Chicago Fringe Festival 2010 review roundup, part 4

The first annual Chicago Fringe Festival continues in Pilsen through Sunday night, and we've got a final round of reviews from TOC staff for you after the jump. Despite our best efforts, the logistics of getting to each of the 45 shows in the fest's first three days eluded us—we'll have to be content with covering 33 out of 45, and try harder next year. Find all of our 2010 Fringe reviews at this link, and visit ChicagoFringe.org for venues and showtimes.

A.D.
The subject of this self-important one-woman show is how we all ought to just slow down and, you know, really notice things. Time certainly did seem to slow down during the play, I’ll give them that. Monologues touched on how we need to listen to children’s laughter and/or enjoy the beauty of the stars, among other things. But didn’t Whitney Houston already sing a song about most of this? In the only effective bit, our heroine asks the audience to close their eyes and raise their hands if the answer to various questions is “yes.” She cycles through questions both easy and hard—are you married? Do you want to be married? The effect was deeply engaging. But then she didn’t do anything with the information we’d just revealed to her, not even to tell us what her answers would have been. After a preachy hour of being told that iPhones and Twitter were ruining the world, I was all prepared to blame Annie Huey, the soloist in question. But no, this boring, saccharine mess was written by someone else (David J. Loehr), which may be why so little of the content seems to have the spark of true human experience. You’re off the hook, Annie: Better luck next play.—Ruth Welte

The Lonely Visitors
Dance buffs will spot a gamut of familiar notes—Bausch, Dendy, Goode, Shapiro, Smith, Veldman—but there are plenty of new ideas, too, in RE | Dance Group’s intensely felt octet. Directors Michael Estanich, who choreographed the work, and Lucy Vurusic Riner did away with the Adelaide Stage’s front row benches at the last minute but still wanted to leap further and run faster than space allowed. (The pair hopes to produce Visitors again here in March.) Twelve musical selections have a solemn bent the performers run counter to as often as ratify, and although the spoken text is occasionally arch, Visitors is a cohesive, full-bodied experience cut far above other dance offerings at the Fringe.—Zachary Whittenburg

Machito Pichon
Former Luna Negra dancer Ricardo J. Garcia is now engaged administratively with ambitious start-up Piel Morena Contemporary Dance, for which he’s made Machito Pichon: four women in young men’s clothes adopting standoffish body language to match in a series of dances to Nuyorican singer-songwriter Robi Draco Rosa’s soulful ballads. By presenting it as no more than a movement style, Garcia’s rebuttal of boilerplate Latin machismo is sharp; by lingering on the quartet’s idle repose as well as its fluid dancing, the Puerto Rico native shows how keenly observed his argument is. Alejandra Gonzalez is particularly convincing as a street tough, subtly thrusting her pelvis at a floral dress making its way across the stage on a clothesline.—Zachary Whittenburg

Mulatto Child
Maryland-based performer Paul Diem offers what's essentially an hour-long take on Lenny Bruce's n-word routine, attempting to defuse stereotypes by indulging in them. Diem's a gifted performer; he switches deftly from Latina prostitute to homeless guy to angry biracial teen, often inhabiting these marginal figures with real empathy. But he's hampered by the piece's reductive premise: Not all of his bits are as dreary as the illegal immigrant's rant about reconquering the U.S., but since his characters are largely based on dehumanizing projections, they don't often have that much to say for themselves. It'd be great to see what Diem could do with more nuanced material.—John Beer