Theater

Welcome to the Cringe Festival!

Today’s review is of a show, “Abraham Lincoln’s Big, Gay Dance Party,” that was in the Fringe Festival last year and graduated to the Acorn, on Theater Row. It won’t be there for long.

Coincidentally, Fringe 2010 starts on Saturday. Will we see the next “Urinetown”? It says something that this show was at the Fringe in 1999 and is still trotted out as an example of how far you can go with a dream and a song. But 1999 is quite a few years ago. Sure, the fest has groomed some nice off and off-off hits since — “Matt & Ben,” “Krapp, 39” to name but two — but that’s not a really impressive batting average. Which raises a simple question: What is the Fringe’s purpose in New York?

If it’s to be a showcase for shows gunning for bigger commercial runs, the batting average is less than impressive. If it’s to encourage risk-taking theater, well, that’s not the place for that either. Unlike its elder cousin the Edinburgh Fringe, the NYC version has little artistic credibility; in fact, it’s often used as a synonym for amateurish balderdash. The shows pretending to be “edgy” aren’t; they’re merely brash and juvenile at worst, half-baked at best. Of course there are exceptions, and every year some productions rise to the top. But it’s a tough slog to find them.

Is the Fringe a democratic endeavor to make theater affordable to all, since tickets cost only $15? Yes, it’s cheap, but some of the shows are so atrocious that they could turn some people off theater for ever.

So what’s the point of the Fringe? What’s its agenda? I’m not being facetious: I really can’t figure it out.

On its site, we learn that this is “the largest multi-arts festival in North America,” and not much else. So this is about numbers, then? Sure, they’re sort of impressive: This year you can see 197 shows, chosen from four times that many applicants. So clearly there’s a selection process, but its criteria are elusive. Maybe the point is to make 197 teams of people feel good by giving them a short run in New York.

The price for the audience can be high.

A couple of days ago I attended a press preview where we were shown excerpts (live) from about 10 shows. A couple of them were so bad that I literally had to avert my eyes. I was too embarrassed for the people on stage, though I shouldn’t have been — if your ego, your self-regard are so monumental that you don’t realize how clumsy your “dancing” is, then you deserve to crash and burn in public.

At this point, it’s as if the Fringe exists in its own parallel universe, separate from the downtown scene that could, in theory, be a close ally. The fest happens every year, like clockwork. Every year there’s moans and groans about the quality — or lack thereof — of the shows. Every year word of mouth ensures that a few productions sell out. And then we’re back to square one 365 days later.