What I liked
Sage and Parker are this show. It’s a terrific script, but the reason it’s alive up there is because these are two serious theater actors with intuitive chops out the wazoo. Yes, that wazoo. The proverbial one. Also, the stage set is one of those super-simple pieces of problem solving that stays quietly delightful through the show, because it works perfectly and costs nothing (here, they had to create the illusion of a boat on a journey across a river; some cardboard, some cloth, and there it is). Last thing: This is black box theater. Somebody dragged me to Broadway once, and I was bored in a sea of expensive air & glitz. “The Scorpion and the Frog” was a tenth of the price, for ten times the art.
What I didn't like
The piece is, however, bookended by a “meta” device, where a hapless one-man chorus (Thomas Bigley) persistently tries to introduce the play (in song, and he’s got a lovely voice), repeatedly derailed by an entitled irate audience member (Penny Peyser). This was amusing for a moment but it got cloying rather quickly; it was not adequate to the artistic level of the show itself, with that mortal, social Scorpion and that mortal, social Frog. A future production of this superb fable-play (let’s hope there is one) might benefit from a rethinking of the need for that rather apologetic device, and simply present the fable—-preferably with the same great cast, and a somewhat longer version of this deep & funny script. If you cut the intro where the play heckles itself, saying with Polonius “this is too long,” you’ll have the room you need to add another turn of the main tale.
…imho, of course… In My Haughty Opinion….
My overall impression
This is an excellent, striking piece of work by the two principals, Christine Sage and Alex Parker, with a script by Spencer Greene that sustains a dark, juicy, weird mixture of funny & deep, bitter & endearing. “The Scorpion and the Frog” is really onto something. There is more in this vein to be mined by this playwright, this company, whatever’s going on back there. I’m interested in seeing what will come from these folk next. https://www.the6thact.com/current-production
