AUDITIONS

 

St. Louis theater veteran Joe Hanrahan is a Fringe regular. This year, he presented three short comedies called Auditions!, about the humiliations, absurdities and indignities of casting a show. The burdens apply equally to the actors and producers. I think this was the funniest: a Martian performer with an unpronounceable name shows up expecting a part. Theater is a big deal on Mars. Everyone goes all the time. Casting is not an issue. The right person is always in the right place. It’s pretty hard for the human directors to grok.   

Lots of new stuff to shoot this weekend. We’re into Paint Louis, when top graffiti artists from all over re-decorate a miles-long stretch of the Mississippi River flood wall. And Labor Day weekend brings the Japanese Festival at the Missouri Botanical Gardens, always a great photo op.                

TINY QUARTERMAN VARIETY HOUR

 

St. Lou Fringe president and artistic director Matthew Kerns has plenty of acting chops of his own. A puppet he had made by a New York master puppeteer arrived just before the festival, leading to a late schedule addition, the Tiny Quarterman Variety Hour. Tiny (and I don’t know where the name comes from) appears to be from another dimension, visiting us from time to time, looking for, um, companionship. Matt proved to be quite the puppet performer. The show was rude, lewd, funny and as gay as the first day of May.               

CAM BURNS’ NOCTIPHANY

 

Yet another Fringe performance. Cam Burns is  a young musician from Kansas City. The title of the show is one of his songs. He plays keyboards with speed and agility, writes songs and sings. Burns falls in the tradition of so many piano player singer-songwriters. In the second picture, his brother accompanies him on guitar.

My spine surgery yesterday went very well. I can stand straighter but still a little woozy from anesthesia. General anesthesia is a strange thing. I was, and then I was not, and then I was. There was no sensation of slipping away or gradually coming back; more like an on-off switch. There is no pain around the tiny incision. Lots of thanks to my wonderful neurosurgeon, Dr, John Ogunlade, and the fabulous team at the Washington University Medical Center - Barnes-Jewish Hospital.                

INFJ

The Fringe is known for out-there, experimental work. However, a dance performance based on the pseudoscientific Myers-Briggs personality test, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indicator, pushed the envelope. It was once very popular in American business; some of my old colleagues gave it to all new employees. It is a self-assessment instrument,  leading to one of 16 classifications, marked by four letters.

Modern Marvels Dance Company produced a beautiful work called INFJ, one of the 16 categories. A web page on the subject describes it as is a personality type with the Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling and Judging  traits. They tend to approach life with deep thoughtfulness and imagination. Their inner vision, personal values, and a quiet, principled version of humanism guide them in all things. I don’t know much about dance (and am incapable of doing it) but, although it was lovely, I had a hard time getting the connection.

URINETOWN

 

I’m falling way behind here. Too much going on and far too many pictures to edit. My path through The Fringe is now up to the provocatively-named Urinetown, which ran on Broadway for a number of years. It is a complex story but, in essence: it is set in a future time when there has been a profound drought. There is far from enough water for sanitary systems, leading to the “stinky times.” A crass capitalist manages government-sanctioned toilets which require a steep fee, much to everyone’s, um, discomfort. The workers and people revolt, depose the magnate and restore bladder equity. However, at the end, a return to the stinky times threaten. There is a detailed summary at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urinetown .

The most remarkable thing is that it is performed by immensely talented high school students through Ignite Theatre Company, https://ignitewithus.org/ . We have seen their work at The Fringe before and it is extraordinary.

I may be offline for a while later this week. Spine surgery on Wednesday, which is not as big a deal as it sounds. New, minimally-invasive laparoscopic procedure, small incision, clean out a couple of nerve roots, two hours’ work, home the same day. Still, I may be spacey for a bit.

AMNESIAC

Sky Shriver is a young local woman finding her way in the world. She loves dance, having evolved from free-form modern dance to classical ballet. Largely self-taught, Amnesiac was a series of gestures en pointe to the music of Philip Glass (who I adore). It was beautiful but it ain’t Swan Lake.                  

NIGHT JUST BEFORE THE FOREST

 

Lazaros Theodorakopoulos is a young Greek man living in New York. He is touring with a most unusual play, a nearly hour-long rapid fire monologue. It’s called Night Just Before The Forest, written by Bernard-Marie Koltes. He is said to be a successor to Samuel Beckett, Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet. The unnamed character is homeless, unemployed and very alone. He may also be mentally disturbed, His thoughts race through his present and into the future. Stimulating stuff.     

