FRIGID Fringe Festival 2023 (Part 2)
The 17th Annual FRIGID Fringe Festival is underway in New York City. This three week event is an open and uncensored downtown theater festival that gives artists an opportunity to let their ingenuity thrive in a venue that values freedom of expression and artistic determination. Many of this year’s performances are livestreamed so there are ample opportunities to see some Indie theater works and support the artists who develop and perform them.
I AM MY OWN MILF
“How’s it going Upper East Side?” asks our middle aged hostess diva. The ladies are getting together for lunch which will hilariously feature yuzu chiffon birthday cake. I AM MY OWN MILF is at its enjoyably zaniest and most clever in the details and asides.
Sending up the rich and privileged is certainly nothing new especially in the campy world of drag. Matthew Antoci’s version is supremely confident giving out a “shout out to everyone with social anxiety; I kinda feel sorry for you”. This show is described as a “mixed-media drag+dance spectaculare” and also “part TV segment, part nature blog”. Let’s settle on manic variety show where the guardrails are down, the brakes are faulty and speeding is the only option.
They have privilege take down as the main course in this uneven buffet. “What does it feel like to be an elitist New York piece of shit?” From that our diva will discover that she’s broke. “No more gems, jets, sillouettes”. Listen carefully and you will often be rewarded with delicious amuse-bouches. The struggle is definitely real: “none of my friends will see me, not even Susan Sarandon”.
There is some linking to the Shakespeare play Timon of Athens with its feasts followed by poverty. Here, critically, important questions are asked such as “what do poor people wear?” Swipes at JK Rowling, Lynn Nottage, Kim Kardashian and the Roundabout Theatre Company’s Board of Directors pepper the rants. Truthful confessions emerge. “What a lot of people don’t know is how draining Athens is”.
Sidekicks Lizz Mangan and Meaghan Robichaud jump in as backup dancers and inhabit various roles including the 70 Minutes interviewer Debra Messing. The show has energy to spare with some really funny lines sharing the stage with some clunkers. You cannot say, however, the I AM MY OWN MILF failed to go big.
A song choice at the end included the lyrics “I’ve stayed too long at the fair/ I couldn’t find anybody who cared”. That summed up this experience. It’s impossible not to find fun things at the fair even if there are more scintillating versions in existence.
Emil Amok: Lost NPR Host Found Under St. Mark’s, and other stories
The title gives a preview of the expansive journey to be found in this storytelling memoir monologue. Emil Amok: Lost NPR Host Found Under St. Mark’s, and other stories is one man’s tale growing up as a Filipino American. Emil Guillermo admittedly has a chip on his shoulder. That energy adds a fascinating storm cloud hovering over his personal experience of racism.
Mr. Guillermo is a second generation American. His father arrived here in 1928 and became a citizen although “some think I should have had my head examined for that”. Son Emil seems to be achieving the proverbial American dream including attending Harvard and becoming the first Asian American male to be a national news host on NPR.
The crux of his anger is being treated like a first generation foreigner. He comments that “white voice privilege” is not the same as white privilege. Emil is in the one percent but the wrong one. His tribe is part of a very small racial minority in the United States.
There are some jokes sprinkled throughout. “Black Hair Matters” is one example which came across to me as a little flat and off-putting rather than funny. His school friends debating whether he was “Winnie the Pooh color” or “Golden Bear brown” was a vivid memory. The storytelling eventually devolves into a discussion of “that’s a gay job” followed by an overlong diatribe about his colonoscopy. (Spoiler alert: the prep is the worst!)
The bitterness generated from Mr. Guillermo’s life experience is the heart and soul of Emil Amok. At the end of the show Emil informs that he’s “gonna get out of the past and into the present”. Whether this show accomplishes that is debatable. There is no doubt, however, that he sharply feels the anguish of being part of a small minority in a land of majority rule.
Performances at the Frigid Fringe Festival are running through March 5, 2023. Two dozen shows are performed multiple times at either the Kraine Theater or UNDER St Mark’s. Tickets can also be purchased for many shows via livestreaming as well.