Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Fringe 2009 - FFA 1 - Nightmare Man

"It's been a while since I've been to White Castle."

Entropy Productions

The Nightmare Man

A hopelessly romantic serial killer reliving his past events in order to discover his one true love. Through this discovery he learns more about himself than he thought possible.

This is where visual juxtaposition gets me into trouble. Robin Gillette reads the above introduction as two actors get into place nearby. Two male actors.

"..in order to discover his one true love. Through this discovery he learns more about himself..."

And of course, gay blogger that I am, I immediately go to the homoerotic subtext place.

(Like we need another gay serial killer story, but that's another blog entry. In that second or two I was just caught up in the possibility.)

I was also scribbling down the note - "longest nose I've ever seen"

The actor playing the serial killer's sidekick, who burst into his own improvised series of cheers and song in praise of their run to White Castle, had the most fascinating face. Built for comedy really. He was like a human cartoon (and I mean that as a compliment). In fact, based on his performance alone, I'd want to see this show. He was that amusing.

(Plus, if his nose is big...)

(end of inappropriate aside)

The strange thing is, the Fringe has two, count 'em, two romantic serial killer shows this year (in addition, of course, to all the other murderers running around in various other shows). There's this one, The Nightmare Man, and then the peculiarly - and ominously - named Your Lithopedion.

Normally, the words "serial killer" are guaranteed to get me walking in the other direction, toward any other show on the schedule. But between this preview, and a friendly message of inquiry from the Lithopedion crew, I'm seriously considering going to see them both. It's the weirdest thing.

But this is what Fringe-For-All is good for - making me question my initial knee-jerk responses to things.

Of course that just throws another spanner in the personal scheduling works, but then Fringe was never easy that way anyway. Better to have too many shows to see, than too few to care about. Plus, they got out on the yellow light, the 2-1/2 minute warning, so they know how to get a preview to run on time. Good sign.

I'm not entirely sure what the heck the additional bit of show description is on about...

A nightmare world retold through a serial killers eyes. Acceptance and truth bring the audience to a level of beauty and terror, that only the mind of a NORMAL person can take you.

...but they have me intrigued, since there's apparently a lot of unusual laughs along with, you know, the serial killing.

Their show page

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