Review: BREAKING BRAINS, TEA TIME, OZMA, and MORE at The Orlando Fringe Festival

BREAKING BRAINS: LEWD LESSONS IN POLYAMORY (1915 Ivanhoe)

Written and Performed by Dani Bloom (Miss Dana)

Directed by Moonlight Melancholy (Bri Joseph)

Listen up, students: class is in session. In a venue even more intimate than next door’s Savoy, Miss Dana (Dani Bloom) holds forth from her platform inside 1915 Ivanhoe. Accompanied on stage by only a chalkboard, Bloom’s strict mistress hands out “study guides” to the audience as they enter. As the title implies, what follows is an hour-long lesson on the ins and outs of polyamory and ethical non-monogamy. With a subject typically so taboo, there’s a refreshing sense of candor in Bloom’s discussion, particularly in the frankness and educational approach: alongside vocabulary, there’s informational anecdotes. There’s no sense of bashfulness whatsoever, a fact that reiterates Bloom’s expertise on the matter; she’s an easy-to-trust source on the topic on confidence alone. Periodically, the lecture is broken up by activities found within the study guide, emphasizing the “classroom” environment and preventing any monotony—not that there is any to be had here. In the latter half of the hour, Bloom relied heavily on a reference binder at her lectern, which is no crime by any means, especially for teacher; but she is at her strongest when stalking the stage and speaking directly to the audience with unabashed eye contact. Just be sure to raise your hand—and if you’re a really good, Miss Dana has a surprise for the Teacher’s Pet.

ERIKA MACDONALD: TEA TIME (Savoy Orlando)

Written and Performed by Erika MacDonald / Directed by Paul Strickland

Choreography by Genevieve Bernard

As she prepares one cup of tea (and then another, and then another, and then another) on stage, Erika MacDonald repeats several keen pieces of tea-making wisdom: “It doesn’t take forever, but it does take time.” “This might seem silly to you, but it matters to me.” Nestled within those phrases is much more sage wisdom and words to live by. TEA TIME begins as a simple, silly walkthrough on how to prepare a cup of tea—and believe it when you read that you will laugh. But as the brew continues to flow, MacDonald masterfully guides us through understanding that it is much deeper; this is not just about brewing tea. It is about the ritual. It is about the repetition. It is about the solace that both of those things bring when the world seems to have run out of convincing reasons to stick around. The show maintains a simple, earnest nature that deepens into an unembarrassed authenticity, invoking hearty laughter and tears in equal measure. With her incredibly polished performance, MacDonald manages to not only hit the same comic notes again and again, but to make them increasingly hilarious with each refrain; it’s all the more impressive when she then turns those notes on their heads to hit surprising emotional depths. Just don’t bring up coffee—it’s a bitter subject.

OZMA: A NEW MUSICAL (Peach Venue)

Score by Mikayla Thompson / Lyrics by Tyler Scott / Book by Bryan Jager & Tyler Scott

Direction by Tyler Scott / Choreography by Cherran Dea

There’s something magical about Oz that “friends of Dorothy” can’t quite get enough of; and perhaps that is why it provides such fertile ground for theatrical adaptation. In a spectacular production that features what is assuredly one of the higher budgets at this year’s festival, OZMA: A NEW MUSICAL brings us back to the merry old land after Dorothy’s departure. Tip, a down-trodden queer American teenager, is drawn into an Oz that is at another crisis point; the wicked witches are once again up to no good, and the only way to stop them is to find the long lost Princess Ozma. The plot of OZMA does not distinctly follow any one of the novels; Glinda is here, as are the Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow (now The Kings Of Emerald City)—but there’s also Locosta the Wise, Queen Lurline, Jack Pumpkinhead, Mombi, Blinkie, Scraps, Tik Tok…the list goes on. If your familiarity with Oz ends at the 1939 film (or with Wicked, for that matter) then the majority of the characters and lore will be new to you. Rather than alienating, it’s invigorating—this still feels like classic Oz. Thankfully, OZMA trusts itself to stand on its own and wisely refrains from meta references to the the 1939 film or Wicked whatsoever. The score is astoundingly well-developed for a fringe festival project and is sung beautifully by an exceedingly talented cast. (One wishes it was available for listening post-show; Tik Tok’s patter song would go triple platinum.) It would also be criminal not to mention the costume and set design here; again, punching way above its weight for a festival production. Like it always has, Oz once again serves as a lush backdrop to a story that centralizes on ideals of found family and belonging. There’s always been an undercurrent—or overcurrent—of queerness to the road of yellow brick and the city of emeralds, but OZMA brings that to the fore and drives home the point that for the LGBTQ+ community, there really is no place like home.

THE ONE WHO CALLS (Scarlet Venue)

Written and Directed by Bethany Dickens Assaf

Stepping into the Scarlet Venue for THE ONE WHO CALLS is stepping into a garage in the time of overhead projectors, landlines, and The Thing—if you’ve missed the pastiche of Stranger Things, you can find it here. Shawn is a closeted queer woman in rural Ohio who’s been hosting a public broadcasting show about UFOs and aliens for two years, taking call-ins from the community as she tries to remain a true believer herself despite never having had an actual experience. When a mysterious caller mentions information that Shawn doesn’t remember sharing with even a single person, it sets of a series of escalating events in this sci-fi drama. The production makes excellent use of the space provided, filling the stage with loaded shelves and an over-loaded desk. Callers are cleverly seated among the audience, ringing handheld bicycle bells as they phone in to Shawn’s show. There’s a sense of propulsion to the show in the first half, as the mystery is primarily focused upon the cosmos; but when the drama begins to focus on more terrestrial things, the script wanes. A few exposition-heavy exchanges force the actors to unnaturally shoehorn backstory into their phone conversations and break the conceit of a television show that’s live on the air. Much to their credit, Assaf keeps us wondering, even after bows, if any of the encounters that we hear about were real—many are disproven, but not all. Despite an ending that is a little bit “out there”, THE ONE WHO CALLS is still a fine hour of retro sci-fi for any fan of the genre.

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