PROFESSOR LONGHAIR’S MAGIC SHOW

 

Working my way through my favorite shows at the Fringe. The man who performs as Professor Longhair (accurate, but hard  to see under the hat) is a professional mental health counsellor. He uses magic tricks as entertainment, of course, but also as a form of therapy. Unlike most magicians, he shows how many of the tricks are done. The purpose is to challenge people’s perceptions, to illustrate that what you think may not be at all accurate. Sounds like a good technique.     

By the way, I stayed up to watch President Biden’s speech at the Democratic National Convention. It made me feel so good. We 🩷 Joe.         

BROKEN BONE BATHTUB

 

This may have been the most unusual show I’ve ever seen, and one of the best. Siobhán O’Loughlin was a young woman riding her bicycle on a rainy night. She collided with another cyclist and seriously broke her left hand. She lived alone and had only a shower in her apartment. She couldn’t shower one-handed and feared getting the cast wet. She started asking a series of friends if she could use their bathtubs to bathe.

This was the origin of her show Broken Bone Bathtub. It is literally performed in a bathtub, naked and strategically covered with bubbles. She engages with the small audience, exploring loneliness, vulnerability, fear, embarrassment, and emotional recovery. O’Laughlin asks the audience to help with uncomfortable activities she can’t do herself like washing her back, putting conditioner in her hair and applying lotion to her good limb. The show ends with a kind of emotional catharsis.

O’Laughlin has performed the show all over the world. Check out https://www.siobhanoloughlin.com/ .           

GOOEY BUTTER CAKES

I

 

Lots of places have favorite local foods, and St. Louis in no exception. It’s just that ours are a little…strange. Toasted ravioli, or T Rav -  small, meat-filled ravioli, deep fried, dusted with grated parmesan and served with marinara as a dipping sauce. Cracker-thin crust pizza, cut into squares. An unusual cheese blend we call provel, a blend of provolone, swiss and white cheddar, extruded into little worm-like pieces, used on pizza and with some pastas. And then there is the diabetes bomb called gooey butter cake, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooey_butter_cake. 

One of the Fringe acts was an old guy’s rock and roll band called the Gooey Butter Cakes. It was like, return with us to those thrilling days of yesterday. Honk if you get the reference.

Sorry no post yesterday. Out too late shooting, up too early to shoot more.

800 YEARS YOUNG

 

An 800 year old bard must perform ten tasks on his birthday to live another year. He tricks the audience, brings members to the stage for stunts, takes questions, sings sad and happy songs and does amazing beatbox. Fun for all.

Lots more to shoot today, tomorrow and Sunday.             

MOLLY IVINS - RED HOT PATRIOT

 

One of my favorite shows so far. Rhonda Brown portrays Molly Ivins, who Americans may know for her acerbic wit, fearless journalism and relentless skewering of politicians, particularly Republicans. She was an unashamed liberal in increasingly right-wing Texas, but worked for many news organizations. One of her funniest bits was about her obituary for Elvis Presley and covering his funeral in Memphis, falling in with a convivial biker convention, that got her fired from the New York Times. It’s worth looking at her biography, particularly the quotations from her work. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molly_Ivins                

ANGELS IN ST. LOUIS

 

Now we begin to get into the heart of the St. Lou Fringe. Newsam Aerial Dance, https://www.newsamaerialdance.com/, performed for the third year in a row. These women are mesmerizing. The program consisted of four dream-like sequences, with members of the group finding new ways to float and glide. Locals, don’t miss this. There are two more performances on Friday and Sunday.               

LABOR AND MANAGEMENT

 

Another scene from Big Machine, which was wonderfully produced. Rosie, one of the leaders of the workers, confronts the plant manager, named - very oddly, sorry - Methuselah. He is a sympathetic character, too, stuck in a corporate assignment away from his family, another cog in the machine.

The real work starts tonight as the main part of The Fringe schedule begins. I’ll probably shoot at least 20 shows in the next six days. Then I have to edit all of it.            

THOMAS MIDGLEY, JR.

