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By: Keith Huang | Main | The Gag Reel
By: Mo Diggs »
August 14, 2007
Fringe NYC Journal - Part 1
You know when scientists try to tell you something like, "The genetic code of a chihuahua is 98% the same as the genome of a human," and then you dismiss it because it doesn't make any sense that you can swap in the isolated contents of a Myoplex milkshake to a puppy's DNA to whip up a totally different species. This anecdote sort of poorly explains how we feel with traditional theatre goers and comedy theatre goers. Genetically speaking, they're quite similar when you break that shit down. But put the two side by side, look them in the eye, smell them, and you'll see where evolution went bananas and sent the two species spiraling down different paths. It's our belief that the two can cohabitate, that the chihuahua in this example can be domesticated, that there's plenty of seats that can be filled in a traditional theatre show by comedy theatre goers and vice versa. In an effort to tap into the minds of traditional theatre goers, The Apiary will be scooting around The New York City International Fringe Festival over the next couple weeks to see what we can learn from our brethren and the world they live in. For the purposes of our studies, we're going shows that are either listed as comedy or shows that sound neat.
First thing we noticed: you get really spoiled in the comedy trenches. Traditional theatre goers don't mind when material isn't funny all the time. We, on the other hand, found ourselves mentally rewriting jokes and wishing the producers would cut out the stuff that wasn't working comedically. The best comedy writers have editing skills sharp as ginzus. If you're putting on a traditional theatre show with the intent to be funny, why not run your script by a comedy writer or someone who specializes in comedy first, eh? If a comic can get paid to punch up big Hollywood scripts, surely the same can work at the theatre level.
We saw a couple shows so far...
Williamsburg! The Musical! @ The Village Theater
It's quite a feeling to be groggy and hungover while a dozen or so exuberant theater people pranced and sang, "Williamsburg, It's the place to live!" at the top of their lungs at noon on a Sunday morning. Scanning the noticeably white haired crowd at Williamsburg! The Musical!, we'd be surprised if any of them have even been to Brooklyn in the past 40 years, let alone Williamsburg. It must have been a real learning experience for grandma to find out about the L train, gentrification, all the different annoying motherfuckers who live there, etc. This begs the follow up question: where does a traditional theatre audience get their information from and how do they decide that seeing a new work about Williamsburg is how they want to spend their Sunday morning? Don't know. But the show drew a solid audience.
OrientaRhythm @ Demo Hall
Up next, we descended into a funky smelling church basement to catch a show called OrientaRhythm because the flyer had a picture of a ninja with nunchucks and something about it being "Hip hop meets Japanese cool." Let's explain: a few months ago we saw The Jaded Assassin, a Kill Bill-like stage combat comedy which was so incredibly awesome, we think it could be THE NEXT BIG THING as a live genre. It was so good in fact, we whipped ourselves into a frenzy hoping OrientaRhythm would be similar. But... it wasn't. We'll leave it at that. The blaring sound system drove us out at the intermission; audience members covered their ears while the booth techies picked their noses.
Posted by The Apiary at August 14, 2007 9:14 AM