Two of the wildest, most unique and entertaining shows play their last performances this weekend. If you want to see the quintessence of NOLA quirkiness, you’ll want to catch them before they’re gone!
The Night Fiona Flawless Went Mad at The AllWays Lounge through October 14
Trey Ming’s musical The Night Fiona Flawless Went Mad has triumphantly returned to The AllWays Lounge where it premiered five years ago. When it debuted in 2019, I wrote admiringly that “if it started off as mere camp, by the end, the show had deepened into an acute portrait of a troubled soul.” With a new cast it starts off less campy than before and finishes on a happier, more upbeat note, but provides just as much gender-bending theatrical pleasure now as it did originally.
Fiona Flawless tells the tale of a gorgeous drag queen, Fiona, who has turned herself in for a double homicide; she and her psychiatrist then search for why she did what she did. The answer involves a volatile love triangle, but to disclose more than that could involve spoilers and I wouldn’t want to lessen any bit of the mystery that Ming has crafted so well.
What I can say is that Fiona Flawless addresses complexities of gender and identity in not your typical ways, always a plus. And that Ming playfully incorporates neologisms like “bakeress” and “fornicatoress” (or was it “fornicatress”?)). And that as playwright as well as director, Ming encourages his cast to break the fourth wall–sometimes scripted, sometimes not–to deliciously fun effect.
Ming has provided a score of 10 songs with intricate melodies that seemingly feel like they arise organically from the characters and their situations rather than being superimposed on them willy-nilly as is the case in so many musicals these days including quite a few award-winning ones. For example, in Fiona’s second act, My Kitchen is a fabulous spat for two divas that would not be out of place in a Handel opera as two of his warring queens go at each other.
The cast of four (Laveau Contraire, Prince Octavian, Bette Tittler, Malakani Severson) whether singing solo, in duets or group numbers, all deliver beautiful vocals that allow the audience to hear all of Ming’s witty, intelligent lyrics.
The cast of The Night Fiona Flawless Went Mad (l.-r., Bette Tittler, Malakani Severson, Laveau Contraire, Prince Octavian)
As director, Ming’s work is serviceable; especially at the start, too many static moments occurred and he has a tendency to just line his players up along the setting. I think perhaps bringing someone else in to helm the show might allow for some constructive sharpening, but that would be up to Ming. In any case, he keeps the pace flowing and extracts topnotch performances from his cast.
Bedecked in diamonds and looking utterly glamourous, Contraire, one of NOLA’s top tier drag performers, proves she can do more, much more, than lip sync, dance, and reveal layer after layer of wigs & outfits (which is already quite the grand achievement). In Fiona, not only does she display a lovely and powerful singing voice, but great talent as an actress and comedienne, knowingly and expertly walking the fine line between sincerity and irony.
As Fiona’s psychiatrist Dr. Fiddle (or is it “Piddle”?), Prince Octavian, looking a bit like Kate McKinnon as Rudy Giuliani on Saturday Night Live, slyly embodies an older, tweedy sort of man without ever overdoing it, and scores with a terrific aria about sexual confusion. The Prince is quite an adept ad libber as well.
Tittler and Severson both could’ve projected a bit more at the start, but as their characters–on-again, off-again lovers–develop, the two actors come into their own, best seen in a delightful number, What People Need.
There were some technical glitches with the lights and sound system the night I saw the show and I have some dramaturgical quibbles with the book; it’s a bit of a mishigas. Its singularly engaging story, however, holds your attention, more than can be said about a lot of recent musicals, while its buoyant, sophisticated score and off-kilter sensibility struck me as a cross between two off-Broadway hits, The Fantastiks and Vampire Lesbians of Sodom.
So The Night Fiona Flawless Went Mad may not be flawless…but it’s pretty darn close.
[More info and tickets at https://tockify.com/allwayslounge/detail/3717/1728345600000/2]
Evil Dead 2: Drowned by Dawn at The Midtown Hotel through October 12
If The Night Fiona Flawless Went Mad represents a jewel box, small-scale approach to successful theater-making, Aqua Mob’s Evil Dead 2: Drowned by Dawn employs the opposite, and equally valid, more is more philosophy.
