CLICK HERE FOR RECENT REVIEWS IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER CLICK ON PLAY FOR AUDIENCE REVIEWS FOR THAT PLAY
- 0 to 6 in 60
69 Moments of Life
Actor, You're Killing Me
Air Tight Security
Almost True Adventures ...
Amazing Improvised Musical
Animal Farm
Ballerina on a Horse
Beautiful Man
Berserker
Caffe di Amore or ...
Check the Box
Clearing Hedges
Corned Beef
Countless
Crime & Variations
Death Blow II: ...
Demon Pope
Diagnosis: Jew Pain ...
Disco Prophecies
Ethan's Gift
Far From Springer
Fixed Boundry
Forty Love
Got Water
I Can't Believe They're Not Oriental!
Idiot Machine: ...
In Cahoots
John Muir: Watch, Pray, Fight
Late Night Talk Show
Ludlow and Canal
Magic at the Fringe
Man 1, Bank 0
Marx in Soho
Mixed Signal
Mother: A Modern Buddhist ...
Naked Inqisition
nEO - surrealists present: ...
Neon's Crazy Blue
Nharcolepsy
Original Action Pack
Park - N - Ride
Passages
Sandwich
Scabaret!
Searching for God in Kerala
Seventh Game of the World Series
Shadow Kissers
Strobe Vision
This World is Not My Home
Total Improvisation - ...
Train Stories
Tripping on the Equator ...
Twinspeak
Play: Mixed Signal
Reviewer: SF BayView
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 5 Stars
A review from the SF BayView....
The two plays that evening, "The Demon Pope" and Mixed Signal's "Tilted Frame Improv," showed me why people enjoy the Fringe. For under $10, you can see first rate plays by folks who might end up on a main stage or with a Pulitzer Prize or something. It happens a bit more than you'd think.
"Mixed Signals," which so far is tying with Wayne Harris' "Train Stories," is really tight theatre. Timing, composition, phrasing, blocking - it's amazing how well the six or seven actors take suggestions from the audience and craft skits and short scenes that actually have depth. I was amazed as the camera zoomed in on folks who volunteered "milestones" in their lives for contemplation - the topics varying from childbirth and dropping out of school to moving to a new country from Ireland, paying off student loans and first meeting with a beloved guru.
There are some plays that one has to see; "Mixed Signals" is such an experience. The twists some of the stories took, the tone of the pieces - serious bordering on the absurd, the great analogies - football touchdowns to childbirth - all the while using great sound, mixed imagery - actual footage fed into what I'd call Grand Media Station operated by Desdemona Chiang, plus the savvy actors, was tighter than I though it could be when I read about a theatre experience that really defies explanation … well, not really. The words are there. I just have to find them.
I wish I could go back, because each night is an entirely different experience - the evening dependent on what "milestones" people suggest and then responses to "what one has heard recently that was really confusing."
The second part was the basis for Cat's Cradle, a time in the 60-minute set where the cast mixed things up by having several monologues and scenes occurring simultaneously that somehow connected along a theme, which ended up involving some of the earlier milestone themes, like the "dropping out of school and quickly realizing that life without a college education was rougher than any academic rigor."
The laptop on a table near "Media Central" was used to find random material like letters and images on google.com which were then projected onto the screen, while another deejay, Steve Kahn, handled the sound effects and music. A roving camerawoman took clips of the action and projected them onto the huge screen just in front of us. There is no film in the camera, so each show was a one-time experience, almost like a theatrical jam session. However, unlike a musical event, one couldn't help but be intrigued, because it was literally "a shared consciousness." I wasn't clear how one cast member would get one story over another. In any case, they were all great.
What a great concept, I thought, and continued to muse the plays, "The Demon Pope" and "Mixed Signals," as I got lost trying to get home. I walked by Woodrow Wilson's house, almost ended up in the Presidio instead of downtown after I found Geary again, then finally found BART and headed home.
Play: Mixed Signal
Reviewer: Ellen A.
Reviewer Email:
Rating: 4 Stars
There is lots of good improv in San Francisco happening these days, and
the Tilted Frame crew are among the leaders of the new guard. Tilted Frame
uses technology like no other group. But, even more impressive, is their
emphasis on dramatic improv at the expense of silly, jokey forms that is
all too pervasive.
Mixed Signal's opening night was relatively short (about 45 minutes long). Because of that, I missed the diversity of forms that I enjoyed in their two previous one-and-half-hour shows I had seen. However, like always, the ensemble was tight, fun, smart and focused on using all their skills and technologies (especially their live video) to bring together some entertaining and interesting stories that rivaled well-formed scripted pieces. It's going to be fun to see what these guys come up with next.