~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DIVAfest

review in SF Chronicle May26, 2003 (Robert Hurwitt)
Home / Now Playing & Coming Soon / Back to Media List / To email us

The fine art of 'a female persuasion'
DIVAfest's riches range from cabaret to dark comedy

 

The chanteuse looks like a gangly graduate student in faded jeans running late for class, and sings with seductively subtle sophistication. The puppeteers lightly manipulate teacups, chopsticks and newspaper to convey a story of wartime hysteria and national shame. A comic story about an alcoholics online support group artfully shifts into a terrifying tale of child abuse and murder.

The second annual DIVAfest is in full swing with monologues, dance-theater, puppetry, cabaret and staged readings on the four stages of the Exit Theatreplex in the Tenderloin. It's a two-week mini-version of the Exit's annual fall Fringe Festival, but with some differences. There are fewer shows. It's curated, as opposed to the Fringe's first-come-first-served policy, which argues a higher level of consistency. And it's all theater of "a female persuasion."

From what I was able to sample, it's a mix of good, pretty good and exceptional material. Fittingly, a new show by the festival's poster diva -- Beth Wilmurt's first attempt at a cabaret act, "Cabaret Rebel" -- proved the most pleasantly rewarding surprise.

Most of the artists, and some of the shows, come from Fringes past. Denise B. Flemming's "Winterkill," as seen at last year's Fringe, is a powerhouse solo performance of a less well-written but affecting tale of child abuse and prostitution at the hands of a coked-up mother.

Elisa DeCarlo's "Toasted," a hands-down hit of the 2001 Fringe (in a newly expanded version), is pure solo dynamite. The unflinching honesty of DeCarlo's performance is as memorable two years later as is the bracing humor with which she leavens her true tale of a late-night e-mail that led her to call the police on a man who had murdered his 5-year-old daughter -- and face the recriminations of other members of her online support group for violating its privacy.

Another stand-out from the '01 Fringe, Liebe Wetzel's found-object puppetry troupe Lunatique Fantastique, is back with a new, less successful effort. "E.O.

9066," which opened Friday at Exit on Taylor, is serious stuff, the first of Wetzel's projected trilogy on war themes. It's also timely. Taking its name from 1942's infamous Executive Order 9066 -- the World War II internment of 110,000 Japanese Americans -- it's a reflection on the erosion of civil liberties in times of national crisis.

Performed mostly in silence by black-hooded puppeteers, "E.O." features the Wetzel ensemble's usual, often astonishingly creative use of found objects. A Japanese tea service turns into a family, with napkins for bodies and inverted cups and a teapot for heads, complemented by the inverted American teapot head and calico napkin dress of a neighbor. Newspapers become airplanes and ships in Pearl Harbor, with poetic lighting effects by Megan Reilly.

Under the direction of Christine Young and Wetzel, though, the manipulation doesn't always look as sure-handed as in past outings. More problematic is the text. Though based on survivors' accounts, "E.O." seems generic, lacking the specificity of Wetzel's poignant "Brace Yourself" (about her father's battle with polio) or the riveting, disturbing true story of a preacher-pederast in "Snake in the Basement." "E.O." -- which continues after the festival through June 14 -- doesn't individualize its characters enough to make its case about the injustices they suffered.

Boston's Monkeyhouse dance-theater trio -- Karen Krolak, Nicole Harris and Amelia O'Dowd -- another returnee from last fall, only performed the first weekend. Its "Agroof" is a collection of short solos and duets on love, sex and the beauty business (about half included in the last show) performed with sly humor and inventive costumes. The show is beguiling, a little uneven and at times blissfully entertaining, especially in Krolak's sinuous interplays with a recorded voice or answering machine and her wry models-on-stilts duet with Harris.

Wry, self-deprecating humor runs through Wilmurt's "Cabaret Rebel" as well. Wilmurt shows up for the Exit Cafe late-night show in street clothes, acting overwhelmed as she warbles a pitch-perfect and beautifully phrased "The Lady Is a Tramp" (Lorenz Hart's clever lyrics to Richard Rodgers' blithe melody). Even when she changes into a svelte black gown, she remains grounded in heavy hiking boots.

The glamour is in her supple voice. Ably accompanied by Richard Daquioag on piano and David Babich on clarinet, guitar and percussion, Wilmurt -- a delight as the beleaguered night club singer star of Art Street Theatre's "Io - - Princess of Argos" -- assumes the role here with enchanting grace. With a voice that slips easily from quicksilver to velvet, she's equally at home with a Rodgers and Hart or E.Y. Harburg-Burton Lane standard (a supple "Look to the Rainbow") as a countrified waltz (a sweetly poignant segue from Joe Darion and Larry Coleman's "Changing Partners" to Richard Thompson's "Waltzing's for Dreamers").

It's not just her musical skill or personal charm. Wilmurt finds the story within each song and brings it to life. Her jazzy take on "(Oh My Darling) Clementine" is a particular delight, capping its mock pathos by clambering atop the piano to strike a tragic pose, then pulling us into the plight of the drowning woman with a smooth, seductive segue into Harry Nilsson's "Life Line. " With her cabaret debut, Wilmurt puts the diva in this fest.

Home / Now Playing & Coming Soon / Back to Media List / To email us