Reviews: SORORICIDE and ://SHELF_LIFE at The Orlando Fringe Festival
Fugly dogs and an AI of a queer aunt kick off BroadwayWorld's coverage of the 35th annual fringe festival.
SORORICIDE (Green Venue)
Lavender Moon Productions
Written and Directed by Rheanne Walton & Savana Petranoff
If you miss the camp of Ryan Murphy’s 2015 sorority-centered slasher Scream Queens, but didn’t think it had enough 1985 Clue to it, then SORORICIDE in the Green Venue is exactly what you’re looking for. When the sorority president is murdered during a Pupgrade fundraiser for “fugly street dogs”, the members of Delta Nu (the UCF chapter, no Elle Woods here) are dropped into a locked-room mystery. It defies the logic of even a cursory thought, but the show blasts through the events with such abandon that you don’t have much time to stop and think. From the moment the audience enters the venue with the cast spread throughout - ushering them to the music-thumping party atmosphere of a college “fundraiser” - it’s clear that everyone is locked into their roles and game for the antics to follow. (A few technical hurdles with projections were played off with expert improvisation by the cast, telling the audience we were in great hands.) While Emmy Frederickson (Allysyn) gets one of the most hilarious features of the show with sapphic slam poetry, Kelsey Grace Kidd (Emma) lands some of the funniest deadpan one-liners in Walton and Petranoff’s well-balanced script. The authorial duo manage to introduce and complicate characters and their relationships without dropping anyone. With ten characters and less than an hour’s runtime, that’s a feat. As things escalate, audience members get pulled into the action, questioning suspects, becoming suspects themselves, and being hilariously slandered in the Delta Nu equivalent of a “Burn Book”. This show has some replay value to it as well - what happens if the audience makes different choices than they did today? You’ll have to come to the next Pupgrade fundraiser to find out. It’s a killer time.
://SHELF_LIFE (Brown Venue)
Written and Performed by Zachary Scalzo
Directed by David Pilchman
Walking into the space for Zachary Scalzo’s ://SHELF_LIFE is a sparse experience - the lighting is utilitarian, and there’s a simple desk, chair, and potted plant on stage. The wonder that unfolds, then, is purely from the words that Scalzo has penned and delivers live in this one-man show. Scalzo stars as Luc, a man who works for a tech company that develops AI versions of loved ones for their clients. Employees are forbidden from using the technology themselves, but when we meet him, Luc is facing a tribunal for doing it anyway. Through this lens, we watch as he explains himself. Scalzo’s text is dense, quick, and complicated; he trusts that you are going to pay attention, and good luck if you don’t. Scalzo flits between four characters here, and while the delineations are mostly clear, there are some moments - for example, back-and-forth conversations - when a more defined difference could have been drawn. Sharper lighting may also have assisted with further distinguishing time and place.
While this play could have easily devolved into a think piece on what AI means to the world today, Scalzo has done something pretty remarkable and kept it far away from that. Instead, Luc uses the tech to navigate memories of an aunt who saw him for who he is - a queer man - because of who she was - a queer woman. But how much of that does he really remember, and what is the machine feeding him? How much of his humanity will he allow to sway his decision making, up to and including his own detriment? These are ambitious, heady topics that Scalzo dives into headfirst and alone on stage, examining a unique intersection of technology, humanity, and queer identity. An emotional epilogue strips away the artifice of theatrical trappings and gently, lovingly reminds the audience that if you can make an author fall in love with you, you’ll live forever.
The Orlando Fringe Festival is celebrating its 35th anniversary and runs through May 25. Show tickets (and Fringe Buttons, required for entry) are available at the multiple box offices on site or at the link below.
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