NY Fringe Festival Review: Camp Wanatachi: A New Musical

Camp Wanatachi: A New Musical
Presented by: Mercurial Productions
Writer: Book and Lyrics by Natalie Weiss, Music by Natalie Weiss, Conrad Winslow and Travis Stewart
Director: Natalie Weiss

Summary:
What could be a fun parody of Christian summer camps, or summer camps of any kind, for that matter, veers off instead to reveal itself as a sad statement devaluing teen girls as suicidal or unable to contain their lust.

Jana (Aleque Reid) and Lauren (Samantha Daniel) are supposed to be BFFs, but the high-heel and short-short-wearing slutty Titi (Biet Simpkin) has a thing for Jana and keeps interfering. Titi comes on to the trying-so-very-hard-to-be-a-Christian Jana when she’s not having fun making life miserable for outsider Daisy (Amy Gironda) who sings a song about various ways she can commit suicide because she’s unhappy at the camp.

Meanwhile, director Corky (author Natalie Weiss) has the hots for Joel (Jonathon Roberts), but he’s been participating in a “True Love Waits” rally and has an accountability partner, so she’s not getting anywhere. Running around the camp are a couple of black-clad “hobos” (Jenny Lee Mitchell and Greg Couba, who also sports studs and nipple rings) very upset about walkie talkies for some reason.

The Fringe performance apparently is comprised of snippets from a full two-act musical of the same name. The snippets are enough to tell me that I have no desire to see more. The thrust of the satire seems to come from an edge dulled by arrogance, stereotype and a desire to cause injury instead of from a rapier wit sharpened by an intimate understanding of the subject. It scores a foul, rather than a touché.

The music, as described in the promotional material for the show, is “nostalgic” “super futuristic” with “sick beats.” I would describe it more as harsh, dissonant, cacophonic and really hard on the ear.

Highlights:

•More musicans than your typical fringe show.

Lowlights:
• Sexually suggestive dialogue and lyrics
• Homosexuality
• Scantily-clad campers
• Language
• Corky gives her “testimony” at chapel including using the “F” word, saying she was stoned and explaining that God dropped a SP404 music playing device on her doorstep and threw a copy of >Ere Christianity” through her roof.
• Suicidal Daisy sings that she “had a talk with God” who told her that her parents should bring her home or he would bring her to his.

Christians might also like to know:• Language

Fringe Tassels Awarded: 1
VENUE #3: Dixon Place
See it again Sat 29 @ 3:15

--Lauren Yarger