AGAINST MY WILL (Robert Faires, Austin Chronicle)

Fri, 2 Feb 2007 08:40:23 -0600

A young woman alone in a spotlight, seated on the floor, hugging her knees. From the darkness around her comes ragged breathing. Then the breathing builds into harsh, rasping sounds, and four figures can be glimpsed crawling on the bellies toward her. They reach for her and nudge her, like late-night creep-show creatures, and she recoils.

This opening image of Against My Will – stark, focused, fraught with tension – lays out the fundamentals of what humdrum collective is about: tightly drawn theatrical presentations pulled from basic stage elements and crafted by a team of intrepid young collaborators with imagination, guts, and precision. And that's what keeps your eyes riveted on the stage. The script – a fantasia inside the mind of that girl in the light, who's desperately seeking meaning from existence – is somewhat dense, with the four figures, who appear to represent four aspects of her life, assaulting her with anecdotes and epigrams. Daniel J. Houston's writing, while undeniably intelligent and chewy with language, suffers from the feeling that it's continually circling itself rather than moving forward. Still, the actors give it their all, and with just a ladder, a wheelchair, an apple, and that rope, they and director Erin Meyer deliver a consistently inventive and captivating ensemble work.
– Robert Faires

THE DANGERS OF TOBACCO (Barry Pineo, Austin Chronicle)

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 09:09:43 -0600

While a bit of time has passed, the new year is still fresh, and few artistic endeavors are fresher than the FronteraFest Short Fringe, which each year offers a novel dose of the now with new works, or at least new performances, from the abundant talent that calls Central Texas home. While in the past each evening of the Short Fringe offered five different works to savor, the recent spate of wet and frigid weather that forced the cancellation of the first two nights of this year's fest meant six pieces were offered to the packed Hyde Park Theatre on Friday, Jan. 19. If you're lucky, you might get an extra one on the evening you attend.
The first offering was Noel Gaulin in Anton Chekhov's "The Dangers of Tobacco." Ostensibly a lecture on the insidious weed, Gaulin spent much of his time amusingly setting up a microphone and then proceeding to twitch and strain and complain, mostly about his wife, accompanied by the more often than not raucous laughter of the assembled crowd. . . .

-Barry Pineo

PAST PRESENT FUTURE TENSE (Heather Barfield Cole, Austin Chronicle)

Fri, 27 Jan 2006 11:51:07 -0600

Humdrum collective offers Past Present Future Tense, a movement and text piece about a couple experiencing growing pains and doubts as they reveal the infidelities, lies, and love in their relationship. A cardboard box sits center stage. A whistle from offstage suggests we have entered the play's aesthetic atmosphere. Man (Noel Gaulin) in tuxedo briskly passes from one stage corner to another. He arranges more cardboard boxes in the space. More whistling, then She (Erin Meyer) surprises by popping out of a box. The duo judiciously explore spaces far and wide on stage, opening themselves as vulnerable but nimble dancers of emotional turbulence. Experiments with nonlinear plot through distortions of time and place merge smoothly into a climax of breakage and rupture. Man and Woman destroy the flimsy foundations they have built together by angrily collapsing boxes, gorging on liquor, and aggressive thrusts and forward bends. Using gesture and stillness in physical exploration of pain and passion, humdrum accomplishes the innovation and adventure expected from a fringe festival piece.
- Heather Barfield Col