CLICK HERE FOR RECENT AUDIENCE REVIEWS CLICK ON PLAY FOR REVIEWS OF THAT PLAY
1 Quandary Place
Abundance
ADVENTURES OF A SUBSTITUTE TEACHER
Barroom Philosophers
Border Crossings
Class Notes
Embarrassment & Death
The Falls of Vincent Millay
Found and Lost: Goals for 2002
Frisco Fred's Cabaret!
Fuck You Cancer
Great Hymn of Thanksgiving / Conversation
Storm
The Hasheesh Eater
Heavy Metal Playground
HER KIND: The Life & Poetry of Anne
Sexton
i hate my friends
Jesus Rant
Kiss My Booth
Korean Badass
Low Hanging Fruit
Monkey Poet Stand-Up!
Organic Boxed Chicken Stock
parts is parts:
Party of One
RM3
The Sewers
Shopping as a Spiritual Path
Spotless
Stetson Manifesto
A Strange Black Passion
Super Glossy!
TeleMongol
Terrible Voice
Tesla's White Pigeon
Turn of the Screw
You Go First
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Marcus Sternski
2 Stars
This show is a lot of fun to look at, and the visuals are very imaginative,
but that's about it. Even absurdist farces need a story, and the story here
(a play within a play) was pretty dumb. There was lots of (heightened) dialogue,
most of it lame. I liked the two actors but not the two actresses. The soundtrack,
with a couple exceptions, was overdone and distracting.
The dialogue is the big problem. It's not compelling in any way. It doesn't make me pay attention. It weighs down the forward motion of the show. It adds nothing. I think the show might work better by either cutting all the text or by converting the text into some kind of opera.
Right now, the whole thing feels very general.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: matty p
5 Stars
If Rosencrants & Guildenstern got into bed with Terry Gilliams Brazil
& encouraged Juenet's Delicatessen to make a threesome - 9 months later
the big bastard baby of that tryst would be The Sewers. Brilliant! Now say
Dadda!
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Jean Beatrice
5 Stars
BRAVO!!! One of the best pieces of theatre I've ever seen! Surreal, creepy,
hilarious. The cast is top-notch. The set and the way the cast moves around
in it is minimal but impactful. YOU CAN'T MISS THIS SHOW!!
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Natalie
3 Stars
I am giving the overall production 3 stars but would give the set design,
the sound, lighting and the acting 5+ stars (all incredible) . Brilliant
setup with the dreamlike, nightmarish world the audience is brought into
in this apocalyptic look at the world after "the leak". I also
love the bits of humor that are woven through it. So why three stars? "Sewers"
has been described in other reviews "as absurd or surreal". I
didn't find this to be the case because so much put into creating a world
that we the audience believe. The atmosphere and bleakness of this story
is so unique and beautifully done. But once we are brought into the "Sewers"
world I felt we were set adrift when all of the setup seemed to promise
like any story, conflict high stakes and resolution. Instead it sort of
floats to the ground. I also wasn't sure why this group gets their own set
stage and longer running time than other Fringe venues. But definitely a
highlight of this festival.
Play: the sewers
Reviewer: buzzy
1 Star
crude images and talk of feces, urine, menses/miscarriage, stench, rape,
masturbation and sex saturate nearly every moment of this 75 minute play.
there are no heros and no one is happy. i don't mean to be criticize, but
i do mean to warn playgoers who may be sensitive to incessant depravity.
i understand this is the fringe and i love the fringe, but i have my limits
and this one was no fun for me.
Reviewer Email: Mr. Walforf
Play: The Sewers
5 Stars
Banana Bag & Bodice, perennial fringe favorites, are back with a show
a lot darker and more dangerous than their seminal production of "Sandwich".
"The Sewers" is a dank, dripping look at individuals living on
an ugly edge of society. It's never clear if they are the last people on
Earth or merely trapped within their own "Play Show".
