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Artvoice Weekly Edition » Issue v6n31 (08/02/2007) » Buffalo Infringement Festival 2007

One Week In, One Weekend Left

Subversive Theatre's "The Exception and the Rule"

I think the Infringement Festival is fantastic—including and sometimes because of the bumps and jolts it endures as dozens and dozens of events miraculously go up and perform to laid-back and appreciative audiences.

Highlights of the Infringement Festival for me so far include pieces written by local writers, and some stellar performances. The assembled audience at the Nina Freudenheim Gallery on Monday night had one major question after a strong reading of Matthew LaChiusa’s engaging new play, Axeman’s Jazz: “Who is she?” The “she” in question was Janel Bridges, a statuesque and charismatic actress who, we are told, just “showed up” at auditions. Such events are among the joys of the Infringement Festival. None of us had seen Miss Bridges before, and she is, in terms of acting, the most happy discovery of the festival, for me, so far.

Bridges plays a hoodoo medicine practitioner in 1919 New Orleans who finds herself in the middle of the search for a serial ax murderer. She performs the role with perfect clarity and great presence, helping build momentum for the piece as the drama unfolds.

Based on actual historical events, LaChiusa’s play, presented by Morphine Heart Productions, uses the unsolved murders to weave a tale that explores the meanings of our lives and our relationships to others as we go through an inevitable cycle that includes (but does not end with) death. The subject and setting are wonderfully compelling and the writing is impressively strong.

The doctor is the playwright’s most fully developed and forceful character. Thomas LaChiusa plays a detective, convinced that the doctor’s shop is his best avenue to solving the crime. His character turns out to have sustained losses of his own, and the actor gives a strong performance. The unlikely relationship between these two characters provides the anchor for the entire play.

Arianna Boykins, Hugh Davis and Giantone Moore give committed and believable performances as the doctor’s coughing assistant, the smooth-talking killer and a compulsive gambler.

The play clicks along economically and seems remarkably well structured for a first draft. The role of the killer will, assuredly, be more fully fleshed out, and the theme of the serial murders more insightfully explored in future incarnations, but even as is, the reading was intriguing and tremendously enjoyable.

Susan Hodge Anner takes the occasion of the Infringement to explore issues of living in Buffalo. Her Letters to the World is a collection of monologues, each exploring a moment in the life of a woman here, sometimes from the woman’s own perspective, sometimes as observed by a man. These pieces are wide-ranging, beginning with a piece performed by Pam Snyder about a mature woman applying for a job at a career fair, and including a woman, played by Joy Scíme, who receives word that her son has lost his leg in Iraq while she is already consumed by the impact of the October storm. Scíme also has an appealing comic turn as a college professor who believes that she is an intellectual fake in “I.Q. Test #10.”

Anner writes powerfully and has a gift for finding the poetic ironies and the quiet beauty in life’s most ordinary events, as well as in its most dramatic. Dianne Cammarata gives a touching performance as a woman who has lived alone all of her life, except for the love of a series of rescued dogs. Tracy Snyder gives an understated and moving reading of a monologue about a woman contemplating a possible diagnosis of multiple sclerosis. Keith Elkins gives a touching performance as a man who reflects on the adulterous affair with a chronic alcoholic woman who became the love of his life in “Dinner by Flashlight.”

The most interesting monologues are, in some ways, those that are most enigmatic or that fly furthest beyond realism. In “Why Did I Tell Them,” a salesman in a fireplace store imagines that he sees the entire life of a female customer and that she wanted someone to know. In another, Bonnie Jean Taylor plays a young woman naming a large number of identical babies in whose presence she feels inadequate. Kristen Tripp Kelley performed two monologues. In the first she plays a woman who thinks about how the bike path rapist has changed her life. In the other she plays a woman who is reading her own obituary; she is pleased to see herself mentioned in the Buffalo News for the first time in her life, until she realizes that her husband has selected a 40-year-old photograph to run in the paper, and that she looks like a 1960s prom queen! She comes to terms with this as she recalls the occasion on which the picture was taken.

As I write, the festival is still gearing up. The choices are numerous, and an attitude of carefree spontaneity is useful, as the festival has had to take inevitable last-minute cancellations in stride. When I found myself on Allen Street outside a canceled show, I used the occasion to go on quest for a glass of dry sherry, an idea that took me from bar to bar, where I saw numerous friends, all in a state of happy conversation. It was a pleasant night to take in the spirited joie de vivre of Allen Street, well populated during the festivities—people in high spirits having odd beers and martinis in the cool of the evening while discussing the shows they had seen, as well as art and politics in general.

