FRIGID Festival 2022 (Part 1)

The 16th Annual FRIGID Festival is underway 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.

Blockbuster Guy

For those of a certain age, the tag line “Be Kind Rewind” will bring back memories of renting movies in an era of no internet, streaming and a lot less cable television.

The show is cute, corny, nerdy fun.  Mr. Levy loves all genres of movies but eschews IMAX theaters:  “the size gives me anxiety”.  During college, he worked at Blockbuster Video in a small town in Florida.  He fondly recalls the smell of “clean plastic goodness”.  The town is so small that people recognize him at WalMart and shout, “Hey Blockbuster Guy!”

Discussions of specific movies are most welcome.  His parents raised him on The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  His first horror movie was Scream which he recounts seeing alone.  A kiss came about as a result of viewing Pixar’s Cars.  Many tangents allow for related and unrelated storytelling including a rant about How I Met Your Mother.  The live audience seemed to eat this up like a large bucket of buttery popcorn.

Mr. Levy has had the good fortune to have parents who advised him to “do things that make you happy”.  This pursuit of happiness is the real crux of this play.  A love of movies shared with loved ones and now expressed to the world.  You want to yell out all your favorites to get a reaction and likely funny commentary.

The Pest starring John Leguizamo is not a film I know.  After being skewered here, it feels like a great bad movie night option.  He mentioned a documentary you can watch on Netflix called The Last Blockbuster which sounds like essential viewing.  I could have listened to more stories about more movies which makes him and this show a winner.

Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me, But Banjos Save My Life

“What’s the difference between a New York style pizza and a banjo player”?  Keith Alessi follows with a punchline.  “A New York style pizza can feed a family of four”.  As in Blockbuster Guy, the storyteller interlinks family into their autobiographical piece.  In Tomatoes Tried to Kill Me, But Banjos Saved My Life, however, the Italian family home is described as a “house of horrors”.

This memoir narrates how Mr. Alessi came to own 52 banjos in his closet.  The pathway he took through life is interesting and varied from successful accountant to unfulfilled CEO.  Jobs paid for college and he escaped his childhood home with his natural skill of compartmentalization.  “High emotional walls” were the key.  (For those who know me personally, certain parallels are uncanny.)

Later in life he is diagnosed with cancer and the journey for survival takes center stage.  He is a thoughtful individual and shares his feelings freely in a style that is relaxed and easy.  “You get to a point in life” he says, “if you’re gonna get to something you better get to it now”.  The clarity of vision is clear and the result is a banjo playing accountant now performing on a stage.

“Each of us has a choice of what to put in our closets”, Mr. Alessi informs early in the performance.  By the end, you appreciate how the banjo saved his life.  The rendition of the old time tune “Cumberland Gap” is delightful.  A meaningful hour of reminiscence, self-analysis and salvation.

The Story of Falling Don

Daniel Kinch’s first day at work in a brand new job was on 9/11/2001.  The downtown New York office faced the twin towers.  The Story of Falling Don is a play about his unintended front row seat during this “pretty big fucking deal”.

That quote happens as he is exiting the subway and sees a plane hit the first tower.  If Mr. Kinch showed any semblance of energy in the performance delivery, there might be a way to connect to this retelling.  As it is performed, this show is a random assemblage of unconnected thoughts.  The experience is like sitting through a semi-incoherent uncle babbling at a dinner table often losing his place in the process.  More than once he refers to things he told us that he has not.  I confirmed this with a companion viewer.

There is a bitter snarky tone that is not effectively delivered.  Wall Street “suits” are ridiculed but not well.  There’s a peace activist friend who has disabled a nuclear submarine.  That’s not in the actual script but I noted it.  She was also “beaten around in Yugoslavia”.  Huh?  Turns out that was a unscripted riff as well.  Then she comments that American bombs have been going off elsewhere for so long.  There is definitely room for a presentation of alternate perspectives on this topic but in a less disorganized and disinterested way.

There is also quite a bit of promising to tell about something later in the show that gets repetitive.  When Mr. Kinch finally gets to the titular story, he addresses the sad tower jumpers by dropping a Ken doll on his head.  There is a weird meanness in the telling that is off-putting or, to be fair, his sense of humor may just not be for my taste.  Regardless, The Story of Falling Don is too unfocused to be recommended to anyone.

Performances at the Frigid Festival are running through March 5, 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.

www.frigid.nyc