Looking over the press quotes for Clay McLeod Chapman’s Pumpkin Pie Show (pumpkinpieshow.com/press-quotes) after seeing it last Thursday (Oct. 14th, 2010), I found myself agreeing with every last one of them. How something so brilliantly disturbing, so disturbingly creepy, and so creepily macabre has eluded my radar for the bizarrely weird surprises me. And by weird I don’t mean there are Satanic blood-letting rituals or fetishistic sex acts being performed in front of my eyes, or any of the other boring, mundane tenets that have become more and more prescribed over recent years to the horror genre. Oh no, my friend, this is pure storytelling at it’s spine-tingling finest.
The best way I can describe it is performance art that at its bloody, dripping heart revolves around story and character. Not a drop of real or pretend blood will stain the pure white vestments of the three performers over the course of the evening, but when all is said and done, you will exit the theater feeling a chill that seeps its way down into the darkest recesses of your soul, and the small hairs at the nape of your neck will take much soothing before they are convinced to lay down once more.
Together with his accomplices in crime, performers Hanna Cheek and Hannah Timmons, with sound and musical support from on-stage sound operator Wes Shippee (playing an original score by Radiotheatre), Clay and company transform themselves into characters so completely different, yet so hauntingly familiar that they could have been summoned from our own lives. Maybe they are the people we pass everyday on the street, or who come in to our bookstore every week on the pretext of buying a book just to say hello, or they could be that friendly waitress who serves us at our favorite restaurant. Whatever the case may be, the beauty of this presentation lies in how absolutely committed these solo performers are to transforming into these other human beings who have a story so powerful to tell, they will rip it out of their deepest innards just to get it out of their bodies and cast it into the dark void of the theater house. Just don’t mind that sticky stuff dripping onto the floor and pooling about your feet…
Run, don’t walk to The Pumpkin Pie Show: Amber Alert, continuing its run October 21st - 30th — Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8 PM at the Red Room, 85 East 4th Street (btn 2nd and 3rd Ave).
Tickets are available at SmartTix: (212) 868-444 or online at: http://www.horsetrade.info/Season12/ThePumpkinPieShow.html
Tix $18 (general). $15 (students/seniors) PAY-WHAT-YOU-CAN THURSDAYS. Special discount code through SmartTix — “amber” for $15 tix!
Visit www.pumpkinpieshow.com for more information.
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