LOST

New Yorker August 2003

The best musical in the Fringe isn't even a musical. Technically a chamber opera, Lost has more musicianship and lyrical verve than any of this year's misguidedly tacky aspiring Urinetowns. For some, the words chamber opera may conjure thoughts of sonorous boredom, and it's true that the plot twists in this languid, gothic fairy tale can be seen miles away. But when the subject matter is so juicy—mad scientists, ghosts and valiant children—and the music, by the late composer Jessica Grace Wing, so enchanting, one gladly surrenders to the simple storytelling.

Hanlon (Ted Malawer) and his aptly named sister, Gabby (April Vidal), are vacationing in Tennessee's Great Smoky Mountains when they become separated from their father. A white fawn (Annemieke Marie Farrow) warns them not to go off with the white-lab-coated Laborious (John Schumacher), but they do anyway. Soon the kids find themselves captive adoptees of the unsavory doctor and his wicked wife, Mamba (Molly Karlin), who for centuries have been harvesting children's organs to keep themselves alive.

The singer-actors, supported by a four-piece orchestra that expertly handles Wing's classically flavored score, should be commended for rising to the level of Kirk Wood Bromley's dense, acrobatic libretto. For years a noted versifier in downtown theater, Bromley combines posh talk and street slang into a rich argot that stretches the audience's ears and the performers' lips. "And tho' I miss my daddy so," Gabby sings, "If he desires my credit / Why wed that step-bitch parasite? / By grieving me as if I'm lost / He'll love me more and she'll get tossed." It's sad that the theater no longer has Wing, but at least she left the lush and ravishing Lost as a memento.

David Cote, Time Out New York

The New York International Fringe Festival has always been about inclusion–striving to present as many shows in two weeks as time and space will allow. It’s a noble effort, though the result, often enough, is that there’s a lot of dreck among the glitter, and even worthy scripts can suffer when a production has to be cast and put up as quickly as a festival demands. Quantity, unfortunately, starts to win out over quality.

Thus, among four shows to be reviewed here, one comes up a winner, and the others, well…maybe that’s a perfect example of Fringe odds–one in four shows is worthwhile–but then, hey, it’s all subjective, isn’t it? One person’s Meaningless Sex might just be another person’s….Urinetown....

But the news is good about Inverse Theater’s fine production of Lost, which, happily, lives up to its considerable Fringe buzz, and more than that, emerging as a genuinely creative, intelligent and challenging piece of musical theater that I imagine will have a future beyond its current incarnation. The show, taking a fairly evident cue from Into The Woods, combines several myths and historical legends to tell its story about two teenagers who get lost in the woods (Hansel and Gretel is one of the sources) only to be lured into a less-than-sylvan dale called Chopping Block Hollow, which is populated by poor unfortunate things missing limbs and vital organs. The poor unfortunates, it turns out, are all in service to a supremely misguided but fascinating mother figure named Mamba (sort of a cross between a fairy tale witch, Mama Rose and Medea) who, it seems, has found a nefarious way to keep herself and her husband younger and more vital with each passing year.

Yes, Lost (pictured), with its creepy conceit and spooky, chill-inducing visual images, qualifies as a dark musical, though, miraculously, it still manages to explore the nature of parental responsibility, childhood fears, romantic desire and the sacrifices we all make for love, while reveling in the storytelling magic inherent in old folk legends. The mysterious and lovely score, by Kirk Wood Bromley and, sadly, the late Jessica Grace Wing, weaves in and out of Bromley’s own book seamlessly; like in any worthy musical, the book and the score are perfectly integrated and dependent on one another in a powerfully unified way.

Though a future production of Lost will undoubtedly be re-cast, re-designed and re-orchestrated, among the strong-voiced cast on display here, I particularly liked the contributions of Ted Malawer, Annemieke Marie Farrow, Jenna Rose and Adam Kemmerer. I also admired Rob Urbinati’s thoughtful and heartfelt direction. The result is that Inverse’s resourceful mounting (on a shoestring budget) of this rewarding and challenging musical is one of the best offerings of this year’s Fringe festival…

Perhaps there’s a new Urinetown in town after all.

John Rowell, Show Business Weekly