REVIEW FROM CINESNATCH

The 7th Annual One-Man Show World Championships: Jim Hanna’s spirited take-down of solo shows is the perfect antidote to any Fringe binge of this notoriously self-absorbed genre. In 7th Annual, four regional finalists must compete to be named the best in the “tourney of the journeys.” The show highlights all the earmarks of a bad solo show and makes them requirements for entering the competition: Shows face disqualification if they do not contain a spiritual and geographical journey and struggles with sex, amongst other increasingly specific and amusing cliches that I will not spoil here.

The show opens with a bang – as 6 time returning champ and self-described “Soul Mirror” Trent Isaacs (Darin Toonder) delivers a monologue that is as colorful as it is indulgent. In another life, Trent might have been a successful self-help guru/cult leader if he were not so damaged and unhinged. Fortunately for us, he is. For the sake of his art, Trent revisits old wounds – and perhaps creates a few new ones – as he Trent yells, shakes, rolls, bounces and whimpers his way through his childhood torments, employing the oldest metaphor in the book: a butterfly emerging from a cocoon. “I AM THAT BUTTERFLY!” he weeps triumphantly to resounding applause.

Toonder matches the verve of the text word for word. His brash performance is spot-on as the arrogant Trent who so desperately seeks attention, fans, and 1st place that he couldn’t possibly be as whole or evolved as he wants us to believe he is. It’s an exhilarating opening,

Unfortunately, the remainder of the show has a hard time maintaining that level of satire. The contestant that follows – Tamara Lynn Davis’s perky over-sharer Ally Capri – is necessarily lower-energy than Trent, but she’s also a less sharp rendering of a solo show type. Similarly dead celebrity exploiter Shelby Atkinson (Sarah Chaney) is a nice send-up of the self-righteous pretentious artists who insist that the truth must always be bleak, however the show also plays her aggressive, repellent personality for laughs, compromising the precision of the critique.

Despite these criticisms, there are plenty of laughs to be had in these remaining sections. In the final monologue, one absolutely brilliant gag disillusions anyone who has ever believed that their pain is somehow rare or unique.

Both Caitlin Rucker and Jim Hanna – as director and writer respectively – mark themselves as talent to keep an eye on. As if studying past programs from HFF, they’ve created a What Not To Do primer that should be required viewing for any solo artist.

You can catch The 7th Annual One-Man-Show World Championships at Theatre Asylum on June 17th (7:00 PM), 20th (8:30 PM), 24th (7:00 PM), and 26th (10:00 PM).

—Dan Johnson