Asheville Fringe Arts Festival: Friday

Following are reviews of the shows Ripper and Abomination: Memoir of Ambiguity, performed together at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, as well as a second double bill, Sweetheart/Bitter Heart and Carousel, Part II, all presented at the Sly Grog Lounge on January 24, 2020.

Ripper by Dark Horse Theatre

Ripper is an interesting and entertaining take on that most persistent of human fascinations: the serial killer.

In this case, we are introduced to “Saucy Jack,” a serial killer living in 1970s New York who may be a reincarnation of Jack the Ripper, or perhaps a psychic sibling, or maybe just an ordinary psycho who feels a strong affinity to his Victorian forebear.

Either way, Saucy Jack begins the show with a stream-of-consciousness monologue about his craving to kill women, reach inside them and eat their organs. At first, one wonders: Will this be an exploitive hagiography of white male serial killers?

But as the show progresses, it becomes clear that there is something with more heft and depth happening here. First, Jack experiences a series of deeply emotional episodes that reveal his pain, misogyny and self-loathing. He begins to be taunted by ghosts (premonitions? figments of Jack’s imagination?) of two prostitutes, one from Ripper-era London and the other from contemporary New York City.

This deliberate blurring of the lines between Victorian England and disco-era New York City, as well as the addition of female perspectives, elevates Ripper from a mere penny dreadful to a genuinely thoughtful critique of the white male serial killer as pop culture icon.

A satisfying twist ending, including a surprisingly successful bit of bloody stage-homicide, clarifies the true intentions of this piece. Solid performances from the four actors and creative use of the Sly Grog space make it a highly watchable half hour of theater.

There is a case to be made that the final message of the show is a little heavy-handed or simplistic. Nevertheless, Ripper is a gripping, satisfying, and Fringey piece of live theater. And the leather pants are bloody awesome. —Michael Poandl

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Image courtesy of Christian Prins Coen

Abomination: Memoir of Ambiguity
by Christian Prins Coen

Abomination: Memoir of Ambiguity is one of the most raw and earnest one-person shows I’ve ever seen. Christian Prins Coen rather matter-of-factly rips open his soul in front of an audience to bare his anger and pain. But there’s a lot of comedy, too.

Coen utilizes spoken word poetry, stylized storytelling, different characters, and an impressive variety of sound and light cues to convey his past trauma and current pain.

As Coen details aspects of his young life, his gender, ethnic, and sexual identities begin overlapping in a kaleidoscopic free-for-all. The resulting intersectional hot mess is as thrilling as it is confusing.

In one instance, his white hippie mother, whose tasteful nude self portraits adorned their family home, walks in on him as he is losing his virginity at age 15. She screams at the girl to find her clitoris and then chases her out of the room with a wooden spoon.

Around the same time, he wakes up during a sleepover to find his male best friend performing oral sex on him without his consent. Later on, another same-sex relationship slips back and forth between consensual and not, with a man who calls Christian a “slave.” A redneck classmate goes even further with the racial slurs.

Is he too black or too white? Too gay, or not queer enough?

Coen’s internal battle is dramatized as an actual chess game while his polymorphic identities are represented with tilted mirrors which create multiple, simultaneous visual perspectives.

The really unique part of the show, which sets it apart from other coming-of-age one-person shows, comes at the very end. With tears in his eyes, Coen earnestly begs the audience to help him, to see him, to hold him. He makes eye contact with individual audience members and actually enlists an audience member to hold his hand (Okay, it was me! And I did hold his hand and it was intense!).

This neediness, this desire to heal, is usually the subtext of one-person shows. Coen has said the quiet part out loud, and the straightforwardness is very refreshing. It’s about as convoluted as theater and therapy can get. Is the gesture cathartic or co-dependent?

Like Coen’s life experiences and the title of the show itself, the answer is ambiguous. Either way, Abomination is raw, real, and extremely compelling. —Michael Poandl

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Alli Marshall, photo by and courtesy of Vickie Burick

Sweetheart/Bitter Heart by Alli Marshall

This spoken word exploration of love and entropy opens silently with Alli Marshall presenting a note — "Do you like me? ☐ Yes ☐ No ☐ Maybe" — to the audience. After dancing with a bottle of champagne for courage, Marshall delivers the dire existential state of affairs with melodic calm: The world orbits the precipice of oblivion, the environment is in decay, plus that guy you like won't return your texts. So why not party?

Marshall's poetic musings on the loss of, and hope for, genuine connection flow into audience participation to exorcise our pasts with an uncooperative Ouija board, relive trauma through cardboard iconography, and deliver homemade valentines to strangers.

This guided group therapy punctuated with musical interludes and playful costume changes forges hope and connection between all participants … despite its fleeting nature.

Every seat left empty to join the final dance party represented a check mark in the affirmative to Marshall's opening question. —Greg Benge

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Okapi photo courtesy of okapiduo.com

Carousel, Part II by Okapi

The upright bass and cello duo of Okapi — Lindsey Miller and Scott Gorski — premiered songs from their upcoming album, Carousel, at the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival Friday.

Deep and percussive melodies filled the space with a circular energy, harmonizing toward existentialism at one moment, diverging and exploring discordant energy the next.

At times, during Miller's screaming rips at her instrument while Gorski plucks and vocalizes stark melancholic poetry, one has to wonder whether they have wandered onto the set of some Paul Thomas Anderson or Ari Aster period horror. Not the kind starring an external figure slowly plodding towards us in the darkness, but the dread of avoidable tragedy and portents unheeded.

We should listen. —Greg Benge

To learn more about the Asheville Fringe Arts Festival, visit ashevillefringe.org.

AshevilleStages.com also reviewed select Fringe Arts Festival shows from Friday and Sunday.