The plot is largely abstract, but there are two basic tracks: one is the three principles, theoretically a man, his wife and her sister (plus the strange and largely silent "servant"?), but the second is a metaversion in which the man is the playwright and the two women are merely cast in his playshow -- to play his wife and her sister.
It's fascinating watch this all evolve (or devolve?) as what is real and what is written merge and mingle. If you're looking for something straightforward and funny, you might be in the wrong place; if you want something provoking and just a little disturbing, go see the Sewers.
As always with BB&B shows, Dave Malloy's soundtrack is phenomenal.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Lena & Chris
5 Stars
Magnificently surreal, a bad dream from which I didn’t want to awaken,
very advanced conceptually, visually stunning, great music, brilliant script…
Masterful in every way. One of our 2 favorites this year.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: beau smith
4 Stars
A dark drama that quickly became weird and interesting when the playwright
wrote himself into the play and discussed that he could continue to mystify
the crowd or change the plot at his whim... dark and funny, awesome set,
great sound effects, lighting and props.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Ark
5 Stars
This is the real thing, folks. Rearrange your life so you can see this show.
Someday these people are going to have PhD theses written about them. (In
a good way!!)
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: The Stingy Fringies
4 Stars
A strange, spooky, sad and surprising spectacle that is more complicated
than the previous version two years ago. We were wowed by the technical
enhancements (so many mini lights! such much set dinginess! a ready-to-wear
sonogram!) sometimes to the point of distraction, but more often delight.
Fortunately, the sound is mostly the same, which is absolutely beautiful.
The Sewers is a nightmare one-room otherworld and the thought of anyone
wanting to write themselves into it is just absurd.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Elizabeth
3 Stars
I've been thinking about this performance since I left it which to me indicates
a level of performative success, but there were significant failings with
this show as well.
The good things are
1. A great imaginative set,and a great use of space. The creators incorporate
some wonderful innovative touches that take a black box space, which is
tough to work with, from a flat non-dimensional space into something that
has sharply defined level of background.forground... wonderful costume design,
too. And (I appreciated this the most) a really high lvel of tech. expertise
on the part of the actors. I could hear everything. There were no swallowed
syllables, no sentances that didn't begin and end (I know this might seem
like slim praise, but it isn't. I can't tell you how many performances I've
say through where actors tongues seem to have become numb halfway through
the performance..or the end of the sentence suddenly just drops off the
register)Good crisp, clean performance, good decision making overall, and
a level of certitude and commitment that truely rocked.
What didnt work for me was the content of this wonderfully defined form,
and I'm loath to say it's because I didn't get it- the content was disjoint
and did not appear to achieve some inner relationship with itself. The play/performance
didn't send out a clear communication to me- this is different than saying
there was no plot...it's saying that the potent images of gestation, filth,
and birthing(to name just a few images) did not combine with the words to
create/carry any unified meaning.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: fringe go-er
3 Stars
One weird play. Performers were good but...
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Bob Hayden
3 Stars
Well, you either like absurd or you don't. If you do, you will give this
show the full 5 Stars. The Sewers satisfied my cravings for absurd for at
least the next six months.
It has great acting and fine directing. Then there was the plot, which may have been playing at another venue, although references to a leak and babies kept surfacing. The dialogue moved rather like a pinball from "Howl" to Groucho Marx to the narration in a 1940’s film noir. The stage business is incomprehensible, but well mirrored in the sound, which varies from Glen Miller to random cacophony. Oh, did I mention the waltzing orderly who carries a battered bedpan as if it were a newborn infant?
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Billy Ray Virus
5 Stars
I love Banana Bag and Bodice, and I've seen many of their shows. This was
by far the most depressing, unpleasant and horrific play that that they've
done. "Gulag HAHA" was hilarious compared to this. If you like
your entertainment to be psychotically, unrelentingly, claustrophobically
depressing, then you'll love this. It's the theatrical analogue to listening
to Joy division on an overdose of bad acid. It's brilliant, in its horror.
