"Hope Is the Saddest" at The New York International Fringe Festival
“Hope Is the Saddest” Written and Directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler Reviewed by David Roberts, Chief Critic Theatre Reviews Limited
Hope (Michelle Robin Anderson) has Dolly Parton: all of Dolly’s songs are catalogued in her brain ready for retrieval at a speed that matches the fastest external hard drive. Jeffrey (Jeffrey Jay Fowler) has a somewhat boyfriend and a Zen-filled imagination. Marion (Natalie Holmwood) has a new home named Abigail and a hot car. And yet, all three seem to be living lonely lives of desperation.
These three lives intersect serendipitously at an intersection when and where Marion hits Jeffrey as he is crossing the intersection and Hope takes him home to bandage and badger him with offers of love. Marion visits Hope longing for human contact. Unfortunately, Jeffrey’s uncertainties make him vulnerable to Hope’s advances and he “experiments” with heterosexuality in a somewhat bizarre and/or surreal tryst with Marion whom he encounters at the aforementioned intersection at a later time.
Hope is the saddest when it is up against delusion, Karma and other attempts to explain the universe, and against coming to terms with who one is and being able to accept who others truly are. Jeffrey Jay Fowler’s well-constructed play explores the sadness of hope by relating “little cuts of reality” in which individuals desperately want to and need to connect to someone on some meaningful level but cannot do so because one of the parties is incapable of acceptance of who the other is.
The characters in “Hope Is the Saddest” are, of course, archetypes and symbols of those things that we all need to address on our journeys and intersections and serendipitous encounters: hope can be as hurtful as it is uplifting. Self-doubt and attempts to love others with condition and judgment conflict with acceptance of self and the other. And delusional thinking is not only problematic but potentially dangerous for persons and for nation-states.
The saddest thing is that Jeffrey allowed himself to doubt his sexual status because of the inappropriate intrusiveness of the heteronormative culture Hope insists be his as well. Jeffrey Jay Fowler embodies his character’s struggle with grace and intuitive power and that character’s death is salvific and redemptive. Hopefully Hope’s Dolly-hood and Marion’s coarse self-absorption won’t snare others into their webs of delusive loneliness. Kudos also to Michelle Robin Anderson and Natalie Holmwood who, with Jeffrey Jay Fowler, create characters capable of bringing the conflicts of this remarkable play to life.
HOPE IS THE SADDEST
Presented by Mythophobic and The Blue Room in association with The New York International Fringe Festival. Written and directed by Jeffrey Jay Fowler. Stage and production management by Emily Stokoe.
CREATED AND PERFORMED BY: Michelle Robin Anderson, Jeffrey Jay Fowler, and Natalie Holmwood.
All performances take place at The First Floor Theatre @ La MaMa, 74 East 4th Street (between Bowery and 2nd Avenue). Tickets are available at www.fringenyc.org or 866-468-7619. $15 in advance, $18 at the door. Senior and Fringe Junior tickets available at the door for $10. Running time: 1 hour with no intermission.
Remaining Show Dates Saturday, August 18th @ 5:15 pm Sunday, August 19th @ 7:45 pm Wednesday, August 22nd @ 2:00 pm Friday, August 24th @7:00 pm
Permalink | Posted by David Roberts on Friday, August 17, 2012
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