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A CurtainUp Review
Bad Kid
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Above me is the blinding Pepper Creek Family Dental sign – a blinking neon blue image of a smiling tooth holding a toothbrush and offering a thumbs-up. This sign sends me into an existential crisis of drug-fueled agita. Does that tooth know what it is? Does that tooth have teeth? Do my teeth have teeth?!— David Crabb
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David Crabb
(Photo credit: Dixie Sheridan) |
I have had a chance to review the script of David Crabb’s one-man show Bad Kid. I have also had the opportunity to watch Mr. Crabb perform it. On paper, the words, co-written with Josh Matthews, are amusing, intelligent, and well-written. The story might, or might not have, found its way into a literary journal.
But, Mr. Crabb’s major gifts are theatrical. He’s a storyteller par excellence, a two- time Slam champion at The Moth, the acclaimed story-telling venue in New York City. Crabb’s words simply pop in a magical way when he performs them. If reading his script is the equivalent of driving in a Camaro, then watching him perform it is like speeding down the Autobahn in a Lamborghini.
Crabb will abduct you into the world of his unusually decadent yet incisive youth and, happily complicit, you’ll jump in for the joyride. He leaps, sweats, dances, cries, cajoles, and entrances his audience in the 90-minute performance of Bad Kid, which recounts his high school years as a Goth rocker in rural Texas. Even if you didn’t take prodigious amounts of drugs and stay out all night in your high school days, you might still identify with Crabb’s hilarious and sometimes poignant takes on youthful friendships and first-time experiences of all sorts.
The tales Crabb delivers are the absurd ones that you may still be laughing at uncontrollably while he’s gone on to something else. Several times during the performance I attended, I heard people politely stifling guffaws; the comic gems come so fast and so consistently, that there’s hardly any downtime for an audience to digest them. Yet, this isn’t stand-up comedy; Crabb is looking for something deeper and for the most part, he achieves it, in spite of the sometimes tear-inducing hilarity.
See Bad Kid. You may see yourself or someone you know in him.
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Bad Kid By David Crabb Co-written by Josh Matthews Directed by Josh Matthews Cast: David Crabb Lighting Design: David Zeffren Light Technician: Regina Betancourt Sound Design: Steven Fontaine, David Crabb Video/Sound Technician: Britt Genelin Character Photographer: Lucas Longacre Production Photographer: Dixie Sheridan Stage Manager: Britt Genelin Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission Axis Company, One Sheridan Square, between W. 4th and Washington, NYC, http://axiscompany.org/ From February 17, 2012; closing March 10, 2012; opening February 20, 2012 Performance schedule Monday, February 20, 8 p.m., thereafter Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Reviewed by William Coyle, based on February 17 performance |
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