What I liked
- The Music: I loved the music for this show quite a bit. I thought it was inspired, fun, catchy and perfectly suited for the show that it was living within. Most especially, I loved the song that introduces us to the beloved gentleman with the knife melded to his hand. That song I could listen to for days at a time before I, like those who DID have to listen to it for days and days and days, wanted to find a way to overpower him. Brilliant stuff.
- The Cast: Clearly, this cast has an absolute blast doing this show. And that’s important—because the premise and the show itself are sort of goofy and bizarre and off-the-wall and (in the wrong hands) could come off as either stupid or, worse, boring or lame. Instead, under this crew’s fantastic energy and fun zeal, the story comes across as a fully realized post-apocalyptic world where hope is nearly gone, the people are desperate and sad and only one woman dares to hope of a better, happier future. That’s a REAL testament to the skills of the performers as a team. You took what could have been terrible (examined outside the specific context) and made it absolutely hysterical and believable and so much fun to watch!
- Special mention goes to Chris Bramante as Panther, because his love-struck rock-and-roller attitude was so believable in its simplicity that I was somehow devastated at the outcome of his journey. It was so unexpected and it caught me off-guard in a terrible way. David Reynolds’ work as Stabby Rick may turn out to be one of my favorite performances of the entire Fringe fesitval—and if so, DAMN YOU, Mr. Reynolds, for again proving that villains make the most interesting characters. Kat Primeau shines, of course, as the lead Petunia, mostly because she manages to hold the story together—but her goofy sure-footed happiness as she attempts to follow Trash’s steps in his song was infectiously cute. And Molly Dworsky….I have no idea what to say about your character except to say that you had a certain glow about you that I couldn’t ignore.
What I didn't like
In this particular production, the musicians were really loud in comparison to individual actors. Not when the group was singing, but when there were songs with just one or a few actors. It made it very, very hard to hear some of the songs—and that was disappointing. I know this is a problem with time/space limitations…but it really hurt my ultimate ability to understand all of the lyrics and, therefore, the entirety of the cleverness of the show.
My overall impression
We did it. We damn dirty apes—we did it. But in this case, we failed to stop the environmental meltdown and the apocalypse came. And then we live in tunnels. THUG tunnels. So begins a goofy, half-punk, half-pop, pseudo-80’s, mega-mix of a musical called Thug Tunnel. It’s strange, bizarre, off-kilter, and (for the most part) a great deal of fun.
Set in a world where people are largely living on rats and refuse, we meet Petunia, a woman who dares to have hope that the world above might have restored itself. So she devises a plan to steal the necessary materials to try and get there. But that puts her at odds with the dangerous villain Stabby Rick. With her boyfriend Panther, she sets off with Stabby close behind—and we’re off. Using music that seems inspired either by early MTV or VHS porn videos, this wonderful cast creates magic about the most bizarre story.
And for the most part, they succeed. We have great heroes, striving to find the truth. We have a FANTASTIC villain, whose introduction is one of my favorite moments in theater in a long, long time. We have a great old-wise man who has a rat he talks to and seems COMPLETELY FINE with that, cause you know—old wise man. All of that’s great and I loved it.
What I wasn’t so completely enamored with was the latter half of the plot. After being introduced to such a great villain, I wasn’t quite as happy to find that there was another villain who was more villainous because plot demanded she should be—when her song explaining why she was so actually seemed to make her LESS so by leaps and bounds to me. It was a strangely emasculating moment for a character whose introduction was so overtly phallic and I was never entirely certain what the second villain’s character added to the story that made it worth the neutralization (and neuterization, for that matter) of the first one to such a great extent.
But perhaps I missed some crucial element of the story because the second villain’s song lyrics were largely lost to me by being overwhelmed by the band—a problem that I ran into more than once during this particular performance. I tend to avoid trying to mention anything about technical issues such as these, because I am VERY aware of the technical issues all Fringe productions have in trying to juggle into and out of spaces in 15 minutes. But when the music impacts my ability to understand a production to that extent, I’m not entirely certain how to avoid it.
But my confusion about the villains aside, I really did enjoy this show enormously. The premise could have been terrible—and instead it felt surprisingly real due to the details and energy and investment and conviction the actors gave to playing their parts as completely as they could. The music was fantastic, very in keeping with itself and melding with the style of the show in a very groovy way. And the ending of the show was actually a true shock to me—but in a way that proved to me that the show had caught me up emotionally. It made me feel deeply enough that its ending made me have a strong EMOTIONAL response.
And when it comes to a show like this, you can ask for no praise higher than saying that you made me emotionally invest. Thug Tunnel was pure delight and something people should climb into at their earliest opportunity.
