South Philly Review

Like any rebellious teenagers, The Philadelphia Live Arts Festival and Philly Fringe enjoy finding provocative means to flout convention. Now in their 14th year, the two offer simultaneous 16-day celebrations of new and established performers presenting original works and adapted pieces. With 207 shows, this year’s editions have a high number of local representatives, as nine performances in the first week alone involve either a resident or a nearby location.

Running Sept. 3 to 18, the dual extravaganzas are held at 123 places, with a dozen in the area. One-hundred-eighty-five of the shows will count as Fringe events, meaning the artists in them will be able to “give expression to and develop their talents and artistic visions in total artistic freedom,” according to the festivals’ website. Seven of the nine shows with local flavor have Fringe designation and the other two will uphold the pledge of the Live Arts Festival’s website to “present audiences with high-quality work that entertains, challenges and stimulates.”

Though the nine productions promise to intrigue, two in particular seek to probe the partnership between fear and action: Tribe of Fools, a mostly South Philadelphia-based physical theater company, offers “Dracula,” an original adaptation of Bram Stoker’s examination of Romania’s most feared native son, and the 18-member Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium will act out 14 performances of “The Madwoman of Chaillot,” a 1943 piece concerning Nazi Germany’s occupation of Paris.

The 75-minute effort represents the Tribe’s 10th overall show since 2003 and fourth Fringe appearance, while the Consortium’s take on a “ragtag band of Parisian cafe habitues” and their quest to “rid the world of greed, exploitation and cruelty” is its 14th since forming in ’06.

According to the festival’s website, “Brain fever, nightmares, shadows and madness saturate this dynamic new look at ‘Dracula.’” For co-founder and artistic director Jay Wojnarowski, that new look owes its origins to his schooling.

“We produce about one show a year,” Wojnarowski, a resident of the 700 block of Wharton Street, said of his Tribe of Fools.

In his second stint as a resident, he is aiming to make every show his company produces “something we are very proud of, something that’s spectacular.”

His company’s fresh analysis of the Irishman’s text began as an 10-minute production at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre in Blue Lake, Calif., in ’02. There, Wojnarowski studied corporeal mime, pantomime, acrobatics, clown, commedia, melodrama, mask technique, tango and contact improvisation. He and Terry Brennan, the company’s other co-founder, have led Tribe of Fools for its entirety.

“At Dell’Arte, we had to have something to perform each week,” Wojnarowski, who is pursuing a business administration degree at Peirce College to increase his marketing acumen, said.

Thriving on the rush of having minimal time to create, he and his schoolmates chose to adapt “Dracula.” A roommate’s difficulties handling his psychotic episodes prompted Wojnarowski to take the group’s brief treatment of Stoker’s work, which he said had “so much potential,” and expand it. The result is a modified glimpse into the world of the Transylvanian prince.

“Every element of the show will target fear reactions,” Wojnarowski said.

His company, which recently gained nonprofit status, will stage 13 performances at The Lantern Lab at the Lantern Theater, Ninth and Ludlow streets, Sept. 3 to 11. Because of the show’s intent to monitor fear responses, the Tribe wants to make its audience members aware of what awaits them, especially those at-risk of adverse health effects as a result of being frightened; therefore, all must sign a waiver absolving the company of any responsibility.

“The piece is an exploration of the fear we learned about through our roommate’s situation. We are looking for drastic reactions,” he said. “Hence we have the waiver.”

Similar reactions will not be novel to fans of absurdist theater. The Consortium’s “The Madwoman of Chaillot” blends humor with the perils of corporate aggression.

Artistic director Tina Brock, of the 800 block of Kimball Street, is pleased to have the play uphold her gang’s mission of preserving and presenting difficult and rarely produced absurdist works.

“Works like ‘Madwoman’ are what I enjoy as a performer,” Brock said of the pieces that often present comic elements, tragic images and characters struggling for existential merit. “They are heady works on paper, but they come alive on stage.”

Exploring universal situations and current themes, “Madwoman” is not a work only members of “the intellectual squad” will grasp, according to Brock, whose company will be making its fifth Fringe appearance.

“The play deals, in a sense, with theories of expansion. I see Philadelphia’s art scene as expanding. The city is booming as a hotbed for art. I’m glad ‘Madwoman’ can have its shot,” she said of the 120-minute play that will drop at Walnut Street Theatre Studio 5, 825 Walnut St., Sept. 3 to 18.