Banned in the USA; A Geography Teacher’s Orders; Biscuiteater

Reviewed by Ryan Pepper: All shows at Studio Leonard Beaulne

1. Banned in the USA: a ramble through a comedian’s funny and bizarre life (and probably the biggest takedown of American Airlines in modern theatre)  

Gerard Harris’ work Banned in the USA tells a pretty bizarre but weirdly relatable—or at least understandable—story about working in the information technology sector, dealing with difficult bosses in not-for-profits, breaking into Fringe theatre, and the horrors of American air travel. What sets Harris’ work apart from your old pal telling a tale is his high-strung energy that grabs you and really makes you cheer for Harris as he tries his hardest to catch a flight in the nightmare world of American Airlines.

Harris doesn’t make use of the stage. He sits, or rather crouches with frenetic excitement, in an arm chair, and weaves a particularly strange story that seems like it could only happen to a Fringe comedian. Harris’ story is divided loosely into a few sections, although they all flow into each other—there aren’t scene changes here, just a guy in an armchair talking. Harris talks about how in his childhood he wanted to be James Bond, because Bond was a great improvisor—and he could talk to women. Harris then moves on to talking about his first Fringe show—he points out that yes, this is a meta Fringe show—in Montreal, in which he and the audience created a new country. He then segues into a job in Montreal he had working for a non-profit that protected the web security of NGOs, journalists, and other marginalized groups on the internet in countries that have not always respected freedom of the press and other basic rights. It’s also a very relatable story of dealing with a controlling, demanding boss.

Harris’ time at this information security firm leads him to his final, biggest story: navigating American Airlines and US air travel. It’s a thrilling tale that anyone who has flown in the US can probably relate to, or at least sympathize with, and Harris delivers it at his trademark breakneck speed. By the end though, you are personally invested in this story. Harris has an incredible ability to bring people intimately into his stories, so that you feel personally invested in each of them.

As Harris explained it, Banned in the USA is an hour and a half long show squeezed into sixty minutes. It’s fast, manic, maybe a little incohesive. But it’s also terrifically entertaining. We all like hearing stories, and Harris has some particularly strange ones to tell.

2) The Geography Teacher’s Orders is a solo show with a serious message

It’s 1983 in Argentina, and the South American country is just returning to democracy after years of a military dictatorship. But in one school’s geography classroom, it seems the new teacher is determined to keep the authoritarian regime going. Such is the backdrop for Marta Singh’s solo show about a classroom of children bullied and emotionally beaten down by a cruel teacher whose aim is to crush solidarity.

Singh relives her own experience as a teenager in post-Dirty War Argentina, dramatizing herself as a child and some of the other students in her class, and the teacher. The teacher is a masterfully portrayed authoritarian villain, the stereotypical mean teacher: back straight, a sneer on her face, always obsessing about having a pristine piece of chalk with which to write. Lighting changes help distinguish when she steps into another character, and the lighting was a high point.

For the first half of the story, it seems as if the geography teacher will succeed in grinding out solidarity and comradeship in the classroom, along with crushing these students’ spirits and generally robbing them of happiness and the safety we expect from school. Her authoritarian rule stifles the classroom. But eventually the students tip the balance their way, and their power grows over the course of three “incidents” that Singh lays out. The last, the “Chesterton Incident,” places their classmate Tacusi in the position of power, so close to beating the evil that oppresses the classroom. A few more events and, finally, the students have wrested back control of their own classroom. In short, their democratic revolution is successful.

One of the many storytelling plays of Fringe Fest, this story packs a powerful message. Most of the storytelling shows at Fringe are comedies, but Singh here grapples with democracy versus dictatorship, hope versus fear, and the need to fight the mechanisms of fear, as Singh calls them, that hold sway over every country. If you are looking for a solo show with a serious message, The Geography Teacher’s Orders is for you.

3) Jim Loucks’s Biscuiteater is a uniquely Southern story about childhood and living up to role models

The twangy Southern country that plays before Jim Loucks comes on stage is a good indicator of what to expect in Loucks’ deeply Southern solo show Biscuiteater. Loucks won the Tucson Fringe Best Solo Performance with his story of growing up in rural Georgia and idolizing his grandfather, the bravest man in the world to him and many others, but who silently carried his own pain and sufferings. The elderly Alexander Curls tries to instill in his young grandson a respect for life and himself, but Jimmy is a true Southern boy who just wants to shoot things with his BB gun. Not much changes over the course of the play, but it offers a slice of Southern life that is captivating and makes for a wonderful Fringe performance.

Loucks mainly portrays either a narrator figure or a younger version of himself interacting with his family. He also steps into the role of Granddaddy Curls, his grandmother, or his mother and father. Loucks expertly handles switching between characters. Not just an actor though, Loucks lend his voice to old Southern Gospel and folk songs, interspersing them within his longer family stories. This collage forms a well-rounded image of the Southern life Loucks recreates on stage.

The plot is simple, yet intelligent and masterfully delivered. Jimmy wants to be just like his Granddaddy, who he always says is so brave and strong he’s not even afraid of the devil. He’s a larger-than-life figure, an exemplar of the rural Southern gentleman, and Jimmy idolizes him. Over several scenes in young Jimmy’s life, Granddaddy tries to raise him right and teach him, above all else, that he must respect life and himself. One of the more charming scenes is when Granddaddy heals Jimmy’s fear of loud noises by pretending to hypnotize him. So influential is Granddaddy on Jimmy that Jimmy believes the hypnosis worked, and is no longer afraid of loud sounds.

Loucks’ performance as Granddaddy is also powerful. As strong and brave as he might seem to everyone else, Alec Curls has his own sorrows weighing down on him. Namely, a killing he committed as a police officer, when he shot a robber who attacked him. Four times in the belly, Alec keeps telling himself, four times in the belly he shot him, and his death haunts Alec. Even in his old age, signing hymns of flying up to Heaven, he firmly believes he’ll fall to Hell for his actions. But all Jimmy knows is that his Granddaddy shot a bad man, and he is obsessed with the idea of Granddaddy being a hero. But Alec doesn’t see it that way, and that basic respect for life is what Jimmy learns by the end of the play.

Biscuiteater is a moving one-man show about childhood in the rural South, skillfully brought to life through uniquely Southern family stories and stirring Gospel songs. Jim Loucks has hit on a regional story with universal appeal.