RESURRECTION ROOM (Gunnar Montana): Fringe Review 75

At last year’s Fringe Fest, we entered a blood-splattered BASEMENT filled with all the torment of a broken heart. Gunnar Montana brings us into a shiny, neon-galactic RESURRECTION ROOM this year. Though the name brings about quite serious connotations, duels with possessed Geisha queens using oversized pink fans and wild goose chases of sorts mark this show as Montana’s most fun, in a provocatively captivating way.

resurrection roomUpon entering this room, “heroine” Stephi Lyneice finds herself not only being chased and taunted, but transported into a realm where life and death mingle as close friends, leaving all boundaries of physical and mental ruin out of the equation. With its ponding music, quixotic light displays, and challenges, such as one involving Dylan Kepp/Iris Spectre as a walloping alien monster, this otherworldly realm reminds audiences that there, or elsewhere, it is always wise to expect the unexpected. Highlights include an arousing contemporary dance segment featuring partner-work between Montana and professional choreographer, performance artist, and “Medusa”, Kennan D. Washington. Machy Gerena/Lady Poison adds a shrill sword-yielding number, as the senses become even more distorted by this unmatchable experience. In Montana’s signature fashion, not even the props stay put in the RESURRECTION ROOM, and no one is safe from facing each other’s priceless reactions, or some greater fear within. As Lyneice lost in the thick of it asks, “Why am I here?”

The rooms’ “operating system” so pertinently answers, “You are here to learn.” [The Latvian Society 531 North 7th Street] September 12-21, 2014; fringearts.com/resurrection-room.

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