Minnesota Fringe Festival

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Show reviews by Claire Simonson

Habitat: A Documentary Theater Project
A challenge to the heart by Claire Simonson
Rating: 4 kitties
When you go to see a documentary film, you don\'t expect Hollywood effects, million-dollar production values, you don\'t even expect *acting* per se. You DO expect authenticity, and that is what you get with this show. This is a show about the pain and embarrassment of homelessness in a nation of great wealth, performed by people who have a personal, emotional stake in the issue, either because they work within the social safety net, or they have themselves run up against the circumstance. The show asks: how can you have a home if you don\'t have an address? And what kind of person are you if you don\'t even have a home? Turns out that it\'s not just about the address, as different -- very loose -- definitions of home are shown: a night shelter with its tight-ass rules, and a bar with its woozy hustling (\"Wanna buy some soap?\") The high point is a showdown between the haves and the have-nots, with the mayor of the city standing impotent between the two sides, promising to do more, but not winning the confidence of either. And as the show plays out, you realize (if you didn\'t already know) that it\'s going to take much more than a change in the White House to stop the dehumanization of \'those people.\' The emotional appeal here is strong and clear, because the need is real. It\'s a mighty big challenge to offer a theatrical production as \"documentary\" because the other thing film docs have going for them is visual: the un-scrubbed view of \'the world\' that is being documented, whether it\'s a slaughterhouse or a beauty pageant. The visual component of a documentary film goes a long way to establishing its credibility, so what happens when documentary material -- the spoken testimony of people who are/have been homeless -- is presented in the black box of a theatre, stripped of the actual location, the sights and sounds of their experience? The impulse of the the playwright and the director to keep the staging simple seems right, and the artistic impact of the show might be stronger if pushed even more rigorously into the black box -- but that\'s an aesthetic exercise, not the main concern of the show. This is a show of substance. This is a great Fringe show for a couple reasons: number one being, it\'s not slick -- and it doesn\'t need to be, because of number two: it comes from the heart, and the hearts that brought this show to life don\'t happen to be invested in cleverness and slick characters. They are invested in honesty. You will hear the words of those who most of us would prefer to avoid, spoken by those who have chosen to listen. As unpolished and inconvenient as it is, it will sound like the truth -- and it will challenge you to do something about it.