What I liked
Billy Ray Brewton’s direction was utterly fabulous. He has a knack for wonderful stage pictures (which I also loved in his production “A Beast/A Burden” at last years fringe). This piece also involved an extremely simple yet effective use of occasional audience interaction that could easily be paralleled to our spectator behavior in the actual political system. On top of the writing and direction, this cast is one of the strongest ensembles I’ve witnessed this year. When Ben Hethcoat demands our attention as Atwater, my god do we snap too! His and Chloe Dworkin’s chemistry was thrilling, Luke Forbes hit all the right emotional notes and physical ticks to give us a W. that you truly want to stop and understand. David Mcelwee’s character transformation is so subtle and so honest that it took me a moment to recognize him!
What I didn't like
I really loved this show. Tight all around.
My overall impression
This fringe season has had a lot of wonderfully wacky, out-of-this-world productions- but then along comes this political-realism piece that just blows you out of the water. Lucy Gillespie’s pulls us through our own history in a way that doesn’t spoon feed us a particular message but rather puts us in the room of the beginnings of the smear campaign ads and our now hopelessly entwined experience of media and politics.
