Audience Reviews of at SF Fringe Festival 2002


		SAN FRANCISCO FRINGE FESTIVAL AUDIENCE REVIEWS
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CLICK HERE FOR A RECENT REVIEWS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER CLICK ON PLAY FOR AUDIENCE REVIEWS FOR THAT PLAY <52 American Appetite: Tales of Dirty Young Boys & Spry Old Men, The An Evening At Home Anablep and Other Oddities Back to Kroenig Beckett's Last Dance Beneath Sita's Belly Black Box Confessions Blue Sofa Candistan Caught Sleeping Cleopatra!-And Antony ClockBusters Death Blow - The Show Devouring Time Engineer and The Artist, The Enronicles Exit Laughing! F--king Handicapped Guy Fred Anderson -Professional Goofball! Full Spectrum Improvisation George Bush's Nuts Getting It Wrong Guano dell' Amore - ("Birdshit of Love") Gulag Ha Ha Interactive Solo Performer Daniel Packard Ken and Andy Show, The Lillie, A Musical Looking, Then Pointing Mad Adventures of Chaos For Hire, The Me Laugh You Long Time Menopause and Desire: Or Why Must I Be Middle Aged and In Love? Microclimates: A Crime Against Gravity or The Burrito From Sausalito My Son, the Mummy: Episode Pi nEO-sURREALIST sYSTEMS pRESENTS: HOE- DOWN!!!!! Objects In Mirror (May Be Closer Than They Appear) OUTTAKES: Monologues, Stories, and Social Commentary Rise And Fall of The US/them Empire, The Smashing Icons Something You Might Want Song in Your Blood, The Spray Stranger In Woodstock Surfing Toasters Survival of the Fit Enough/ Fern Talking To Myself Tangled Uncle Jacques' Symphony Underground Movement Theatre Upper Canada Cougar Movement, The Valentine's Play Time Way Light Strikes Filled Mason Jars, The Winterkill Woods For The Trees Zucchini: The Forbidden Dance!		Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: aaron j. schmookler Reviewer Email: schmookler@earthlink.net Rating: None Last week, my friend suggested that I accompany her to see WOODS FOR THE TREES, and I am ever so glad that she did. I enjoyed the show immensely. I appreciated the compelling physicality, in elegantly composed phrases. I thought the multimedia use was unusually well integrated. I generally find it to be distracting -- in this case, not so. I personally am a big fan of adaptation of familiar stories, so the allusions to Hansel and Grettle were exciting to me in and of themselves, but I further felt the use of that story was very well done. Most impressive to me was the show's economy. In my own work, a place where I have trouble is in trusting the audience to connect the dots. And you've got to let them. If you fill in everything, then the audience gets bored by not having any work to do. I think Sara and Ed did a fantastic job of conveying a whole lot, while saying little... trusting the audience to flesh it out. Lately, I've seen a lot of art that I feel leaves too much room, leaving the audience confused, and not knowing where to put their own flesh... Woods for the Trees struck a good and difficult to find balance. Play: Wood for the Trees Reviewer: Thomas Goetz Reviewer Email: brainismostlyfat@yahoo.com Rating: 5 Stars a gem in the varied world of modern theatre...i'd love to get lost again. and again. and again. it's quite simple. so we think ! lay: woods for the trees Reviewer: denise dee Reviewer Email: hiareth@hotmail.com Rating: 3 Stars i went in expecting to love this as i was a huge fan of "Midair" Sara's 2001 fringe piece , but alas i came out feeling empty, and i don't think in the way they intended. I wanted to see more vulnerabilty on stage esp. considering the theme/premise, but they never did seem lost. some very beautiful moments, like the masking tape, the foraging scenes, sara's singing, the running dancing, but it seemed too self-conscious, or self-aware, or whatever that phrase is. i guess that is the problem when someone does a brillant piece of work, you have raised expectations. everyone around me seemed to be loving 'woods' so maybe it was just me. Play: Woods For The Trees Reviewer: Noah Kelly Reviewer Email: ripetreats@hotmail.com Rating: 4 Stars Bizarre & Fringey. This tight duo sets a dark, tense and farcical mood using plenty of carbohydrates, dreamy video footage, masking tape, & action figures. Sara's lecture was pretty damn funny. And weird. Play: woods for the trees Reviewer: Dr. Wilhelm Grimm Reviewer Email: wilhelm.grimm@rapunzel.net Rating: None Wunderbar! Play: Babes in the Wood Reviewer: Marie Reviewer Email: tynkerbella_1@yahoo.com Rating: 5 Stars A very thought provoking and depthful interpretation of the essence of human life......daddy always leaves us, where the hell are we anyway and the constant action of shooting ourselves in the foot. The dream sequence was just superb, loved the touch of the red slippers! Also the masking tape placing scene was very cleverly done. Sara and Ed work extremely well together, and no doubt will entertain us with many more insightful works........certainly hope to see their work in the Best of...... Play: Woods For the Trees Reviewer: deborah wade Reviewer Email: corwingroup@yahoo.com Rating: 4 Stars What an original premise! There are many moments that shine a light on our own childhood experiences of neglect and loss. These moments are carefully woven with wonderful and hilarious video highlights that add a great pacing to the show. Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: Toby Reviewer Email: toby@intelligentvapor.com Rating: 4 Stars What can I say but very, very good right from the beginning. The first video segment was my favorite, everything perfect! Although from a technical standpoint it would have been better to mike (sic)the video pieces with an over head or lavaliere so as not to get the unpleasant room sounds which make it seem just a shade less professional and harder to hear. She did an excellent job bringing forth and committing to each character she did. Very impressive! Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: mikl-em Reviewer Email: miklff@miklem.com Rating: 5 Stars I enjoyed this show immensely. So many Fringe shows are either solo performances or sketch comedy ensembles, that it's a nice change to find the dynamic of a two person show well explored. Anyone whoever saw "Fatty and Pinhead", a few Fringe years ago, could tell you that. The duo situation passes or fails on the quality (and honesty?) of interaction between the actors throughout the show (the studio system used to call this "chemistry"), even if they are playing different characters. Not different characters here, but faces of the same, or variations around a theme. The theme is Hansel & Gretel... and identity... and orientation, and--are you lost? Q: where are we? A: HERE! (you're already ahead of the game.) Fast-paced, frenetic, schizophrenic, funny, dis-orientat-ing. It can be fun to be lost. And the chemistry, if you wondered, is superb. Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: Karina Reviewer Email: kjsliwin@uclink4.berkeley.edu Rating: 4 Stars I try to see as many takes on fairy tales as possible and this is among the best pieces involving Hansel and Gretel. Great concept--man as lost in the world as two children. Excellent acting, movement, and writing. Would love to know what was up with the slide show at the end...did they get out to tell their story...and where did they end up if not here? Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: Robin Reviewer Email: sfrobink@AOL.com Rating: 4 Stars Very creative and thought-provoking. Fun for the audience, too. Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: Vince Vitale Reviewer Email: WorldGazer@aol.com Rating: 5 Stars Using Hansel and Gretel as points of reference, atmospheric artisans Sara Kraft and Ed Purver investigate feelings of being lost, misplaced, abandoned. A paternal reassurance becomes frightening when the two realize it is recorded. They remind us that when we feel lost, we can feel assured we are . . . here. Using a mixed-media formula of dance movement, a'capella song, projected images and candy, the two treat us to that luscious sense that being lost is the beginning of finding ourselves. Kraft and Purver are very good at what they do. Play: woods for trees Reviewer: jon jon jon jon won't give away surprises Reviewer Email: Rating: 5 Stars "woods for trees" is more than a re-rendering of an old tale. it is the telling of the telling of the tale which cannot be done. it is an exploration of the impossibility of returning to the place of departure and thus speaks of our incapacity of narrating anything; to attempt this speech is to enlist oneself on an infinite spiral where each essai can bring us towards the original but then spins us out of its reach, forever farther away with each revolution. but "woods for trees" doesn't emplode in a burst of narcissistic anti-matter-like revealing but instead glows and breaths with the engaging and surprising performances and stagings that sara craft and ed purver provide along with perhaps the only really organic use i've seen of video at the festival so far (my criticism is that the technician had a bunn, oh no child, not with the rake in that place, put that thing in a pony tail). the important thing is that thay have nto been deflated by the inherent contradiction of thei! r task, namely that we must tell what cannot be told. but this is the attempt, and that is how we endure. thanks for this piece sara and ed, it really stands out. Play: Woods for the Trees Reviewer: Jon Reviewer Email: Rating: 5 Stars A multi-media retelling of Hansel and Gretel that is both funny and moving. Both actors are extremely talented - during the show, they sing, act and move. They never lost my attention for a moment. Some bits are a little odd, however. I didn't really go for the self-referential comedy, or for some of the weirder bits, but there was a very enjoyable video projection of a giant bear chasing the girl dream sequence. Rates in the top two of the 6 shows I've seen so far.
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