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Show: 30
Title: As Above, So Below
Category: Drama / Physical Theater / Solo Show / Storytelling
By: Michael Rogers
Created by: Michael Rogers
Location: Barker Center for Dance
Summary: A solo storytelling piece dealing with traumatic family issues that is visceral and mesmerizing.
Highlights: Michael Rogers gives the best performance I saw at Fringe this year. He performs the piece in a stream of consciousness style, almost like a long form poem. It's beautifully written, with lyrical and descriptive language that makes you see and feel what he's describing. He talks about the recent falling apart of his family, that showed cracks long ago. As he says, his mother was diagnosed with cancer, his father was diagnosed with Q-Anon, and only one recovered. He talks about his dad's childhood, his own childhood, and into the recent past when a bad breakup sent him on a downward spiral in which all of these things simmering below the surface finally boiled over. Michael performs in a small circle spotlight in the middle of the stage, with an easy chair, end tables, candles, and wine. The show starts off lighter and a little funny, and then begins to loop around and around and back again, until the audience is completely riveted to the point where you could hear a pin drop. It's the kind of raw, vulnerable, brutally honest performance that requires him to assure us at the end that he's OK. It feels that real. He just completely goes there in his performance, letting us in to the worst moments of his life, and it's incredibly moving. Truly an astounding and unforgettable show.