New Rochelle
New Rochelle
By John Ryan
Directed by Yvette Kojic
Randy Productions
Brown Venue
Orlando International Theater Fringe Festival, Orlando, FL</strong>
We are all heroes in our own estimation, and in the suburbs of New Rochelle, Vicky Wilson (Janine Kline) is no exception. Neither is the rest of her TV Perfect family – horny daughter Becky (Brittany Berkowitz), closeted son Lewis (John Ryan), or hubby Harold (Tim DeBaun) with his fetish for large black women. It takes a strong mother with a bottle of cheap chardonnay stashed in the laundry basket to keep them together. When your expectations are set by the CBS censor, you can’t have loose ends in your family story line. It’s a tough life, and as the stress builds, Vicky muses “Every dutiful wife occasionally contemplates fratricide.”
We watch “New Rochelle” reveling in the schadenfreude of this perfect family unraveling as each member pursues a goal that tears Vicky apart. Everyone travels their own Hero’s Journey from “Receiving the Call to Action” to “The Struggle in the Deepest Cave” to the “Return with an Elixir”. Too bad all these elixirs make for one big explosion at the climax. We laugh at these people, but they are really ourselves although that realization doesn’t hit you until you’re seated in the next show. Give this family a theme song of their own and a Tuesday 8 pm Eastern Time slot.
For more information on Randy Productions, please visit myspace.com/mypalbetteThis show is presented as part of the 17th Orlando International Fringe Theater Festival. Information on times, tickets, and venue location my be found at http://OrlandoFringe.org/ <p
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