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David reviews "A Page of Madness," "Coffee With God," and "The Last Five Years"

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What better way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon than in a Japanese madhouse? That is the setting for "KuruttaIppeji," or "A Page of Madness," a recently discovered silent film from 1926 by the Japanese director Teinosuke Kinugasa. It was presented on September 21 in the Eastman School of Music's Kilbourn Hall with a live percussion accompaniment composed by William Cahn and performed by ensemble including the composer, his wife Ruth Cahn, Eastman professors John Beck and Michael Burritt, and RPO percussionist Brian Stotz.

Part realistic and part hallucinatory, the hour-long film is still a wild, haunting ride; Cahn said beforehand that it takes 10 viewings to fully understand it, and I believe him. The music was extremely effective and beautifully integrated with the film; hearing this huge percussion band positively erupt during two of the film's violent scenes was quite an experience. "A Page of Madness" was only performed once at the Fringe Festival, but check it out if it shows up here again.

"A Page of Madness" - PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • "A Page of Madness"
"A Page of Madness" - PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • "A Page of Madness"
"A Page of Madness" - PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • "A Page of Madness"
"A Page of Madness" - PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • "A Page of Madness"


The Fringe Festival is the perfect place for "Coffee With God," a charming and heartfelt one-acter by Kal Wagenheim, directed by Diane Mashia. The main character, Kal (Stephen Cena), does get his chance to have coffee with God (Stephanie Sheak), and ask the deity a few questions about his life and about his parents: a mother (Kate Osher) who died shortly after he was born, and a father (Tom Bigongiari) who was out of the picture before that. There is also a waitress, played by Colleen DiVincenzo. God turns out to be quite approachable, even she occasionally has to Google certain details of people's lives, and helps Kal to find some closure with his parents. The cast is uniformly good, and Cena is particularly great, bringing depth and honest emotion to a character that could easily be a cliché.

"Coffee With God" will be performed again on Tuesday, September 23, at Writers & Books. 9 p.m. $12.

"Coffee with God" - PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • PHOTO BY MARK CHAMBERLIN
  • "Coffee with God"

Jason Robert Brown's "The Last Five Years" is one of the most-produced recent musicals, and it's not difficult to see why: it's ingenious, extremely musical and emotional, and offers a cast of only two, although the two have roles that most younger singing actors would kill for. The pair play Brown -- here named Jamie -- and his first wife Cathy. In this recent JCC Centerstage production revived for the Fringe Festival, they're played splendidly by Carl Del Buono and Janine Mercandetti. The show is a song cycle about their five-year long marriage, which begins with high hopes but is derailed when Jamie's writing career takes off and Cathy's acting career is permanently stalled. (By the way, he's Jewish and she is, to quote one of the songs, a "shiksa goddess.")

The ingenuity is in the way Brown tells the story: husband and wife alternate, with the husband starting at the beginning and moving to the bitter end, while the wife starts with their divorce and ends at the beginning of their relationship, happy and hopeful. Brown's songs run the gamut from laugh-filled to lacerating, and Del Buono and Mercandetti act and sing the hell out of them. "The Last Five Years" would be even more powerful in a smaller venue than Xerox Auditorium, but it would be a highlight of the Fringe Festival no matter where it was playing.

"The Last Five Years" will be performed again on Saturday, September 27, at The TheatreROCS Stage at Xerox Auditorium. 9 p.m. $16.


Excerpts from "The Last Five Years" at Xerox Auditorium | Video shot & edited by Matt DeTurck

In This Guide...

  • Rebecca reviews "The Steele Sisters: Comedy Sword-Fighting Show" and "The Nameless Days of Gumdrop Smith"

    The two ladies who comprise "The Steele Sisters: Comedy Sword-Fighting Show" gave the kind of playful, riotous performance that makes you wish they were your buddies. Gwendolyn and Gertrude Steele, dressed in fanciful layers of medieval garb, took the stage at Blackfriars Theatre and revved the audience into a participatory frenzy with a few playful false-starts before actually beginning the show.

  • Frank reviews Hopeless Romantic

    The term hopeless romantic makes about as much sense to me as the phrase guilty pleasure. If you're a romantic then you're far from hopeless.

  • Rebecca reviews "The Steele Sisters: Comedy Sword-Fighting Show" and "The Nameless Days of Gumdrop Smith"

    The two ladies who comprise "The Steele Sisters: Comedy Sword-Fighting Show" gave the kind of playful, riotous performance that makes you wish they were your buddies. Gwendolyn and Gertrude Steele, dressed in fanciful layers of medieval garb, took the stage at Blackfriars Theatre and revved the audience into a participatory frenzy with a few playful false-starts before actually beginning the show.

  • Rebecca reviews "My Name is Rachel Corrie"

    MuCCC hosted an important work of art the past two nights. The one-woman show, "My Name is Rachel Corrie," chronicles the life of a young American Peace Activist who traveled to Gaza in 2003 with the International Solidarity Movement to defend Palestinian homes from being demolished.

  • Rebecca reviews "Merely Players"

    The Sunday, September 21, performance of "Merely Players" felt a bit rushed, as though there was too much content for the hour-long performance. The small troupe flew through one select scene from each of several of Shakespeare's more popular plays, which at times included masks, pantomime, and puppetry.

  • Adam reviews "Vintage Hitchcock," "Solo Drum Solo," and "God of Carnage"

    Screen Plays' performance of "Vintage Hitchcock" got my afternoon off to a great start. A packed crowd filled the Dryden Theatre, eager to experience the old-timey goodness of a live radio play -- and the performers more than delivered.

  • Adam reviews the RIT School of Film and Animation Student Honors Show and "Trending"

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  • David reviews "W.A.C. Iraq" and "Bernhardt on Broadway"

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  • Jake reviews Sound ExChange

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  • Casey reviews PUSH Physical Theatre and "Germination"

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  • Frank reviews The Younger Gang

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  • Frank reviews "Dead Dames Don't Dance"

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  • Casey reviews Sisters of Murphy and "Unbridled"

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  • David reviews "SaMe SeX sHaKeSpEaRe" 2014

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  • Photos from Canary in a Coal Mine, Silent Disco, and "Divas"

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  • Frank reviews perCepTION

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  • Rebecca reviews Cirque du Fringe

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  • Photos from "The Cougar & the Cabana Boy"

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  • Adam reviews "Dashboard Dramas"

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  • FRINGE FEST 2014: City's Daily Fringe Blogs

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