Marathon Theater + Sugary Cereal = A Good Way To Spend a Sunday

Madeleine Bundy as Kapow-i GoGo, Photo credit: Crystal Arnette

I often joke that the perfect run time is 75–90 minutes with no intermission. But as much as I love getting home at a decent hour, I honestly think that a show should be as long as it takes to tell the story well. I also love marathon theater. There's something fulfilling about spending the day with the same audience members, getting to know characters over a long period of time. So I happily sat through four-and-a-half hours of Kapow-i GoGo on Sunday. Based on anime and video games, Kapow-i GoGo is broken down into three parts (each is about 60-75 minutes, so it falls into my perfect run time), each further separated into three episodes. There are three-minute breaks between each episode and fifteen-minute breaks between each part, enough time to grab some free sugary cereal and candy, so you can really feel like a kid watching Saturday morning cartoons.

The saga starts with our blue-haired heroine, Kapow-i GoGo (Madeleine Bundy), at 14 as she heads with her brother, Hiccup (Michael Axelrod), and teacher, Master Masterwhiskies (Hank Lin), to a tournament to determine the World's Greatest Fighter. She even has a kick-ass theme song, written by Brian Hoes. The episodes get darker as she grows into adulthood and continuously has to save the world. She also falls in love, and not to give away too much, but it's refreshing to see a love story between two women treated so naturally.

Although I've played a lot of Super Mario Bros. in my day, I'm not as well-versed in anime and was worried that I wouldn't understand a lot of the references, but it didn't really matter. It helped that my plus one is a Pokémon fan and explained a lot of the inside jokes I missed, but the story by Matt Cox works on its own. As solely a parody, it would probably get old after an hour, but I grew to really care about the characters. A lot of this is in the writing, but also in the multi-layered performances that co-directors Kristin McCarthy Parker and Joel Soren get out of the entire cast.

Karsten Otto and Matt Cox as Mr. Smiles and Mr. Snuggles, better known as Team Trouble
Photo credit: Eleanor Philips

Bundy is both sweet and tough as Kapow-i and believably plays every age. Josh Boerman and Soren's perfect costumes also subtly change as she gets older. It truly is an ensemble piece, but I had particular affinity for Team Trouble, made up of Mr. Smiles (Karsten Otto) and Mr. Snuggles (Cox), often the comic relief, but also surprisingly moving in their friendship. And Evan Maltby broke my heart a few times as Tuxedo Gary, Kapow-i's insecure "rival since they were both babies."

Your next chance to see Kapow-i GoGo is Sunday, June 20th at 1 p.m. at the PIT. Tickets are $30 for the whole marathon and are available here, so go (go).

Two Shocking Plays Written 400 Years Apart

In December, I wrote a blog post for Theasy.com about how I was unsettled (in a good way) by a lot of theater I had been seeing. This week I have two plays to add to the list of shows that shocked and disturbed me and they were written nearly 400 years apart: John Ford's 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and Belarus Free Theatre's Trash Cuisine. (It's a good thing I split them up with the lighthearted Something Rotten! You can read my review of that show on Theasy.com.)

Amelia Pedlow, Franchelle Stewart Dorn, and Matthew Amendt in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore
Photo credit: Richard Termine

If you've never had a chance to see 'Tis Pity, Red Bull Theater's production at The Duke on 42nd Street is worth checking out. This play written in the 1630s has more incest and gore than an episode of Bates Motel. Giovanni (Matthew Amendt) and Annabella (Amelia Pedlow) are in love, but they happen to be brother and sister. The press release asks, "What if Romeo and Juliet were brother and sister?" Similarities to the work of Ford's predecessor William Shakespeare extend past the star-crossed lovers plot and include poetic language and a foolish comic relief character, in this case Bergetto (Ryan Garbayo). Jesse Berger's direction makes it easy to follow the various twists and turns (Giovanni and Annabella live in Parma surrounded by a lot of questionable people).

As fascinated as I was by the play, I felt detached from it--observing it from a distance but not able to connect to the characters. Still, I had to shield my eyes from the bloody bodies piling up at the end. And that is light entertainment compared to what the audience at La Mama has to endure during Trash Cuisine.

Belarus Free Theatre was founded in 2005 by Nicolai Khalezin and Natalia Kaliada, who conceived this play, the company's first English work. In 2011, they found out that if they returned to Belarus, they would be imprisoned. They sought political asylum in the U.K. and now have permanent residence in London and Minsk.

Belarus is the last continent in Europe where capital punishment is legal and Trash Cuisine uses food to tell various stories about capital punishment from around the world. It is an attack on the eyes, ears, and nose. For example, we smell meat cooking as one actor describes an extremely horrific act during the Rwandan genocide and in another scene we hear a horribly loud sound simulating an electric chair. In contrast, there are moments of genuine beauty by choreographer Bridget Fiske.

I am in awe of the cast and honestly have no idea how they perform this show. I know they are acting, but some moments of brutality felt so real. They all deserved to be mentioned by name: Victoryia Biran, Kiryl Kanstantsinau, Siarhei Kvachonak, Esther Mugambi, Stephanie Pan, Pavel Radak-Haradnitski, Maryia Sazonava, Philippe Spall, and Arkadiy Yashin.

As much as I wanted to leave the theater at times, I'm glad I stuck it out. Sometimes we need a reminder of the horrors going on in the world.

'Tis Pity She's a Whore runs through May 16. Trash Cuisine runs through May 17.