Aqua Mob, New Orleans’ first and only community-based water ballet ensemble, was forced by various, nearly last-minute circumstances to move from The Drifter Hotel, their home of the past several years, a few blocks down Tulane Avenue to The Midtown Hotel. While an unanticipated challenge, it proved to be a blessing.
The Midtown offers more space and a larger pool, allows for the audience to have better sightlines, and has enabled Aqua Mob to utilize much better lighting which they, under the auspices of Lighting Designer Philip Stalcup, have taken full advantage of; think rock concert arena quality (sometimes blindingly so).
Having enjoyed, immensely, Aqua Mob’s previous two presentations, adaptations of Alien and Carrie, this year’s production occupies a class of its own. For if Alien and Carrie can be considered horror movies, each has serious undertones; something over-the-top like Evil Dead 2, on the other hand, can’t be taken too seriously to begin with and so turns out to be the perfect match for Aqua Mob’s cheeky aesthetic.
Writer William Hudson has pared the script down to under an hour (with intermission, the show runs just 75 minutes), keeping the original’s highlights and making room for numerous, fabulous water ballet numbers. Just as important, while I’m not sure how much of the dialogue comes from the movie and how much is Hudson’s own invention, lines like “I felt like I was going thru puberty again” to describe a battle with the evil forces imbue Drowned by Dawn with a knowing archness.
For those not familiar with the classic Sam Raimi film, in Evil Dead 2, S-Mart employee Ash is once again battling demons in a cabin in the woods first with his girlfriend Linda, then with Annie the now-adult daughter of the cabin’s previous owners who left a book of magic spells (or something like that) in the basement. It may help to know the movie but it’s not really necessary as it quickly becomes clear that anyone who pushes “Play” on the cassette recorder that’s lying around is going to regret it.
I’m afraid the foregoing may make Evil Dead 2: Drowned by Dawn sound a tad dry. Trust me, it’s not. In fact, it’s one of the wildest evenings of theater I’ve ever experienced in NOLA. Hudson has directed the show so that it just keeps topping itself with effects and moments that have to be seen to be believed.
Cast members of Evil Dead 2: Drowned by Dawn with the band Bomb Pulse behind them
So out of nowhere (but why not, eh?) comes a trapeze aerial ballet thrillingly performed by Hilary Neeb. There’s a talking deer head. And did I mention the ballet for lampshade, microwave oven, and bearskin rug to David Bowie’s Let’s Dance? For most of Drowned by Dawn, I had a wicked grin on my face marveling at Aqua Mob’s sheer theatrical brilliance and ingenuity.
Maya Tawato’s imaginatively designed costumes range from tear-away shorts to a full body suit of a risen-from-the-dead soul whose guts are hanging out. The band Bomb Pulse, wearing skeleton outfits, tears through over a dozen numbers of classic pop/rock hits as well as some original numbers.
Not unlike Laveau Contraire, while Hudson’s rendering of Ash borders on camp, he wisely keeps it real for maximum dramatic and comic effect, as do Brittany Siddell as Linda and Elizabeth Collins as Annie whose performances also include swimming, expertly; I’d like to see Sigourney Weaver or Sissy Spacek do that! Hudson also supplies terrific fight choreography which adds to theexcitement of Evil Dead 2.
As for the water ballets, with 7 listed choreographers and 17 Water Ballerinas/Ballerinos who appear in various combinations, I’m not sure who did what, but each year this corps de ballet has noticeably become more professional, more disciplined, and has sharpened its overall technique. And even when the Aqua Mobbers coordination is a bit off, it’s still so much bloody fun!
For 75 minutes of devilish merriment and an “Only in NOLA” experience at its finest, walk, run, swim or fly to The Midtown Hotel.
[Tickets and more info at https://aquamobnola.com/main/]