For the record, after striking out at three locations, I struck gold at Allen Street Hardware Café, where they had a chilled bottle of a good quality Tio Pepe; our group saddled up to the bar and completed our “Self-Infringement (pick a performance)” activity, created by Ron Ehmke and Brian Mibrand—wherein we were asked to write 10 secrets in a small booklet, and leave it in a public place, following instructions we had drawn, at random, from a box at Rust Belt Books.

anthony chase

The Official Buffalo Beastmode Screening (a.k.a.) Industry N Da Streetz, Hallwalls, 7-10pm (film/music)

Honestly, three or four days into the Infringement Festival, it seemed perfectly congruous to step onto the front porch and find a troupe of Brechtian characters skipping and dancing down the street and into the park across from my house, banging drums and cowbells. In costumes ranging from Teutonic nightmare drag to colonial khaki and pith helmet, the players in Subversive Theatre’s traveling street production of Bertolt Brecht’s The Exception and the Rule and the crowds that follow the performance as it moves through Allentown have been the most colorfully visible and audible face of the festival this year. Pulled every which way by the schedule of events—Aaron Piepszny’s dance performance at the Nina Freudenheim Gallery on Sunday, for example—I have yet to catch more than five minutes at a time of the production. But I intend to take in the entire play, which begins in Days Park, this weekend (Friday and Saturday at 7:30pm and Sunday at 2pm).

Not that it will be any easier to commit time this weekend: On Friday and Saturday at Gallery 164, Nimbus Dance presents Triple Flicker, an amalgam of sound, film and dance that begins at 8pm; arrive early if you want a seat. The Brazen-Faced Varlets offering, Midsummer Dyke’s Dream, opened Wednesday night at Rust Belt Books and plays three more times—tonight (Thursday, August 2) at Hallwalls at 8:45 pm, plus Saturday (4pm) and Sunday (4:30pm) at Rust Belt.

The mind-twisting rock of Knife Crazy at Nietzsche’s (Friday, 10pm), Shakespeare in the Parking Space (across from Allen Street Hardware, Saturday at 10pm), S. Vestas Flaming Circus in Days Park (every evening at dusk)—the days and evenings fill up quickly, especially as one stumbles across unexpected performances and exhibits, unplanned-for stops for a drink or conversation. Check infringebuffalo.org to stay apprised of schedule changes.

geoff kelly

PS: If you find a little notebook full of confessions on a barstool in Allentown this weekend, please return it to the Artvoice office at 810 Main Street.

Jack Topht performing with Anal Pudding, Z. Mann Zilla, Mr. Ski Mask at Soundlab Saturday at 9pm.

Thursday, August 2

Tomatoes Mime/Land Mimes Everywhere, Hallwalls, 7-7:30pm (dance/mime)

Insidious, Squeaky Wheel, 7-8pm (theater)

Rag Doll, Staples, 7-7:05pm (video)

The Genuflektors, Steel Crazy, 7pm (music)

Pat D. O’Keefe, Steel Crazy, 7pm (music)

Audition Day/Summer Shorts, Staples, 7:30-8:30pm (film)

Right Between the Eyes, Sp@ce 224 courtyard, 7:30-8pm (theater)

Priests Don’t Sing, Rust Belt Books, 7:30-8:30pm (theater)

CSI: Buffalo?, College Street Gallery, 8-8:30pm (theater)

Homage, Hallwalls, 8-8:15pm (film)

Squid Ink: Then, Now, and the Infinite Everywhere, Days Park, 8:30-9pm (fire dance)

Midsummer Dyke’s Dream, Hallwalls, 8:45-10:15pm (theater)

Call It Chocolate Cake, Sp@ce 224, 8:30-9pm (dance/performance art/comedy)

Divas, Squeaky Wheel, 8:30-9pm (theater)

Real/not Real, Rust Belt Books, 9-9:30pm (theater)

La Trinita Dei Priestess, Staples, 9-10pm (music)

Something To Say, Sp@ce 224, 9:30-10pm (poetry reading)

3’s Confusion, Squeaky Wheel, 9:30-10:30pm (freak folk music/video)

Highway to Asgard, Merlin’s, 9:30pm (music)

Friday, August 3

Insidious, Squeaky Wheel, 5-6pm (theater)

Dance Alive, Unitarian Universalist Church of Buffalo, 6-10pm (music/dance)

Right Between the Eyes, Sp@ce 224 courtyard, 6:30-7pm (theater)

The Evolution of Ladybug and Dragonfly, Squeaky Wheel, 6:30-7pm (theater)

For Want of a Hero, Squeaky Wheel, 7:30-8:30pm (theater)

Garden Talk, Sp@ce 224 courtyard, 7:30-8pm (theater)

Concerto, Rust Belt Books, 7:30-8pm (puppetry)

The Exception and the Rule, Days Park, 7:30-8:30pm (street theater)

Me And You From Kalamazoo, College Street Gallery, 8-9pm (improv theater)

Triple Flicker, Gallery 164, 8-10pm (video/music/dance)

Squid Ink: Then, Now, and the Infinite Everywhere, Days Park, 8:30-9pm (fire dance)

Something to Say, Sp@ce 224, 8:30-9pm (poetry reading)

Twenty-Nine Cent Productions Presents: Extreme Exhibition!, Staples, 8:30-9:30pm (comedy/poetry/music)

Those the River Keeps, Squeaky Wheel, 9-11:30pm (theater)

Cat Venom, Rust Belt Books, 9-9:30pm (improv comedy)

Braces Horror Stories, El Museo, 9-9:30pm (performance art)

