a few tabloid references. This year's FringeNYC is not as rich in gossip as previous years. Still, celebs are inescapable! MacChin: The Lamentable Tragedie of Jay Leno (Leno as Macbeth – hey! We DO have a Scottish play!) We also have Marilyn Monroe: wouldn't it be fascinating (DiMaggio and Monroe in dreamscape!) and Just In Time - The Judy Holliday Story (the original dumb blond with Orson Welles! Katharine Hepburn!! Comden and Green!!! Gloria Swanson!!!! Jimmy Durante!!!!! I can’t stop using exclamation points!!!!!!)

 

Damn Politics!

For the politically and socially inclined, FringeNYC boasts a plethora of plays about the system and its war(s). We have Picking Palin (The question is why?) and THE FOURTH ESTATE (Join the journalists!) A blast from the mid-90s comes in the form of OVER THERE: Comedy Is His Best Weapon (Former  President Bill Clinton's dental technician!)

The Middle East conflict is still a hot-button issue with Alternative Methods (An Iraqi doctor!) We also have Flesh-Light Stories (guerrillas in Brazzaville and Machu-Picchu!) and One Thumb Out (the war follows you home!) Meanwhile, the National Guard makes an appearance inSTAND FAST. We also learn that there's no place like home in And a Wake-up and a Separate Peace.

Then we have social commentary in LEMONADE: A Play of World Domination (commodify the sun!) and Get Rich Cheating (a favorable blurb from Rachel Maddow!) Amsterdam Abortion Survivor features shock and charm at the same time! Revealing sketches abound in A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People. We also have By Hands Unknown, which presents a multimedia legacy of lynching. We will soon see shows about that BP fiasco. For now, we have 23 Feet in 12 Minutes: The Death and Rebirth of New Orleans and The Hurricane Katrina Comedy Festival.

 

Robots and Other Freaks

Quick, quick. Tell me now! THE PRINCES OF PERSUASION: Recipes For Romance has robotic puppets, while POPE! An Epic Musical features an army of robots. Evan O'Television in Double Negatives offers video-ventriloquism, while Stripes: The Mystery Circus reinvents eight iconic circus acts. We also have UBA BOUNCE (circus globe acts as ringmaster!), BAGABONES (states of confinement!) and THE GREAT GALVANI (A tinkerer of dead frogs!) In other FringeNYC shows, we have American Gypsy (deception!), Magical Exploding Boy (amoeba struggling for life!) and many more freaky things, but now is the time for some awards.

 

The Envelope, Please!

There's 197 shows in FringeNYC 2010. Our shows cover every genre and topic. We also feature fabulous titles with every letter of the alphabet. Is this really the case? Well, almost. We have shows starting with every character, including special ones such as (UN)Natural Disaster. Shows starting with the letter "K" do not make an appearance in this year's event (wassup "K?") We also do not have any shows starting with the letters "X," "Y" and "Z." Meanwhile, we do have the rare "O" inOmarys Concepcion Lopez Perez Goes to Israel. The letter "Q" drops by FringeNYC in Questions My Mother Can't Answer as well as "U" in UBA BOUNCE. I am still in shock that no show titles start with the letter "Y." We tend to have at least one title starting with the word, "you." Why? Why, oh "Y?"

 

Titillating Titles

What is my favorite title? Plenty to choose from, including the weird and the witty. Will it be 12 Incompetent Men (And Women!) or AK-47 Sing-Along? Butterfly, Butterfly, Kill Kill Kill! or Good Good Trouble On Bad Bad Island? Or perhapsHamlet Shut Up or Headscarf and the Angry Bitch? Heterosexuals? I Don <3 U Ne Mor (what?) But maybe it will be Jew Wish or Love in the Time of Swine Flu or A Raisin in the Salad: Black Plays for White People or totally “T-O-T-A-L-L-Y!”?

No, no, no, no! My favorite show title this year is Jim David’s solo show about North Carolina's worst community theater, SOUTH PATHETIC. Congrats, Jim. Stop being so hard on yourself!

 

The Green Inch

Since many publications have moved online, saving ink by choosing a short title may not seem as green as before. I will channel Cher for a moment and say, “Snap out of it!” It is the thought that counts!

We have a few contenders in this "Green Inch" conservation award. Most are smartly using one short word to encapsulate all that is encapsulatable. Titles like GARAGE or Mobius, Group or MASKS, or even four-character runner-ups like Prey or RASH! But the award goes to...Hold on a second… ladies and gentlemen, we have a split! This year, the award will be shared by two titles. Both smartly bring the fresh mix of letters, numbers and special characters to create a unique titular title experience! And the first winner is (drumroll, please) 3boys(acceptance speech, blah, blah, blah). The award also goes to (drumroll, please) Shh! (acceptance speech, blah, blah, blah, with the orchestra cutting off the list of librarirans who inspired this title; recepients are led offstage). Congrats to the winners!

 

The coveted “Like a Horse” award

And finally, to those who labored to create a unique experience in filling the page with their title! Third place goes to Terms of Dismemberment: A Musical with Heart...and Other Body Parts with a mere character count (including spaces) of 67. For second place, and the opportunity to take over the title should the winner be stripped of their crown due to technicality, is Omarys Concepcion Lopez Perez Goes to Israel (to speak to God at the Wailing Wall) with a count of 82.

 

And the Like a Horse Winner is…

Ladies and gentlemen, with a count of 88, our Like a Horse title for 2010 is Love in the Time of Swine Flu: A comedy about sex, dating and everything else terrifying. This show is in the Improv/Sketch/Stand-up and Comedy genre, which is some ways is unfair. These guys can improvise and come up with words and long titles just… like… that!