Chronicles of Death
6:15 PM, Fri., 2/27
7:30 PM, Wed., 3/4
7:30 PM, Fri., 3/6
Ashtree Studios (1035 N. Fulton St.)
$4
Come along on a journey with Death himself. Experience the full spectrum of death. There’ll be bad language, suicide and even some nudity. What’s the worst that could happen?
The People Next Door
www.myspace.com/thepeoplenextdoortheatreco
Fresno, California
Genre:Dark Comedy
Rating: R 45 minutes
Partial nudity, adult language, drugs and alcohol
Latecomers admitted
Filed under: 2/27 Friday, 3/4 Wednesday, 3/6 Friday, Ashtree Studios
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4 Responses to “Chronicles of Death”
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* The Rogue celebrates the freedom of expression and we encourage you to review as many shows as you can catch at Rogue 2009. However, "flaming" (i.e. personal insults, name calling, etc) are not reviews and any such comments will be deleted.
February 16th, 2009 at 2:33 am
I can’t wait for this show, it’s going to be great.
February 24th, 2009 at 7:37 pm
I cant wait, I want to see this show, looks funny as hell.
March 5th, 2009 at 1:23 am
Marcel Nunis, the creator of the Rogue, also created something else, a marketing program called BITS = “Butts In Seats.”
The People Next Door acting troupe has followed Marcel’s BITS manual to the letter: Do whatever it takes to fill the house. Here they promise drugs, alcohol, suicide, death (of course), and partial nudity. I don’t want to spoil anything, but just let me say if you come solely for any of those items, you’ll be sorely disappointed.
What this gang of friends has done is the local Rogue ideal: Say “Hey, the Rogue is coming up, let’s put on a show for it! I’ve got an idea!” It’s the same foundation of “Cupid is a B*tch,” and “Spider Baby, The Musical.” Write an original work, rehearse it with your friends, and put it on for an audience.
Where Spider Baby fails due to poor talent and direction, and Cupid succeeds thanks to trial and error and friendly wit, ‘Chronicles of Death’ falls to the lower end. Basically it’s a set of blackout scenes (sans any blackouts, which leads the viewer jarred as to when anything is over or beginning. Very Brechtian without meaning to be). Each of the scenes follows a fun filled portrayal of Grim D. Reaper as he goes about his chores.
The concept and performances are high-school level, and the performers, while quite attractive, are clearly amateurs. They did the right thing by making this a Cafe venue show, not claiming to be a mainstage type show. So given that it’s locals trying very hard, who have written a full script, come up with some cute concepts, have rehearsed the show, and do the best they can with zero budget, I applaud them for thier efforts. Death himself is portrayed by the young man who brought his tale of testicular cancer to the Rogue (which he survived…irony?), and he’s quite likable to watch here.
There are four young lady performers and one young man, each tossed into different near-death or death situations, and in each one they get to actually interact with Grim himself. The dialogue probably reads better than it sounds acted out, but there are some nice enough concepts here. The performers are all quite appealing and, as stated, attractive. Then there’s one character who does set changes throughout in the same outfit, sort of an “Igor” personality to me, who finally plays a part in the ‘final’ scene.
In the performance I saw, there was no curtain call, and we didn’t know the show had ended until the Rogue host thanked us for coming. I don’t know if any of this was intended, but it was jarring and again, didn’t work for me. Also, if you plan to see this show, you need to sit in the first two rows. Ashtree doesn’t have a raised stage, and these performers do a lot of sitting down, obscuring thier view from most in the audience. It’s not the ideal venue for them at all, but where else? There are no other Cafe venues with lighting controls, and as I said, it’s not a good fit for a mainstage.
It’s not the worst show in this year’s Rogue, and certainly not the best, but I think we should support these types of ‘atta boy kids’ every once in awhile, and at just the Cafe price, it’s worth it if there’s nothing else you want to see.
March 9th, 2009 at 3:57 pm
This act wasn’t very polished and I felt like I was watching a high school play at times. It was something that probably looked a lot more fun on paper: a Limbo diner, a crude and unorthodox Death who doesn’t really know how someone is going to die, and a bumbling character who is bad at killing himself… Too bad it just fell really flat, and the comedic timing/emphasis was off. Combined, the acting was pretty amateur, and the whole “Live well because you never really know when you’re going to die” message was obvious and boring.
Individually, a few of these actors could be pretty good. The man who plays Grim Reaper has personality. The girl who had accidentally run off a roof was a pretty decent actress. There’s some promise for some of these actors, so I think the venue contributed to a lot of the awkwardness - It was at Ashtree studios, so there were no changes in lighting and nothing to obscure the setting up and taking down of the props for the next scene.