Thursday, June 16, 2022

Asexuality! the Solo Musical! (Fringe 22)

 

Spoilers ahoy!

Disclaimer--the director Heather Dowling and writer/performer Rebecca McGlynn are friends of mine.

Asexuality! The Solo Musical! is one of many one person shows which so often make up much of the fare of any Fringe Festival.  It charts a journey of someone who feels in a real sense out of touch with themselves and the expectations surrounding gender, desire, identity, much of what we entwine with our sense of sexuality.

Two things really stand out here.  First are the songs, which (unlike most musicals, let us be honest) prove quite catchy.  I can still hear them in my head.  Part of that is because they are needed to express things with more than words.  Structure, in other words, rather than decoration.  Second, this show eschews simple solutions, easy endings, the formula that can be boiled down to "happily ever after."  Not that happiness is somehow impossible, but that life--like art--remains a work in progress.  Always subject to growth, to learning, to improvement, to every growing wisdom and possibilities.

Asexuality! The Solo Musical! plays Sunday June 19 at Studio/Stage on Western, both live and virtual.

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