CSI: Buffalo?, College Street Gallery, 9:30-10pm (theater)

Infringement At Hallwalls with Axis of Evil, Jack Topht with the Vegetables, Tentet Octet Reactionary Ensemble, Hallwalls, 9pm (live music showcase)

Call It Chocolate Cake, Sp@ce 224, 9:30-10pm (dance/performance art/comedy)

Bud Redding’s Shock and Awe, Staples, 10-11pm (music)

Psychedelic Infringement with Qualia, Dali’s Ghost, Fountainhead, Driver’s to Warsaw, Soundlab, 9pm-2am (music)

Sonorous Gale & Associates feat. Pocket Gallows, Severely Departed, Knife Crazy, Nietzsche’s, 10pm (music)

Saturday, August 4

Please, Hold Your aPaws!, Crane Library, 1-2pm (theater)

Theater of Truths, Within Boundaries, Hallwalls, 1-4pm (installation/video/audio art)

Real/not Real, Rust Belt Books, 1-1:30pm (theater)

Architecture’s Sister: Sculptural Anatomy, Rust Belt Books, 2-2:30pm (dance)

Cat Venom, Rust Belt Books, 3-3:30pm (improv comedy)

Midsummer Dyke’s Dream, Rust Belt Books, 4-5:30pm (theater)

Those The River Keeps, Squeaky Wheel, 5-7:30pm (theater)

Priests Don’t Sing, Rust Belt Books, 6-7pm (theater)

Me And You From Kalamazoo, College Street Gallery, 6:30-7:30pm (improv theater)

Summer Light and Shadow: Music, Dance, and Shadow Puppetry, Shakti Yoga Studio, 7-8pm (theater)

Voiceless Expression, Steel Crazy, 7:30-8pm (dance)

New Jersey, Rust Belt Books, 7:30-8pm (theater)

The Exception and the Rule, Days Park, 7:30-8:30pm (street theater)

Big Al, College Street Gallery, 8-9pm (theater)

Triple Flicker, Gallery 164, 8-10pm (video/music/dance)

The Art of Ypsilform Dining, Squeaky Wheel, 8-9:30pm (sex-ed workshop)

Audition Day/Summer Shorts, Staples, 8-9pm (film)

Squid Ink: Then, Now, and the Infinite Everywhere, Days Park, 8:30-9pm (fire dance)

Concerto, Rust Belt Books, 8:30-9:30pm (puppetry)

Ski Mann Zilla and the World’s Largest Bucket of Pudding (feat. Jack Topht, Anal Pudding, Z. Mann Zilla, Mr. Ski Mask), Soundlab, 9pm (music)

Rag Doll, Staples, 9:30-9:35pm (video)

Twenty-Nine Cent Productions Presents: Extreme Exhibition!, Squeaky Wheel, 9:30-10:30pm (comedy/poetry/music)

Wandering (A Turn), College Street Gallery, 9:30-10:30pm (theater)

Shakespeare in the Parking Space, outside Allen Street Hardware Café, 10pm (theater)

Redwater, Staples, 10pm (music)

Mimetic Moments, Squeaky Wheel, 11pm-12am (theater)

Saturday Night Showcase 2 featuring the Habit, Grey Milk, the Motel Matches, Blue Rocket Trio, Merlin’s, 10:30pm (music)

The Tell-Tale Heart: A Soundpainting Opera, College Street Gallery, 11pm-12am (improv text/sound art)

Sunday, August 5

Twenty-Nine Cent Productions Presents: Extreme Exhibition!, Rust Belt Books, noon-1pm (comedy/poetry/music)

Theater of Truths, Within Boundaries, Hallwalls, 1-4pm (installation/video/audio art)

The Tell-Tale Heart: A Soundpainting Opera, College Street Gallery, 11pm-12am (improv text/sound art)

Priests Don’t Sing, Rust Belt Books, 6-7pm (theater)

The Exception and the Rule, Days Park, 2-3pm (theater)

Pope Joan, Nietzsche’s, 2:30-5pm (theater)

CSI: Buffalo?, College Street Gallery, 2:30-3pm (theater)

Concerto, Rust Belt Books, 3-4pm (puppetry)

Walk In In Rythyms, College Street Gallery, 3:30-4pm (dance)

Wandering (A Turn), College Street Gallery, 4:30-5:30pm (theater)

Midsummer Dyke’s Dream, Rust Belt Books, 4:30-6pm (theater)

Rag Doll, Staples, 5-5:05pm (video)

Audition Day/Summer Shorts, Staples, 5:30-6:30pm (film)

Big Al, College Street Gallery, 6-7pm (theater)

Real/not Real, Rust Belt Books, 6:30-7pm (theater)

The Official Buffalo Beastmode Screening (a.k.a.) Industry N Da Streetz, Hallwalls, 7-10pm (film/music)

Summer Light, Shakti Yoga Studio, 7-8pm (theater)

The Master Peace Society, Staples, 7-7:30pm (music)

Closing Night Party, Staples, 7:30pm-?? (party/music)

Squid Ink: Then, Now, and the Infinite Everywhere, Days Park, 8:30-9pm (fire dance)