High Energy - Misdirected

Review by Jeff Catanese

The trouble with giving The Chainsaw Boys a less than stellar review is that you so desperately want to like them the minute the show starts.  They practically leap onto the stage, wearing matching black suits and brightly colored shirts, five attractive people musically bellowing out that they are “dying for gym.”  (The input the pianist received when he asked, “What was your favorite thing about school?”)  Immediately you are excited about what more may be to come, and immediately you are let down as the verses of the song are muddied by the incessant wandering around the stage of Mike Bencivenga taking the first verse, and the uninspired rhymes put forth by the rest of the cast members.  Thankfully the song is capped by the verse from Bethany Pagliolo, the group’s best singer, and most clever lyricist.

Fresh from New York’s Fringe Festival, The Chainsaw Boys opened their new season on September 16^th to a small but friendly crowd.  The performance consists mostly of short structures that are either their own invention or modified forms of standard games.  They cap the show with their original “Chainsaw,” which is basically a series of unrelated long-form scenes based on a minimum of input.

The formats themselves were hit and miss.  The first format performed after their opening song had Matt Ostrom and Michael Bridenstine performing a succession of connected scenes around the other three troupe members who were meant to be various inanimate objects.  The scene was meant to show the proposed dissolution of the family business by two brothers from Kentucky, but in trying to endow the other performers with an identity and purpose the scene itself became more and more unclear, and was almost completely discarded.  A game that faired somewhat better was a job interview format in which Leo Byrne Jenicek played an executive interviewing for the audience suggested “Computer Programmer.”  The four other “Boys” entered in to the scene with clever ideas of what might make the worst possible idea of a computer programmer.  Mr. Bridenstine was especially effective portaying Stephen Hawking, and Mr. Ostrom provided strong support as the person who had to carry him into the interview.  It was striking, however, that Mr. Jenicek seemed thrown by each new offer, and took a few moments to compose himself for each interview.

Embedded in the show were two musical formats.  

A jazz inspired game in which everyday sounds were used to create the tune was an interesting enough experiment, but eventually went nowhere and left the audience wondering if it was even worth the time.  Their version of “Can You Sing This,” which they smartly disguise as a cable access show about singer/songwriters, was only as good as each song.  The tunes were ably plucked out in good style by pianist Noel Katz, however only Ms. Pagliolo’s Benedictine Chant about apples was truly sold with no second guessing or involuntary wandering like the Calypso song about “Satan’s Hairy Back, by Mr. Bencivenga who cracked himself up throughout.  The disco tune about “Lymph Nodes” by Mr. Bridenstine and Mr. Jenicek was fun to begin, but came to a screeching halt as the two performers looked at each other to see who was taking the next line, and then couldn’t seem to decide.

The format they performed in which the head of a movie studio looks for his next big blockbuster had some fine and fun interaction between Mr. Bridenstine, playing the studio head, and Ms. Pagliolo as a screen writer.  The film they were producing was ruined when the rest of the cast was not able to progress past in-jokes and a stream of gay porn references, which may have been funny were they handled cleverly.  The scene’s saving grace was the adept handling of a Sondheim-style showstopper at the films end.  Well-delivered by Mr. Bencivenga, backed by Mr. Ostrom and Mr. Jenicek, the tune stood as testament to what this group is capable of when focused and challenged.

The “Boys” seemed to really excel with their “Chainsaw.”  Starting as a simple machine (in this case a “Flying Reptile” machine), they spin out into whatever direction they are inspired.  The initial offers were great fun and the audience was enjoying the idea of talking, prehistoric bugs who took their life philosophy cues from Oprah.  It was hard then to understand why these bugs would then doubt the existence of Oprah in a world that has not yet produced Jesus.  But this was par for the course in an evening that already twice showed a reluctance to accept gender changes.

Many of these scenes quickly fell apart when simple mistakes were made and/or petty bickering broke out among the actors trying to direct the scene.  Oftentimes in his zeal, Mr. Bencivenga displayed a physicality that was sometimes dangerous (picking other troupe members up, slamming himself to the ground), and made the audience uncomfortable.  A standout scene was the one in which Ms. Pagliolo and Mr. Ostrom plotted to have sex in their parents’ bedroom, only to be thwarted by their mother’s (Mr. Bencivenga) dinosaur legs.

There were quite a few laughs to be had in the evening, and many smiles, but it would seem that The Chainsaw Boys might want to listen to their own tag line: “No Scripts.  No Fear.”  The second guessing of each other, commenting on the scene content, and lack of surety they often display seems to indicate that one of their great problems is trusting the lack of a script, and each other to provide.

It really is hard to not like The Chainsaw Boys, but at the same time, fundamental mistakes make it hard to like them more.