The 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.
The 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.
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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