The central character of Big Machine is Thomas Midgley, Jr. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Midgley_Jr. (The show doesn’t really have a protagonist.) Midgley was a mechanical and chemical engineer working for General Motors. He is famous - or infamous - for developing the lead compound used as an anti-knock agent in gasoline, leading to horrible consequences from lead poisoning and air pollution. His later claim to fame was introducing freon as a refrigerant, with similar awful environmental consequences. His Wikipedia biography states that:

Midgley's legacy is tied in with the negative environmental impact of leaded gasoline and freon. Environmental historian J. R. McNeill opined that Midgley "had more adverse impact on the atmosphere than any other single organism in Earth's history", and Bill Bryson remarked that Midgley possessed "an instinct for the regrettable that was almost uncanny". Fred Pearce, writing for New Scientist, described Midgley as a "one-man environmental disaster".   

In this scene, Midgely dodges a reporter’s questions about what he hath wrought.      

      

ROSIE

 

I hope I got this straight. One of the nice things about being the Fringe’s photographer is that is that I get to see so many and such a variety of theatrical productions. A downside is that I often pay more attention to gathering images than to the performance itself. If I’m correct, Lili Sheley plays Rosie, the precocious daughter of one of the factory workers. Her mother has died from cancer and her father struggles to support them. She is so smart that she has made a working model of a Model T (I think) engine, without much positive reinforcement. She goes on to play a sad part later in the story.             

THE FRINGE IS BACK

The St. Lou Fringe Festival is beginning its 13th run. Almost 40 shows will run over six days next week. The festival is open to all and uncensored. Many of the shows are chosen by lottery.

Things got going with a new, full-length musical, Big Machine by Fly North Theatricals. The complex story centers on the development of lead additives to gasoline (really) with its poisonous consequences, workers’ rights, capitalism and communism, loneliness, romance and a precocious child. The show will be repeated several times over coming days.                

THE BLUES

The St. Louis Blues Festival takes place tonight and tomorrow. I hope to go by and get some images of the musicians. This is from a few years ago, someone playing a blues harp, a harmonica put to special use. I’m shooting the first show of the St. Louis Fringe Festival tonight.           

STL DPB CAN’T GET OFF THE FARM

 

Because, well, I’m scrounging for material. However, how would you like to end most of your days looking at this? It might be hard to see at this resolution, but I like the row of telephone poles vanishing toward the horizon.

Lots of stuff coming up. There is a free blues festival at the Arch this weekend, and the St. Louis Fringe Festival (I’m the photographer) is about to start.                

STL DPB ON THE FARM - DUSTY ROADS

 

These often-graded gravel thoroughfares in rural Kansas are called county roads. That’s who maintains them and keeps them (mostly) free of washboard ridges. This one runs precisely east-west in front of the family farm. You can see the dust kicked up by an approaching vehicle. Not hard to drive on it this weather, but I have scary memories of an ice storm on Thanksgiving weekend.                

MADELEINE MONDAY ON TUESDAY - BIG RIG

 

It’s just bloody hot here today, 100 F / 38 C, and we just got home from Kansas City. Too much to get back out on the street yet, although tomorrow should be much cooler. So for now, we’re still on the family farm. Ellie was fascinated by the farm animals and equipment, a long way from her city kid experience. My brother-in-law, Mel, took her out in the tractor and let her steer on the way back. Big time fun.                

STL DPB ON THE FARM, PART 3 - GNASHING OF TEETH

 

A mechanical monster in the fields, something that might chase you in your dreams. I didn’t ask my brother-in-law, but my guess is that it strips the corn cobs off the stalks, and there is a lot of that kind of work to be done in the vicinity.                

STL DPB ON THE FARM, PART 2

 

Lots of gently managed nature for a city boy. I could make a bad art joke and refer to this as a color field painting.              

STL DPB ON THE FARM

 

My wife grew up on this farm in Marshall County, Kansas. I grew up in an apartment in New York. The combination has worked for more than 50 years. This is beautiful country, rolling, not flat as some would imagine. Her family is a delight. The crop in the middle distance is corn, at least 2.5 m high with adequate rain this year.                    

STL DPB IN KANSAS CITY - NOT NATIVE TO THESE WATERS

 

When we pass through Kansas City with Ellie. a stop at the aquarium and the adjacent Legoland is required. The kid gets very engaged, ooh-ing and ah-ing over lots of the exhibits. This lionfish (I think) gets plenty of attention.

Out to the Kansas prairie tomorrow. Big change of scene. A different part of America.