3rd
Annual New York International Fringe Festival  **Awarded
Excellence in Performance**"The Vinyl Shop" by Nick Digilio and Mike Vieau At The Kraine Theater Reviewed by David Roberts for for Theatre Reviews Limited It probably won't be long before the American Psychiatric Association adds "Internet addition" to its current list of psychological disorders. And if "The Vinyl Shop" is any indication, "Music addition" might be soon to follow with this prestigious classification. Nick Diglilio, Mike Vieau and their "The Vinyl Shop" have created (with a little help from Nick Hornby's "High Fidelity") the ultimate play for all music junkies and their wannabe lovers. Vinyl Shop owner Rob (Mick Vieau) and his employees/homies Dick (Jerry Hlava) and Barry (Matt O'Neill) are addicted to music and to creating topics for and making lists of almost anything related to the music industry. Their "top-five" list categories are only topped by the items found therein, especially in Barry's lists. The disagreement which arises between these three music "heads" is often very funny, sometimes a bit too high on the volume/gain side, and even bittersweet. When we first meet Rob, he's sharing his "top-five break-ups" list. The recurrent theme throughout the stories he tells is summed up in the final words Rob hears from Laura (Heather Delker) his ultimate and most recent vinyl addiction casualty: "If you got your life together, you'd make someone a great boyfriend." "The Vinyl Shop" is all about whether or not Rob can manage to get his life togther; rather, whether he even really wants to get his life together. Rob is impenetrable to feelings and Mick Vieau portrays Rob with a stolidness that is sometimes frightening. His Rob is at once charming and blatantly abusive to most of the human beings he encounters and to himself. And his record store is not much more than a haven for co-dependent music junkies. Sort of a store-front self help drop in center for the emotionally challenged. Dick and Barry cohabit this music mecca and spend their days berating Michael Jackson Boxed Set fans and chasing Mad Dog (Steve Walker) from the store. Mad Dog (who often needlessly stoops to scatological displays) is perhaps the worst fear for the boys he harasses, the image of what music addiction might result in. And his constant refrain "music sucks!" serves as a chilling counterpoint to the total commitment Rob, Dick, and Barry have to the music scene. Rob tries hard to reform, even calling former girlfriends to see if he can diagnose his "condition." And there are flashbacks to times past as he tries to understand where he went wrong. And still he cannot, or chooses not to change. The audience often wonders why anyone (including Laura) would want to go out with Rob in the first place, never mind stay with him long enough to warrant a place on his break-up list. He claims to know "he's an asshole," but consciousness here does not create cure. "The Vinyl Shop" works well most of the time. The writing is so "dead on" that some of the flashbacks are unnecessary and slow the play down. Digilio and Vieau have written Rob so well that by the time of the second act "reruns" the audience knows Rob better than he does and the actual vignettes of "what went wrong" are not necessary. The cast is wonderful. Dick stands by his man throughout and wants more than anything for Rob to pull things together. Jerry Hlava is perfect as Dick and often serves as Rob's alter ego as well as his soul mate. The character of Barry is about as annoying as it can get and Matt O'Neill plays this loud (but sometimes sensitive) employee to the edge and back. All the customers and voices are adequate and Rob's loves past and present are believable and, though we begin to care for them, our ultimate goal becomes getting these women into a twelve step program for "lovers of music junkies." There is a bit too much homophobic business going on in the scene where the customer who loves GTR comes into the shop. Hopefully, this will find its way out of the next version of this otherwise engaging play. The production values in this Fringe offering are commendable and the attention to lighting, sound, and direction pays off consistently. Indeed, "The Vinyl Shop" becomes for the audience an opportunity to examine its own self-centeredness and its own relative ability to connect with "the other." The one song missing here is Bob Dylan's "Take Me As I Am Or Let Me Go." Maybe Rob needs to be Rob. Maybe "Let It Be" is the proper Beatles' counter-refrain to Mad Dog's "music sucks." Go see! Reviewed on Saturday, August 21, 1999 "THE VINYL SHOP" By Nick Digilio and Mike Vieau. Directed by Nick Digilio. Stage manager/lights, Dana Wandtke; set design/construction, Wendy Tregay; sound, Nick Digilio. Presented by Mousetrap Productions and The Factory Theater Company at the Kraine Theater, 85 East 4th Street between 2nd and 3rd (Bowery) Avenues. In August at the New York International Fringe Festival on the following dates: Wednesday the 25th at 4:15 p.m.; Friday the 27th at 6:15 p.m.; Sunday the 29th at 2:15 p.m. All tickets are $11.00. For information and reservations visit http://www.fringenyc.org WITH: Cynthia Cervini (Liz), Heather Delker (Laura), Heather Donaldson (Mom, Penny, Customer), Jerry Hlava (Dick), Todd Oldham (Dick understudy, Customers), Matthew J. O'Neill (Barry), Kevin Rich (The Trader, etc.), Josh Tobiesson (Kevin, Customers), Wendy Tregay (Mary, Mrs. H.), Mike Vieau (Rob), and Steve Walker (Mad Dog, Geoffrey). |