My third day at the Rochester Fringe Festival was a wet and
wild one; throughout the course of my time at the festival, rain, chlorinated
water, and blood poured down on me at one point or another. My first stop was
an afternoon performance of “Hot Tub: The Musical.” A small tent located
in the corner of the Spiegelgarden houses this
enjoyable musical revue, which uses a simple framing story to hang a few catchy
musical numbers. Writer Abby DeVuyst (in a role she
alternates with co-writer, Kerry Young) portrays a lounge singer performing a
floor show in the bowels of a Hilton hotel. Her musical stylings repeatedly
interrupted by various guests as they arrive to use the hotel’s spa facilities.
Those guests include a bawdy sister act; a matching making father, his
college-aged daughter, and the dissatisfied businessman unlucky enough to join
them; and finally a frisky newlywed couple. It’s all in good, goofy fun, and
the crowd ate it up (performances have a tendency to attract crowds of curious
onlookers, leading DeVuyst to ingeniously start
passing around a tip jar). But be warned: you will get wet.
“Hot Tub: The Musical” will be performed again Monday,
September 21, Friday, September 25, and Saturday, September 26, in the Spiegelgarden. Only the 1:30 p.m. and 3 p.m. shows on
Saturday, September 26, have tickets still available. $12. Appropriate for ages
13 and older.
Throughout Method Machine’s ghoulishly delightful “ShakesBLOOD,” there’s a repeated demand for “more
blood!” and — armed with an arsenal of blood-filled squeeze bottles, water
balloons, and squirt guns — the cast more than honors the request. Smashing
together the bloodiest scenes from the works of William Shakespeare, the show
is performed on the outside patio of Abilene and the informal setting suits the
show’s deliberately low-tech, shabby-chic vibe. But what the show lacks in
production value, the cast more than makes up for in enthusiasm. The location
does occasionally make it a bit hard for those seated in the back to hear the
soliloquies, though that may be because the performance I attended happened to
occur on a particularly windy night.
“ShakesBLOOD” plays fast and loose
with the Bard’s text, working in a couple of brief musical numbers and some
relevant trivia between all the iambic pentameters. The highlights for me were
the repeated appearances of Macbeth (Tracy Chang) and his Lady (Heather Rene,
walking off with the entire show), here reimagined as Guido royalty. Even if
the audience didn’t get quite as drenched as I’d been hoping, (a fact director
David Henderson attributed to a faulty blood cannon — and is there any more
tantalizing prospect than live theater featuring a blood cannon?), everyone
still seemed to have a great time. And hopefully that cannon will be fixed in
time for the next performance.
“ShakesBLOOD” will be performed
again on Saturday, September 26, at Abilene Bar and Lounge. 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. $10-$13.
Appropriate for ages 13 and older.
This article appears in Sep 16-22, 2015.
