8/26/09
EastOfIndy.com
by John Belden
Look at it this way: the title sets the bar so low that if it's entertaining at all, it's good. Fortunately this comic play by Merely Players did not live up (or down) to its name. In this three-man farce, a Fringe Festival playwright/performer responds to the savaging of his work "E-Mails with Shakespeare" (to which the title of the play applies) by kidnapping the critic and tying him to a chair in his barren apartment. Why this apartment is barren only adds to the comic absurdity that follows, especially when a furniture mover shows up to repossess the chair the critic is tied to and the pillow stuffed over his head. Eventually each of the three will be tied to the chair, an intellectual flaw in the critic is exposed (to the playwright's joy) and a means is found to stage the man's next performance.
I attended a performance with an audience made almost entirely of Fringe performers and members of the central Indiana theatre community. The empathy was almost tangible, and needless to say all had a great time at this.