FRIGID Festival 2022 (Part 9)
The 16th Annual FRIGID Festival is in its final week in New York City. The FRIGID Festival is an open and uncensored theater festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination. Since this year’s performances are both live and livestreamed, there are many chances to see some Indie theater works. 100% of all ticket sales go to the artists. There is a tip jar after each show for the festival.
Are You Lovin’ It?
Trippy cartoon or subversive critique? This pedal to the metal freak show swings broadly at its huge targets. Loud, bizarre, idiotic and colorful are just some of the many adjectives that describe Are You Lovin’ It? The well known commercial tag line for McDonald’s asks the titular question. Theatre Group GUMBO offers an answer in this eye popping spectacle of oddness and invention.
Red and orange are the appropriate colors. “Welcome to WacDonald’s” begins this performance. Sarcasm is flung immediately. “Super healthy!” WacDonald’s is “no fear, no anxiety, no borders”. The two clownish dancers twirl up a frothy shake of corporate plastic smiles and moron speech.
A Japanese businessman then arrives in a suit and tie. He is laughing excessively and aggressively. He’s so excited because this is “my first vacation ever”. We learn that he lost his family. That’s ok since “I’m a Japanese businessman”. His phone rings. It’s the boss. A hilarious tribute to Yes Men everywhere is punctuated with frantic bowing and “I’m sorry”.
The skewering of Japanese and American cultures continues. The businessman’s intestines come out of his body and become props for the clowns to play with. A lady with a baby stroller appears wearing an outfit with pink ruffles. “Something stinks,” she exclaims. “Let’s find out where this smell is coming from” precedes a poo poo dance.
There is more than a subtle connection to the heinous quality of food offered by WacDonald’s. The Japanese business man picks up the baby to help stop it from crying. “She bites my nipple” so maybe she is hungry. In dances our two clowns and the “Super Happy Meal”. We learn that “there is no one who doesn’t like this food”.
“Pink slime patty” aside, the show thrashes incomprehensibly through Donald Trump, cleansing American dirty blood, a rap and glow in the dark light rod dances. A sign is held for an audience member who is a “Romeo type”. “America, America, where art thou?”
From this point, things proceed to escalate into even wilder weirdness and overt condemnation of greed, power and white supremacy. The looniness of the piece keeps the insane edge happily baring its giddy teeth through the baby thrown out with the bathwater. Well, not exactly. The WacDonald’s way is more disturbing and jaw dropping.
Are You Lovin’ It? is unique and hilarious but also smart and self-aware. The show is crazy just like the world it wishes to eviscerate. This production will not be for everyone’s taste just like the food purveyor it ridicules so mercilessly.
My Grandmother’s Eye Patch
“Thank you all so much for being here tonight to celebrate” Grandma Mamie. Julia VanderVeen’s eulogy is titled My Grandmother’s Eye Patch. This eccentric comedy is a hot mess. You might cover your eyes too but you’ll agree with the author at the end when she declares “this is so stupid”.
Grandma’s sense of humor inspires this maniacal cavalcade of lunacy. A waiter is asked “how do you prepare the chicken?” The answer is “nothing special, we just tell them they’re going to die”. Macbeth is then referenced to bring one of this show’s main themes of nihilism to center stage. “It is a tale told by an idiot full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”.
A reasonable interpretation of the idiot in question is the granddaughter herself. Magic tricks are next along with some audience banter. She boasts if you give her a word, she’ll write a poem about it. Someone offers “subterfuge” which was very funny but passed on. Using “southern inspired poetry” while wearing a baseball cap and holding a metal bowl spittoon, fear was the word chosen.
Another section instructs “how to bring someone back from the dead in five easy steps”. Ms. VanderVeen conjures up a successful seance. “Let’s go back to when I was young, bitch”. By the time this show gets to synovial fluid most of you will join me and confidently pronounce this eulogist off her proverbial rocker.
There is a briefly serious turn toward the end of this piece which helps explain the point of this journey. A mishap during the singing of “Wind Beneath My Wings” pulls the narrative back into unhinged territory. The show may be designed as an intentional pig’s breakfast. A cool image projected at the end suggests that this show was a heartfelt tribute to an importantly personal relationship.
Performances at the Frigid Festival are running through March 6, 2022. All shows are performed multiple times at either the Kraine Theater or Under St Mark’s. Tickets can also be purchased for the livestream which was effective and provides these artists more opportunities to be seen and supported.