A Mop, an American Flag, a Sex Doll, and a Bedbug Robot

The Berkshire Fringe Festival

by Sparrow, June 26, 2008

MTV and special effects have transformed movies. We now accept a trampoline filled with snails as “visual art.” But theater has barely evolved since Arthur Miller and “Camelot.” Why is this?

Actually, theater has changed considerably, but most of the theater audience doesn’t know it yet. Actors are writing their own shows, combining music, and chanting with traditional acting. Video and computers are now tools of drama. But largely for financial reasons, most theaters present the greatest hits of the past 50 years.

The Berkshire Fringe, now in its fourth year, is different. The festival will offer six genre-bending theater works from July 16 to August 4 on the campus of Bard College at Simon’s Rock in Great Barrington, Massachusetts.

Under the Table Theater is a three-person, Brooklyn-based ensemble that studied at the Dell’arte International School of Physical Theater in Blue Lake, California. Dell’arte specializes in training “actor-creators.” Under the Table’s piece, “The Only Friends We Have,” was developed through improv and draws on the performers’ clown training. This “antisocial comedy” has both a script and slapstick motifs.” It’s a window into the lives of three friends who are all eccentric characters, and their tangled relationships,” explains Sarah Petersiel, a troupe member. “And it’s about negotiating desire, fear, and infestation.” The infestation refers to bedbugs. Why bedbugs? “That aspect does come from our lived experience,” Petersiel says. “Josh and I, in two different apartments, had bedbugs. We no longer do; we’re survivors. So we have a lot to say about the neurosis, the exhaustion, the paranoia, the fascination that sets in when you have bedbugs.”

Under the Table has been developing the piece for a year and a half, and this is its premiere. “The Only Friends We Have” will include a puppet and a remote-controlled robot, both in the shape of bedbugs.