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FronteraFest Long Fringe 2011 Review: HOWL at Blue Theater
Theresa Harrison promised that her 60-minute adaptation of Ginsberg's Howl for Carl Solomon appearing in Frontera Fest’s Long Fringe festival was "not an homage, but a portal." The performance was supposed to transport the audience and be as free as beat poetry, as dangerous as insanity and as unstable as time. The source material is as powerful today as ever (been a while? treat yourself!), which is why the poem’s flat staging was particularly disappointing.
The bulk of HOWL was an admittedly dynamic and moving reading of the poem in full, but it’s not supposed to be a simple homage. Maybe the portal was the woman with the gong sitting on the side of the stage wearing a gas mask? Maybe it was the legitimately impressive bassist who lent the show its most kinetic element? Maybe it was the equally impressive, near-full bottle of wine that Harrison chugged during the performance? But besides one segment about time and the fourth dimension that included plastic Godzillas and ping pong balls that was a good idea with blurry execution, this was the simplest and purest form of homage: what it lacks in ambition it makes up for in enthusiasm.
Harrison is charismatic and energetic. Her love of Ginsberg’s work is infectious and endearing. Her vision for staging his poem is, as of right now, a little incomplete. It's not exactly a portal, but if you would like to see a (very good!) reading of the poem, you can still catch a mini version at the short fringe.
