Harmon Leon - Yank Me!
Boltz Cafe
10:00pm, Wed 8 Mar 2000
Score: 5
Short Review: Momentary
This was quite promising - Lehmo came out to warm the crowd up, dealt with some heckling in a good-natured way, then introduced Harmon Leon - who promptly struggled for 5 minutes.
Leon re-used a fair bit of material from previous visits - although the return of Timmy was welcome (even if his life wasn't threatened as liberally as last Fringe). However, his new material was patchy - about a 50/50 proposition.
His piece on the pros and cons of various religions was amusing; recounting how he tried valiantly to get sacked from a fast-food job inside three hours raised a few laughs; and his exploits trying to buy a gun whilst acting like a psychotic gun freak were downright hilarious. In between these highlights, however, the best he could manage out of this little camper was a smile.
On the whole - amusing enough, but why bother when there's much better around at the moment?
Bound Sonata
Uniflex Physical Theatre
8:30pm, Wed 8 Mar 2000
Score: 2
Short Review: Self-indulgent
Wow, this was bad. Quoth the Fringe Guide: "Bound Sonata is the obsessive and compulsive in all of us". Well, the obsession seemed to be entirely on the performer's side of the fence, whereas the compulsion for me was to leave early.
Two performers, one very lean ("black"), the other heavier-set ("blue"). Black was average on both the movement front and the piano. Blue seemed competent on the movement side of things. The movement prescribed by the piece, presumably meant to symbolise the aforementioned obsessive/compulsive behaviour, was exactly that - that same, inelegant, gestures over and over again, interspersed with much pacing of the floor and whispering to themselves. Visual spectacle? Afraid not - shit boring is a far more apt term.
Interestingly enough, my SO was far more scathing of this piece than I - comments like "no talent, wrote the piece for Year 11 dance class and got a B" were passed around. In a more curious occurance, this has apparently had good reviews - why? What am I missing? And do I really care?
Un Re(a)d
Ngapartji Multimedia Centre
7:00pm, Wed 8 Mar 2000
Score: 5
Short Review: TryHard
The Post Hoc Performing Word Company come down from the Gold Coast to inject a bit of poetry, video, and live action into the fringe. Sometimes their multimedia effort pays off; most times it doesn't.
Being led into the Multimedia Centre by two rejects from Mad Max III (you know, the bit where Mel finds all the kids?) planted seeds of doubt into my head. The first 5 minutes of the pre-recorded video footage did not assuage these fears. Fine imagery was torn apart by lacklustre visual effects, with try-hard evocative-wannabe text skidding across the screen like a nightmarish PowerPoint presentation.
The closing 5 minutes of the piece (hereafter known as "the realist bit") was also a contrived bit of work. In between these two pieces, though, was a reasonable section ("the city bit") which, whilst being similarly contrived, made better use of the visual palette. And, on the plus side, the original music throughout was quite good.
On the minus side - the live performances accompanying the video had a Wank Factor of about 13 (out of 10). Overall, the writing was pretty poor too - whilst the Company seemed to have plenty to say about the garish ills of their home town (and, one would guesstimate, society in general), it all seemed to be written in a manner which seems to be desperately trying to create a powerful, evocative commentary... and failing. Still, the music and video elements of this piece seem to indicate that there is some talent in the group... somewhere.
John Astin - Edgar Allen Poe
Arts Theatre
1:00pm, Wed 8 Mar 2000
Score: 7
Short Review: Disappointing
John Astin, bearing more than an uncanny resemblance to the real Edgar Allen Poe, presents one of the longer shows at this year's fringe. Clocking in at 1:45 - an impressive effort, given that it's a monologue - it runs out of stem about 20 minutes before its conclusion.
This is a bit of a shame, really - the first act (about 50 minutes worth ) is really quite good. Astin opens the show by letting Poe read his own obituary - a most amusing moment, with Astin wonderfully comic. The play then lays Poe's demons out before the audience, closing the first act on a particularly down note.
The second act was... flat. Astin noticeably stumbled on several lines, and his reading of "The Raven" left much to be desired... where was the inherent, brooding terror? However, most other excerpts from Poe's writings were cleverly moulded into the script (which was, on the whole, quite good).
After all the hype surrounding this play, I was expecting quite a bit from it - but it wasn't quite there. With the exception of the aforementioned faults, Astin was quite good; it's just that the script needed a tiny bit of trimming. Worth seeing for Astin's alter ego; just not quite the blockbuster we've been led to believe it would be.