Philadelphia Weekly

Crooked Mirror's superior production of Neil LaBute's "Bash: Latter-Day Plays" is one of the Philly Fringe's most welcome surprises.

Effectively staged by director Aaron Oster in the cramped, airless basement of the Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, "Bash" is a trio of troubling one-act plays (two of which are monologues) about characters who, on the surface, appear entirely ordinary.

The first one-act Iphigenia in Orem is about an unnamed traveling businessman (Damon Bonetti). Sitting in a generic hotel room, he speaks in cliches about ambition and sexism in the workplace, but his dull demeanor is misleading.

The businessman reveals that he and his wife have lost a newborn, but as he talks increasingly about his job we begin to sense that this guy's priorities are dangerously misplaced. But in Bonetti's superb performance we're entirely unprepared for just how shockingly misplaced this man's priorities are, and his revelation about a "calculated risk" he took to further his career leaves us horrified.

Bash's second installment, titled A Gaggle of Saints, isn't as strongly written as the hypnotic Orem, but it's no less disquieting. Starring Derick Loafman and Alyssa Kondracki as a clean-cut college couple visiting Manhattan, the play centers on an act of violence described in graphic detail.

Loafman makes a strong impression as the smirking college boy and Kondracki is effective as his naive girlfriend, but while we're alarmed by the ugliness of the violence, the characters in Saints are so stereotypical that the impact of the play is somewhat diminished.

This is not the case in Bash's concluding one-act Medea Redux.

Dressed in a prison jumpsuit and sitting behind a microphone, the unnamed woman (played by the talented Charlotte Northeast) is the trilogy's most sympathetic character as she recalls how as a young teen she was impregnated by her high school teacher. In Northeast's clear-eyed, unembellished portrayal we sympathize with the woman's plight, but when she confesses her crime we're left both bewildered and terrified by the casualness of her admission.

Mormonism or the state of Utah is cited in each of the plays (LaBute was once a member of the Church of Latter Day Saints), but "Bash" is neither a condemnation of the Mormon faith or religion in general. And though Iphigenia and Medea are characters from Greek tragedy, "Bash" isn't a trilogy in the classic sense. LaBute utilizes the ancient Greek convention of offstage violence to great effect, but the characters' speech is peppered with references to television and film (LaBute is also a noted film director), and "Bash"'s context is decidedly contemporary.

Powerful and unsettling, Crooked Mirror's production of "Bash" is by no means a pleasant theater experience, but it's a dramatic nightmare you won't soon forget.

"Bash: Latter-Day Plays"

Wed., Sept. 10-Fri., Sept. 12. $15. Holy Trinity Romanian Orthodox Church, 723 N. Bodine St. 215.413.1318. www.livearts-fringe.org

Martha and Dotty: Microwave Mambo

While the Live Arts festival and Philly Fringe officially ends this weekend, the slyly amusing podcast play Martha and Dotty: Microwave Mambo runs into infinity and beyond. A marvelous sequel to the delightful 2007 Fringe pod-play The Many Men of Martha Manning, in Mambo we catch up with the perfect housewife (Grace Gonglewski, in full Donna Reed mode) in 1958 when a stamp cost less than a nickel and gas went for a whopping 30 cents a gallon. Penned by David Witz, the six-episode parody of old radio shows follows Martha and her devoted friend Dotty (Karen Getz) as they accompany Martha's niece Marian to her new apartment in Greenwich Village. The bongo-banging beatniks in the Village are a far cry from Martha's relatively tranquil domestic life in Pepper Pickle, Pa. The gal pals quickly adjust to life in lower Manhattan (Dotty in particular wows the crowd at a local poetry reading), but the pair has little time to enjoy the bohemian life and are soon whisking their way to a casino in pre-Castro Cuba, where Martha's husband Bill falls victim to foul play. In a nail-biting race to save the world from nuclear ruin, Dotty and Martha encounter a swarthy Cuban police inspector, a hydrogen bomb thoughtlessly misplaced by the U.S. military and a nefarious criminal. Wittily written and wonderfully performed, Mambo proves you don't have to leave your house to enjoy the Philly Fringe. The six-episode series from Brat Productions' is available for 99 cents an episode at http://bratproductions.org. (J.C.R.)