So What Really Is Salamander Stew?
Shakespeare meets The Nightmare Before Christmas in Salamander Stew, a Romeo and Juliet musical powered by love and a mighty joint, currently playing at The 4th Street Theater as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. There aren’t too many international productions in Fringe this year, but a lost-in-time enchanted forest does the trick to make this one feel far removed from New York. The only verse-play in the festival, Salamander Stew takes you into a phantasmagorical world of slithering creatures, hungry spirits, and deceptive rather than deciduous trees. Everything we always read about the deep dark woods but were afraid to experience unfolds before our eyes in its native wickedness. If you are a Harry Potter fan, a Tolkien geek or if Beetlejuice was one of your favorite movies, Salamander Stew is a must.
‘Tis the premise – classically simple: Young, naïve and lovesick Steven stumbles upon beautiful woodlands. It’s hard to tell whether the spell descends on him from the evil powers of the trees or the sinful potency of the grass he smokes, but once he takes a respite in the welcoming shade, the thicket takes him. His inflamed mind takes him on a psychedelic trip: he meets his love, he loses her, he wakes up in the lizards’ lair exhausted and hungry, but all he is offered to eat is a nauseating salamander stew.
A sprig of spinach.
A slice of radish.
Whiff of ginger.
Paw of rabbit.
Orange claw.
Forest thatch.
Lizard’s lungs.
Down the hatch.
There aren’t many props on the stage: a leaf-covered layer and a couple of beautifully authentic stumps adorned with fuzzy yarns is all the magic. The treacherous forest as well as the evil inhabitants it harbors, are acted by the energetic cast of seventeen. They spend hours on their make-up, transforming themselves from human into sprawling plants, slithering serpents and ghastly gnomes. On the way to the theater, they practice jungle sounds, chirping like birds and rustling like leaves. Their efforts pay-off: the moment we set foot in the door we feel that instead of a theater, we have wandered into the endless woods.
A lot happens in this one-act musical: dancing, drumming, singing — all in a quick aggressive pace that never slows down, moves the story forward and keeps our attention. So do the lighting effects, transporting us from the pitch black to the vampirish white to the soft shade of the love scenes. The cast works well together, especially when performing the Red-Eye dance in complete darkness, creating a believable illusion of dozens of hungry red eyes glowing in the infinite wilderness. A charmingly poetic old English script executed in the best traditions of Stomp, has a lot to offer, but there is only one thing is doesn’t do.
It never explains what really is Salamander Stew.
When it doubt, Google it. According to Urban Dictionary, “Salamander Stew” is a code name for sex.
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Salamander Stew
Writer: Michael Fixel
Director: Juliet Fixel and Ron Shreve
1h 0m
www.facebook.com/salamanderstew
VENUE #12: 4th Street Theatre
Thu 25 @ 6:15 Fri 26 @ 2 Sat 27 @ 10 Sun 28 @ 4:30
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Lina,
Thanks so much for your review of Salamander Stew. I had never heard the “urban dictionary” definition when I came up with the phrase, but it is perfectly apropos. The jungle Steven is lost in is entirely sexual. I love people seeing Tim Burton in the company’s realization of my poetry. I also see the Beats, whom I studied with, specifically
William Burroughs, Ginsberg, and Michael McClure.
I have not seen this production yet. Juliet order me to stay 1,000 miles away. I’ll be there Thursday thru Sunday. Now I’m more intrigued than ever. I can’t wait!
Thanks
Michael Fixel
Just heard that you’re at Columbia. I graduated from the College a long time ago. I like to think there’s a little of the Core Curriculum in the play.
Michael