FRIGID Festival 2022 (Part 3)
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. 100 % of all ticket sales go to the artists. There is a tip jar after each show for the festival.
The Last to Know
This is a story about “love and betrayal”. A marriage containing years and years of deceit. The title of Jean Ann Le Bec’s The Last to Know indicates precisely what travails her story will cover. This territory has been covered before in many variations. There are insights which delve into some real depth but more time is spent recounting a chronology of wife-been-wronged events.
Ms. Le Bec was a single mom working at an elementary school. Julian was the handsome coworker whose classroom was across the hall. She was attracted to “his joy, his energy”. The courtship is the stuff of romance novels. They both have dreams about each other the same night. “Maybe it was the same dream”.
At that moment, Julian is living with Pam “like roommates”. He writes florid love letters constantly using phrases like “we will ride moons everyday”. The marriage happens in 1977. A new family emerges and also another child. What follows standard issue courtship is standard issue adultery. The betrayal seems to be seen and unseen.
The descriptions of the events which occurred over a forty year span are told. How Ms. Le Bec missed the warning signs or ignored them is a thought which will run through your head as you experience this show. This is therapy as theater. The tone is sometimes light and jokey: “we had matching purple suitcases”. Seriousness and real hurt does come through as well though.
Late in the performance a spark ignites when a childhood family dinner story is told. A connection to why this woman may have turned a blind eye to the obvious philandering is partially revealed. This far too short section comes across as supremely important, cathartic analysis. That level of depth raises a very oft told story to something which hints at a more unique tale with a fascinating perspective.
The confrontation scene with Julian’s true soulmate does provide some squirmy laughs. Ms. Le Bec aims at her ex-husband’s lady with a barbed arrow: “I bet you think you have the magic pussy”. The ending wraps up her mental state with a lobster story. If the significance of this crustacean came up earlier in the show, there could be a thematic connection that would enhance this memoir.
A Play for Voices
When a show boldly experiments with theater in total darkness the words and sounds mean everything. Clocking in at under thirty minutes, A Play for Voices is likely far too esoteric for most audiences.
One of the first things we hear is that the voice’s grandfather did not like the word “just” used as an adverb. That is followed by “in the dark a match is struck”. A candle flame blooms and “it’s like a dancer the way it moves”. Then a musing about pas de deux considers whether that would be a good name for a cat walking business.
The show bounces around considerably from using special voices for doing magic to ghost lights in a theater. There is silence and a new voice emerges. The voices try to communicate but the new one says “they just told me to read stage directions, I don’t think I’m supposed to talk to you”. To call this meta is an understatement.
There is a reference to hand sanitizer which places this dark hallucination somewhere in the future. This experimental piece concludes with “language is gibberish until we give it meaning”. Exactly. So is that what A Play for Voices was shooting for in the dark? I’m not sure I’m supposed to know.
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.