“The Little Mermaid: A Movement Piece” Rocks the Boat

Hollywood Fringe Festival 2017 imageThe Boundless Artists Theatre Company has presented Fringe audiences with a production of the fairy tale The Little Mermaid, which is unique in its faithfulness to the original 1837 version by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen.

Here you’ll find all the dark and disturbing aspects lobotomized out of Andersen’s tale in the Disney’s Technicolor serving, and for that the Boundless Artists must be given credit.  For everything else they are simply rather mystifying.

Directed by Lauren Sanatra and set to the music of the Little Rock band’s, Evanescence this Little Mermaid is presented as a “Movement Piece.”  And they do move in it.

Hollywood Fringe-2017-SanatraThe company doesn’t seem to have any member with any movement or dance training, and trying not to be branded as “body bigoted,” I must say neither do they have any one who you would immediately identify as a “dancer.”

With little grace, and seemingly less technique, the company functions as almost a cross between a Mad Magazine parody and cutting-edge feminist protest.

Perhaps on the slight one-sheet program a brief mission statement of the company would help in clarifying their purpose as a group and the intention of their art.

As it is with choreography by Richard Lozoya and Sanatra, I cannot wholeheartedly praise it as a dance performance.

As a theatrical experience its lack of style and technique fails.

But if taken as a group of sincere individuals who are impassioned about art performance and wish to participate in it and to claim their right to have and make their own expression within its discipline, then one must acknowledge their work and have admiration for their chutzpa.bronze ribbon - Fringe Festival

And really, what better arena for that chutzpa than the Fringe?

For that chutzpa: a BRONZE MEDAL.

♦    ♦    ♦

 

The Little Mermaid
running at The Hollywood Fringe 2017 at
Studio/Stage
520 N. Western Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90004

For Schedule, Tickets and More Information:
hff17.com/4392 

 


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An award-winning L.A. playwright and rabble-rouser of note who has hoisted glasses with Orson Welles, been arrested on three continents and once beat up Charlie Manson. His first play, "Among the Vipers" was a semi-finalist in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition and was featured in the Carnegie-Mellon Showcase of New Plays. It was produced at the NPT Theater in Ashland, Oregon and Los Angeles’ celebrated Odyssey Ensemble Theatre. His following play, “The Little Boy Who Loved Monsters” was produced at The Hollywood Actors Theater, where he earned praise from the Los Angeles Times for his “…inordinately creative writing.” The play went on to numerous other productions including Berlin’s The Black Theatre under the direction of Rainer Fassbinder who wrote in his program notes of Kearney, “He is a skilled playwright, but more importantly he is a dangerous one.” Ernest Kearney has worked as literary manager or as dramaturge for among others The Hudson Theater Guild, Nova Diem and the Odyssey Ensemble Theatre, where he still serves on the play selection committee. He has been the recipient of two Dramalogue Awards and a finalist or semi-finalist, three times, in the Julie Harris Playwriting Competition. His work has been performed by Michael Dunn, Sandra Tsing Loh, Jack Colvin and Billy Bob Thornton, and to date, either as playwright or director, he has upwards of a hundred and thirty productions under his belt, including a few at the Bob Baker Marionette Theater as puppeteer. Kearney remains focused on his writing, as well as living happily ever after with his lovely wife Marlene. His stage reviews and social essays can be found at TheTVolution.com and workingauthor.com. Follow him on Facebook.

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