FRIGID New York is an annual fringe theatre festival in which artists receive 100 percent of their box office proceeds. Petunia and Chicken was one of this winter’s offerings, coming off a highly successful run in Cincinnati, where it was the Artists’ Pick at the Cincy Fringe Festival 2013 and the recipient of the Best Overall Award from the League of Cincinnati Theatres. It is inspired by the work of Willa Cather, who is best known for her fiction in Midwestern frontier settings, and is well executed by writer-actor couple Carrie Brown and Karim Muasher. The actors each play a variety of characters on a completely empty stage, utilizing their bodies to create Midwestern staples like cornfields and locomotives. The story is centered on Petunia, a bohemian immigrant, and “Chicken,” a boy whose roots are firmly ensconced in the brutal landscape, and follows their childhood meeting through adolescent romance, tragic separation, and old age with charm and humor. It can sometimes be confusing to keep track of the different characters, but Brown and Muasher are undoubtedly a pleasure to watch; Brown’s rendering of Chicken’s family’s dog is particularly memorable and hilarious. Petunia and Chicken runs a comfortable 75 minutes, but it could benefit from a bit of reshuffling in the second half; Chicken’s surreal adventures while away from home are an odd, if amusing, departure from the rest of the piece. Otherwise, the play is successfully evocative of turn of the century Midwestern culture without veering into the realm of kitsch.
Twisted Talk: Did you check out any shows at this year’s Frigid Festival? Which was your favorite? Discuss below!
