WHITE HOT

pLAywriting in the city
By Miguel Garcia
Contributing Writer

The tagline for Tommy Smith’s White Hot is “Come be emotionally invaded.” And that’s pretty much how I left after seeing this hellish 1-hour ride of a play. It was like watching a horror film performed on stage.

The show is a turbulent odyssey through the madness of two sisters, Lil (played by Karina Wolfe) and Sis (played by Michal Sinnott), who express their own individual trauma along the spectrum of delusion. Lil is married to an equally insane and religiously dogmatic husband Bri (played by Christopher Illing). When she finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy, Sis gives Lil the number of a doctor who helps people in these situations. As you can imagine, this play does not end happily for any of the characters.
Lil played by Karina Wolfe and Sis played by Michal Sinnott in White Hot written by Tommy Smith

Lil played by Karina Wolfe and Sis played by Michal Sinnott in White Hot...

This show was a surprise to me in its intensity and presentation of a subject that is often kept in the dark, despite its overwhelming presence in many facets of our daily lives.

The Vagrancy and writer Tommy Smith have delivered a gem to the Fringe that simply must be experienced to be believed.

The acting and sheer sexiness of Michal Sinnott as the slutty sister is worth more than the price of admission. A definite must see.

Tommy Smith’s beautifully written White Hot is presented at this year’s Fringe in the play’s West Coast premiere by New York-based company the Vagrancy, also at Theatre Asylum. It, too, is a study in nihilism via two couples: Bri (Christopher Illing), and his seemingly meek, pregnant wife, Lil (Karina Wolfe), plus Lil’s cynical sister, Sis (Michal Sinnott), and a Ukrainian sadist, Grig (Arthur Keng), to whom she’s become sexually enamored.

Sis boasts that neither she, nor the world she lives in, has any room for romantic attachments, that anonymous sex is the key to her kingdom. Her bragging about a recent bout of satisfying anal sex arouses Lil’s curiosity — she asks for the guy’s number.

Her hubby, patronizing Bri, is a living monument to unwitting, condescending pedantry, revealing why so many marriages, based on such blind attempts at controlling another person and some understandably devious responses to it, lead to duplici...

It’s that time of year again, the season of anticipation and excitement before Hollywood Fringe begins, when savvy producers are rolling out cross-marketing deals and dweeby theatre journalists are sifting through press releases to find what can’t be missed amidst the wealth of theatre heading our way. Call us obsessed, call us nut jobs (thanks, Colin), but this year Ben Hill and HFF have made it even easier to geek the f&*k out, introducing a festival app which allows you to search shows and create a Favorites list on your mobile device. I cozied down with mine and was appropriately delighted to find some promising shows on the horizon, along with old fringe favorites I can’t wait to catch again. While I know I will discover more audience-worthy fare at the opening night party and through thorough tactile exploration of the printed Fringe guide, the following shows (in no particular order) have already tickled my interest.

WHIT...

I had no idea what to expect from White Hot based on my interview with some of the team. They also invited me to their final dress rehearsal, so I saw The Vagrancy load into the space and heard some of the last-minute shenanigans that come with 15 minutes of in-space preparation – ah, Fringe!

As much as I love a few black chairs and blocks on a Fringe set, I also appreciate companies that solve Fringe limitations creatively. White Hot doesn’t require much more space than the Aslyum Lab offers, but they did need specific lighting. I can’t imagine this story, which felt like Pinter throwing knives, or noir on heroin, without the lighting shelves turned set pieces enclosing the characters into uncomfortably tight spatial relations (which works for the show).

The story centers around two sisters who appear to have a similar vague mental illness and deal with it in polar opposite ways. These coping mechanisms usually result in using and hurting one another: you know, sisters...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
THE VAGRANCY PRESENTS THE
LOS ANGELES PREMIERE OF TOMMY SMITH’S
WHITE HOT
“a fever blister of a play”
- Michael Strangeways, Seattle Gay Scene

LOS ANGELES, CA. MAY 1st, 2013 – Downtown artist Tommy Smith’s WHITE HOT had its New York Premiere at The Flea Theater in April. Now, The Vagrancy is honored to bring you the raw, intimate and emotionally-invasive Los Angeles Premiere helmed by Caitlin Hart at the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2013. This dark, psychological thri...