Fragment(ed)
Fragment(ed) Written and Directed by John DiDonna
Music by Todd Kimbro
Choreography by Mila Makarova
Fight Choreography by Bill Warriner
Empty Spaces Ensemble
Lowndes Shakespeare Center, Orlando Florida</strong>
Tonight is all about love and kittens and things going from bad to worse until there’s only one way to end the relation: Rapiers at dawn. The Empty Space mob comes together tonight in torn jeans and torn hearts to act out the reality of love degrading like a bottle of organic localvor goat milk going bad when left on the counter when you went camping. It’s little “My Fair Lady” and a lot of “West Side Story” with a loose narrative based on the twelve stations of the lovers cross. Couples form and separate fluidly, the romance ebbs and then flows, and the motion ranges from classic ballet and modern dance to the very actorly blocking you might use for a short play festival. While Todd Kimbro’s music fills the air and projections screens cue the scenes, there are some interesting attacks on the issues at hand. Chris Prueitt and Cameron Gagne fight over the remote control as foreplay, Gina Makarova plays the collateral damage child swinging on a hula hoop in the rafters and Parris Baker stumbles over his own name in the pursuit of a casual pick up. Some of the dancers I’ve not seen since the last Voci event, and some actors I never knew could dance. Overall Fragment(ed) is a curious show, sometimes predictable, sometimes innovative, but always full of emotion and charged with a sexual tension. I liked the back half of the show better than the first; the descent into hell offers so many more pathways than the arrival in heaven and there’s never any sword play on a first date.
For more information on Empty Spaces Theater Company, visit http://www.emptyspacestheatre.org or search for them on Facebook
