Fringe Festival NYC - The Boy in The Basement
Oscar E Moore from the rear mezzanine for Talk Entertainment.com
This is a very funny, well written, tongue in cheek satire of a show by Katharine Heller and directed with just the right touch by Nell Balaban. Romance novels are widely read. They are big business. Lots of lonely women looking to find true love and hot sex between the pages cannot get enough. So the genre is ripe for satire. And Ms. Heller is the right person to do it. She has a good ear for dialogue and her descriptive passages are a hoot. A wonderful spoof is the result. And what a delight it is seeing females in hot pursuit and hearing the florid language and frequent sex scenes being enacted by a group of fine actors who take this drama quite seriously so that we can laugh ourselves silly at their antics.
Nick Fondulis, narrator, sitting at a desk with plumed pen in hand has an idea for an “untitled romance novel” but he immediately decides to change his “nom de plume” to that of – Catherine DuCheval, describing the bizarre events of a weekend in an Off-Campus College House that is shared by four bizarre women: Xandra, a Venezuelean spitfire (Katharine Heller – the real author who has written herself one of the funniest lines in the show) – Anna, an innocent cook and virgin (Meghan Powe) – Clarissa (Lynn Rosenberg) resident slut and Aurora (Anna Stumpf) resident hippie. The house is broken into by studly Lance Speedworth (Tom Macy) and he is caught in the act. The girls decide not to call the police but to make Lance their sex slave – the boy in the basement. So much for the plot.
What follows is a series of hysterical scenes in which each girl has a go at Lance. And at each other. It is hot and sweaty and down and dirty time. All the while having our narrator fill in gaps and deliver their thoughts and feelings interspersed with some original music (Jon Quinn) that highlights the emotional impact which they are trying to achieve. The high point of the show is the lingering kiss between Anna (the virgin) and Lance (the hunk) which seemingly goes on forever while the author describes it in every way possible. It is an aria – delivered to perfection by Nick Fondulis.
There are many unexpected surprises as the story unravels. But there is a new character introduced far into the show – which seems unnecessary and might be better off cut. Michael Solis is the unfortunate Randy. But he then returns as Felipe, Xandra’s ex-boyfriend and he is terrific. All the girls are strong and funny. But the star is the hunk. Tom Macy has the right look and the right sound and the right delivery. You can see why all of them would want to get into his trousers. He also has an innocence and sincerity about him that makes his character all the more interesting. He is the ideal romance novel hero. Go and see what all the excitement is about.
www.TheBoyInTheBasement.com
08-12-08
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