What I liked
Katherine Cortez deserves full credit for managing to squeeze mostly full character development in 70 or so minutes. That’s for 10 characters, eight of whom are played by four actors.
Now, about those actors: They all fully lived through the many scenes, most of them two-handers advancing the story a bit more. Early on, I was worried Dylan Arnold was not carrying the emotional weight of being a young, recently-out gay man whose partner was missing after the nightclub shooting (the play was inspired by the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando.). But that worry was quickly wiped away with what was a fierce performance that required a monumental emotional range. A range that Arnold delivered.
Also outstanding were Larry Poindexter, who played a straight-shooting but compassionate cop and a transgender witness to the shooting. In the role of the transgender woman Francis, he was very human, and never even came close to being over the top, even in the moments when Francis provides welcome comic relief from the tragic.
Rachel Sorsa, as Bette, the evangelical Christian mother of Arnold’s character, was also most human, never making what would have been the easy/lazy choice to make her character a caricature.
I’m an actor. And work of this nature and caliber is what we all yearn to do.
The only thing else I can say is to see it. And kudos to Rogue Machine, which must have some secret method of selecting such high quality shows for the Fringe.
What I didn't like
The staging was simple, as it has to be for a show sharing a stage with multiple others, but it mostly worked.
There were some choices I thought may have been confusing or overly artistic. For instance, in some scenes (but not all of them), characters not involved in the scene remained onstage, though lit dimly. It didn’t really seem to serve the story, and I can’t imagine a time crunch would have resulted by getting the non-pertinent characters off the stage. It just would have been simpler and allowed the audience to focus completely on where I imagine Cortez wanted us to focus anyway.
My overall impression
This was a fully developed work of art and commentary. One finds it funny, moving, thought-provoking, human.
I’d sum it up by calling it… important.
See this if you can. Rogue Machine has mined yet another piece of Fringe gold.
Note: I did indeed see this show. I’m not “certified” because I bought my ticket via Rogue Machine Theater.
