#fringenyc - Insurmountable Simplicities
Insurmountable Simplicities lived up to its name. It was insurmountable and it was simplistic. It earns one of the criticisms most hated by high school kids, "Fails to live up to potential".
Indeed, the performance has great potential, and the actors do what they can with a lame script. The show starts off with a 'Zombie Sleeping Pills' skit. The idea is fascinating; a woman gets on a plane and takes a 'zombie sleeping pill'. This pill completely shuts off down her consciousness and she enters what feels to her, like deep sleep. Yet it leaves her fully responsive to converse with the man sitting next to her, who is a bit freaked out by the idea. With the scene set and the actors apparently ready to explore this concept, the skit ends and they move on to the next skit.
In this, an insignificant bookkeeper is visited by a man from the future who has come to interview him about how he became such a great writer. The man is disappointed not to find any great clues about what inspired the writer. No great books of literature line his shelves, no inspiring views, moments, or anything else is left. In his disappointment, and hurry, the man from the future leaves behind a book which contains the writer's complete work. The young man copies these and they end up being what makes him great. Like with the first skit, this one ends right where it has the potential to become interesting.
Another skit is of a man who has possibility added a poison to his wife's cake. There is antidote, which has bad side effects if taken when the poison has not been ingested. The man explains to his wife that he decided whether or not to add the poison based on his prediction of whether or not she will take the antidote, yet he does not reveal his prediction. Should she, or should she not take the antidote. Yet again, with the interesting problem set up, the performance moves on to another conundrum.
I'm probably forgetting some of the skits. When they moved to a tedious exploration of word play, such as the liars paradox, I found myself counting the number of green LEDs on the emergency lighting. Yeah, it was that bad.
Insurmountable Simplicities had so much potential. It could have been three or four different interesting plays. Instead it was none. Maybe some day a man from the future will return and give the author the option of rewriting it. I hope so.