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Dispatches from the festival frontlines.

FRINGE REVIEW: My First Sony

As we wait for the play to start, the set of My First Sony hints at the meticulous but messy story about to reveals itself. Yotam (Roy Horovitz) – an eleven-year-old boy –has documented the messy details of his family story on the children’s tape-recorder his father gave him. The recordings augment the story that Yotam tells with sensitivity but the limited understanding of a pre-adolescence. This solo performance is augmented with sound recordings of other voices – the mother, her friend, a Holocaust survivor whose memoirs Yotam’s father undertakes to ghost-write, in order to earn enough to feed his three children. Horovitz portrays the bewildered and obsessed child, without being childish. However, the opening night performance was marred by a too-rapid telling of certain sequences. Whether because of opening night “nerves” or limited experience with the sound-absorbing properties of the set, a number of Horovitz’ key lines were lost to the audience. I found myself pulled out of the story to puzzle about the names of Yotam’s sister and brother, wondering who was which, and lost much of the impact of a key scene, as a result. A disturbing story, told with sincerity and skill. Three and a half out of five stars.

more in Fringe Reviews     |     posted Aug 13th, 2010 at 2:27pm     


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