BorderLight Theater Festival Review, Day Two: Thursday, July 25

If you're not into variety and changes of pace, you may not enjoy the BorderLight Festival. But if you eat variety with a heaping side of incongruity, this festival may be right up your theatrical alley.

Consider these five shows that not only vary in length, from 15 minutes to 60 minutes, but also in content, style and mood—all of which appeared yesterday in the second day of the Festival.

I Wear My Dead Sister's Clothes
In this one-hander, playwright and performer Amy Schwabauer presents a semi-autobiographical look at how one person deals with grief after losing her older sister Candy to cancer. As the title indicates, one of her coping tools is wearing her Candy's clothes, even though they're too big for Amy.

In the course of this hour-long reflection—directed by Ray Caspio, Carrie Williams and the performer—Schwabauer weaves a galaxy of emotions for her sister that range from how much she loved her to what a bitch Candy was. But it's all delivered with a dry sense of humor (Amy says she was always the funny one among the three sisters), pausing now and then to feel the devastating sense of loss from the death that occurred four years earlier.

Candy was certainly a mixed bag and Schwabauer does that complicated woman justice amid the laughs, while allowing us to empathize with Amy's conflicted feelings as Candy's caretaker . "She trusted me," says Amy. "I mattered."

Just Go With It
Bubblebutt. Bootylicious. Honky tonk badonkadonk. Yes, there are many imaginative ways to describe a woman with an appealingly ample posterior, and this show explores many of them. The two female performers have a blast with the material, created and directed by Jonathon Morgan.

It's a fast and funny 15 minutes ending with an audience singalong of the Queen hit, "Fat Bottomed Girls."

Immersive Rituals — Your Hero's Journey
If you enjoy audience participation in a show but you never get called on, this 45-minute piece is the one for you. Every audience member is recruited to be a "star" in this adventure in which you, yes you, are the hero.

Employing a series of exercises involving music, movement, sound and mood-setting visuals, the effusive and gentle leaders of this journey (TotoCreate LLC), inspired by the writings of Carl Jung ,bring everyone through the challenges and joys of existence to a heroic conclusion.

It's an entirely different way to be moved, literally and figuratively, by a theatrical experience.

Appeteasers
Let's face it, vegetables are sexy. That fact is brought home with style in this 15-minute frolic in which two female performers, Melissa Ajayi and Double D'Lee start off softly caressing the produce they've brought with them.

But soon—after they get worked up vigorously slicing tomatoes, onions and peppers—their aprons are tossed aside (plus a little more). Soon it's a sexy veggie celebration where all you see is flying produce, airborne tortilla chips, swaying boobs, and nipple stickers sparkling.

Ship Show
If all the above sounds fine but it's still not ridiculous enough for you, consider this 55-minute show. It's a backstage look at a Titanic-based off-off-off Broadway musical featuring an egotistical lead actor (turns out he's Elton John's son) who is given to taking bad falls.

So, two ensemble actors who hold signs in the background decide to create their own spinoff, "Frank Sinatra and the Iceberg," and the manic maneuvers roll on from there. It's thoroughly unpolished and definitely not ship-shape—but it's hilarious in all its determined silliness.

To find out when these shows are being performed again in the next two days, along with 41more amazing shows, visit: borderlight.org .

BorderLight Theater Festival
Through Saturday, July 27—at, in and all around Playhouse Square, Euclid and E. 14 St., borderlight.org .

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