Great review for The Grecian Formula (Fringe NYC) in Village Voice

[Alphadog2]

Posted: 8/12/08 at 7:35pm

Hi all --

I'm not an impartial observer of this production - I have some friends involved in it - but I thought I'd share the great review the Fringe production of The Grecian Formula received in the Village Voice online.

Not sure if we're allowed to cut and paste reviews from Village
Voice here, but the review is below...followed by the link

The Grecian Formula

Just as only those of a certain age will get the joke of this play’s title, only those with an affectionate, lifelong immersion in the theater and its history will fully appreciate the thousand subsequent jokes in this production. Luckily, this is New York and the Fringe Festival, and there are doubtless innumerable potential fans for The Grecian Formula, a Ridiculous Theater–style imagining of the birth of drama in ancient Athens.

In an act of navigation worthy of the Phoenicians, playwright Carter Anne McGowan manages a voyage through the past 2500 years of Western drama, from the slave comedies of Rome to the romantic comedies of Shakespeare to modern musical blockbusters. McGowan pulls off more than one amazing feat here, not the least of which is making us care about the travails of ill-used ghost writer Alidocious (Todd Lawson) in an atmosphere of cheesy and wheezy theater in-jokes. So deft is her hand and so great her apparent love for the art form, that she gives us an entire scene that lampoons theatre administration—and in rhyming couplets, no less. Mary Jo Lodge directs the sparkling ensemble with assurance and enthusiasm. Who’d have imagined that tragedy could be so comical? TRAV S.D.


http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-08-05/theater/fringe-festival-2008-reviews