I didn't do the programming so I feel free to express my delight at all the acts.
Tess Degenstein, gets on stage and immediately throws everyone off with her disarming charm and matter-of-fact comedy style. She tosses out seemingly random comments and then ties them neatly into the acts and the themes of the evening- “So the Internet. Have you heard of it? You should check it out- there aren’t enough people there yet.” “So the Cameron House, It’s got something for everyone, if you like plants, we have plants on the ceiling, if you like textured walls, we’ve got one right here…” Tess added a feeling to the event that made the audience feel like they were about to see something really special, and that they were lucky to have found out about it and to have arrived on the scene. This is a difficult sensibility to achieve – underground, indie, and yet important and big.
Amanda Rose Moscar was our opening act- I get a little nervous, admittedly, when a singer songwriter gets on the stage- what if the songs are long and emo? What if the singer isn’t quite on key? The first note that came from her mouth caused a stillness in the room, and grabbed a rapt attention. I was shocked and awed at the talent oozing from this woman. She sang a life-anthem which is still in my head 2 days later, angry, tough, varied, finger-snappy, and full of unexpected lyrics. A song she wrote for her brother about rain and a broken umbrella, not only does it match the event poster, but she busts through around and against clichés to achieve real humanism- she dodges the overly-emotional-thing that so many artists mistakenly iterate, and captures synesthesiastically captures the atmospheric impression of rain-days and broken art hearts. Friday night she performed a piece: “Bella, Bella, Nice Nice,” I feel that I would like to start every single Theatre.IV.Mimmo event (from now until the end of time) with this song. “I was going through a tough time in my life… sitting in a café, eating baci chocolates (my favourite chocolates) … and there were two elderly Italian women sitting nearby, drinking cappuccino, and after every sip they would hold up their cups and say “bella bella, nice-ah nice-ah.” The song was short, and oh so so very sweet. I could feel Rose begin to bawl halfway across the room, and sure enough when she got on stage she confessed it- I was too aware of the bright lights and my seat at the front to let the tears fall freely, but I was feeling it. Again, what an amazing job Amanda does at capturing the sensory impressions of a moment in time, an atmosphere, a feeling , a taste, and state of being.
Rose Napoli- What can I say, I helped write this play so its hard to comment unbiased-ly. Rose is full-time hilarious; there is something going on with that Nonna – its hard to communicate in a 5 minute piece, but she is a many-layered and complicated woman. I love the way she can rant – she jumps from a complaint about a cockroach to the modern problems of divorce at a speed of 0-50 and Rose delivers it with comedic-timing genius. You go girl-
Megan Marie Gates- So pleased to have Megan read poetry for the first time on our stage- her voice came out strong and confident. There is a deep root here in smarts and hard-thinking about art. Looking forward to seeing more from Megan over the years to come.
Jessica Moss – Cleverly did NOT tell the host precisely what her piece would be. Tess presented “ Jessica Moss- will do something for you.” The surprise of the thing once it began was attention-grabbing to say the least. Jessica revealed (through several different characters and a variety of physically represented media formats) that she was doing a performance piece about creation. The quick switches from one character to the next – was amazing to watch, she can completely transform her face body and voice in an instant. Many of the characters criticized Jessica, demonstrated their own art projects, showed self-awareness through their own lack-of.
It’s a hard piece to explain – you just need to see it – it will enrich your life-experience. Guaranteed. Check out her upcoming show – similar style/format- at Next Stage Festival in January!
Dayle McLeod- She broke my heart with the Jewel cover, and surprised and delighted me with her original song: “I’m beginning to feel, its not just my fault, I can blame it all on the sugar and salt; and love is just chemicals in your brain.” We are all alienated from our own humanism. Here, Dayle shows us this alienation and brings us back around to the very comfort and core of the lyric. Lastly, her cover of Cee Lo Green’s “fuck you” song, translated into the sweetness of her voice and acoustic tones was ridiculously charming and compelling- the audience couldn’t help but join in and sing along- and I found it particularly delightful to hear Rose and Marc in the back corner of the room piping in as back-up singers with “aint that some shit!”
Bain & Bernard- What a great act to have in our show- it added a real variety and feeling to the evening that made it seem like a “real” cabaret event. The Clown noses and costumes were spot-on and the old-timey crackly-radio music was fantastic. SO CUTE! SO FUN!
Physical Theatre trio:
Chelsea Ferando
Josh Brown
Victoria Velinosi
What a great way to end the show! Audience and performers alike were excited and awkward, entertained and horny. I’ve seen many a sexy-quasi nude contemporary dance piece, often they err on the side of extreme abjection- this piece avoided that slippery slope by injecting it with comedy and sexual mishaps. The dancing itself was really interesting, privileging the theatrical while maintaining good form and pointed toes.
It also gave Tess an opportunity to end the night by cyclically bringing it back around to the beginning again with some quality crotch comedy: “at the beginning of the evening, Amanda made me wet from my eyes; this made me wet from eye.”
In any case- at the risk of bigging-up my own show I wanted to write down my thoughts and make some notes so that I can remember this lovely experience in the future- Thankyou so much to all the performers who came out and shared their work with us- the fundraiser did well and brought us closer to our goals for producing an Equity staged reading of Arthur Miller’s A View From the Bridge.
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