I would write more, but I am too depressed just thinking about it.
Play: Sewer
Reviewer: Brett
3 Stars
Very dark. Reminded me a lot of David Lynch's "Eraserhead". More
a long the line of a thinking person's satire than an outright farce (duh).
Kind of hard to follow at times.
Play: the sewers
Reviewer: Kevin Rolston
5 Stars
banana bag and bodice is doing some of the most riveting absurdist work
in american theatre today. what's overwhelmingly 'cathartic-haha' about
this experience is how the production shifts from ridiculously funny to
heartbreakingly sad with a simple exhalation. watching these people on stage
is just about the only thing that makes me nostalgic for New York. soundtrack?
please?
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Holly Up On Poppy
4 Stars
Visually stimulating and audially captivating, Banana Bag and Bodice live
up to the awesome reviews they have received from trusty NYC publications!
"The Sewers" is a treat from start to finish - this coming from
someone who falls asleep in plays more often than she'd like to admit. These
guys had me wide-eyed on the edge of my seat the entire time, if only at
points because I didn't really know what was going on and wanted to figure
it out. In short - the technical elements of the play are AMAZING, the acting
is pretty darn superb, and the threads of the story I managed to gather
are great, but the narrative is a little convoluted. But I would see it
again.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Ronald Palmer
5 Stars
Riveting performances by all four actors of Banana Bag & Bodice pulse
together a Lacanic trip into an ostensibly semi-autobiographical journey.
Hold onto your brains.
Ingenious stage/sound production, sparse and urgent language along with
song styling superior to any pop icons imaginable (the hauntingly gorgeous
"Why No Baby" is worth the price of admission) make this a must-see
performance.
The Sewers conflates metamessage-beyond-4th-wall-narration and absurdist
linearity, which jars the viewer/listener back and forth so quickly its
akin to a theatrical roller coaster (but funner!). Jason Craig swiftly &
aptly yet always surprisingly interrogates his own psychoanalytic intentions
as a playwright while simultaneously showing his audience precisely how
convincing the plot of this 'play show' can be. The setting of the sewers
is one brilliantly designed room that serves as a horrifyingly plausible
post-apocalyptic bunker, albiet seemlessly tugged and transformed into a
platform for fantasy.
The inevitable apotheosis is your own farce in the mirror. Yes, farce, not
face. Believe me: see The Sewers
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Buzz Brooks
3 Stars
Can you say, "KAF -KA"? Yes, folks, they're at it again, let's
have another rousing chorus of "Everybody do the Kafka! hey hey hey!"
I suppose it's a rite of passage for small theater groups to throw their
collective hat in the ring with yet another surreal-absurd clone of good
ol' Frankie's wonderful work.
In a post-apocalyptic world reminiscent of either a)a sewer in New York
or b)a flooded-out ward in New Orleans, an isolated group tries to manage
what's left of their humanity by crafting a play of sorts. They've distanced
themselves so far from reality that they ultimately can't avoid alienating
one another, and, (while the acting and sound track was quite good,) possibly
alienating the audience as well! Watch out, this one runs 75 minutes.
Play: The Sewers
Reviewer: Bob Hayden
I wish I could tell you how much I enjoyed this show. Unfortunately, I could not find the venue until after curtain time. The on-line map I consulted showed The Garage at 6th and Howard. No, it is about 1/3 block east of Sixth on the south side of Howard. You do not see that it is a theater until you are standing right in front of it. Not having my Fringe program, I, like the young woman who was holding an advance ticket, missed the show.
With an adaptation by Jeffrey Hatcher, one of the bet script/playwrights around, and a show by Banana, Bag & Bodice, The Garage may have the prize quality program of the festival. But for God’s sake, take your program and get there early enough to find the place.
I arrived at 6th & Howard about 6:40, and could have waited another 1 1/2 hours to see The Sewers, but the neighborhood offers such a vast array of diversions I returned home.