Philadelphia Fringe Festival: Part 5

The final week of the 2015 FringeArts Festival had two performances based on personal experiences from young gay men in the Philadelphia arts scene. As a gay man in the same age group as Gunnar Montana and Chris McGinnis, I am always eager to find new points of view to represent our generation's experience.

Much of gay art, or at least the more impressive pieces, have been up until recently dominated by the generation before ours. It is refreshing then to see two members of the community reach out with their own stories. However, while each had their strengths, but neither were able to fully deliver on the promise of their respective narratives.

A perennial Fringe favorite, Gunnar Montana presented "Purgatory" this year, a dance meditation on our personal sins, mostly related to sexuality and sexual conduct, and the price we pay for them. At least that was my takeaway. I, along with a handful of friends who accompanied me, had a good deal of trouble sussing out the narrative of this show. Part of this was due to it being made up of separate vignettes, some more tangible than others. But I believe that it was mostly derived from a lack of storytelling on Montana's part.

The performances, like all of Montana's shows, were exquisite on their own. The dancing is abrasive and evocative, and the ever transforming set and usually smart music choices create a distinctive atmosphere. It is in the choreography and set construction that the show truly shines, along with some quite clever direction. A favorite of mine was a scene that entailed a woman fast forwarding and rewinding her husband cheating on her with another woman, ending in some very beautiful and impressive dancing.

All of this did not help to completely underscore the shortcomings on total presentation, though. Montana has yet to achieve the same level of cohesion he found in his show "Basement" a few years back. Where that show found him and his incredible cast experiencing betrayal and heartbreak in various visceral stages, the shows that have followed have felt more like a loose concept tethering ideas and expressions unsteadily.

I have yet to regret attending one of Montana's shows as they are always an aesthetic treat unto itself. But I have increasingly felt that his talents would be better creating visuals for someone else's point of view rather than his own. Having said that, I am not done attending his shows in hopes that he will change my mind.

"Purgatory" ran through September 19 at The Latvian Society, 531 N. 9th St. For information, call 215-413-1318 or visit FringeArts.com.

My experience at "Purgatory" ran almost perpendicular to the one I had watching Chris Mcginnis' "The Pop Musical Diary Of A Gay Man." This show had plenty of narrative and a distinct point of view, but little flair with which to execute it. While a good deal of the singing and acting was stellar, largely anchored by Adam Hoyak and Frankie Rowles, the material itself lacked enough strength to push it beyond vanity project fare.

The story itself, openly derived from McGinnis' experiences, wasn't particularly interesting beyond feeling that I could relate to it. He has not so much taken his life experiences and elevated them into an art form as much as he has regurgitated them for us to view. Part of this is the music used. While I slightly blame myself for this portion of the experience as I knew it would be this going in, but the music is taken from pop songs over the course of McGinnis' life, inelegantly placed in the fashion of jukebox musicals. I have historically not been much of a fan of such forms of musical.

But what I largely took issue with was that beyond the "Glee"-lite presentation of Mcginnis' life, there was quite a lot of heart and soul. It was just unfortunately obscured by the medium that he chose to present it.

"The Pop Musical Diary Of A Gay Man" ran through September 13 at the Adrienne Theater at 2030 Sansom St. For information, call 215-413-1318 or visit FringeArts.com.