BY STEPHANIE WILLING

Through a series of vignettes taking place in a small town library, Browsing by Glass Beads Ensemble gives brief glimpses of pedestrian lives and iconic literature.  The cast of eight talented actors portray a myriad of personalities as  the townsfolk and the literary characters, checking in and out of accents and costumes.  The head librarian (Danna Call) is faced with severe budget cuts that threaten to close the library down, and much of “drama” of the story lies between those pages.  As library users come and go, we meet the people who take its services for granted but are unwilling to pick up the tab along side the active citizens who petition and volunteer to keep the library going. cInterspersed with the civic budget drama are scenes from the books that the library guests are reading.  An interview with Henri Matisse, an unrecognizable scene from The Secret Garden, and phrases from Walt Whitman are just a few of the dimmed down luminaries.  Many of the scenes are so short as to seem meaningless, while others go on and on without any apparent point.  Also, every scene ends with a fade to black–even the 45 second scenes–and rather than giving the scenes the emphasis a fade usually entails, it reinforces their inanity.  “Thanks, I’ll read it,” was the closing line in one lackluster fade to black scenario.  Imagine picking up a book at random, flipping it open, and reading the first three paragraphs.  Maybe you pick it up again, maybe you put it aside forever.  Now imagine that each of those pages you look at is the most boring part of the novel, and you’ll have a sense of how this hodgepodge plays out.  If it were a TV show, I would’ve changed the channel in under five minutes. It’s grueling in its tedium, and the excellence of the ensemble (especially James D’Amico and Suzi Lindner) is undermined by the fact that they rarely get anything interesting to say. Do yourself a favor and don’t check Browsing out.

Continuing down the trail of dusty corridors and moldering objects leads us to The Lost and Found, an entertaining and energizing one man show.  Hans Augustave is the writer/performer of the 90 minute piece, and it’s no small thing to demand an audience’s attention for that long without intermission.  He proves up to the task as he plays Damien, a newly married man in his twenties who has descended into the bowels of the Lost and Found repository.  Damien guides us through a narrative comprised of four characters whose belongings have been there for a long time.  He slips on a a piece of bling and becomes a thug, circa 1990′s.  A pair of glasses leads him to Dexter, a socially challenged young man whose bleeding heart is in danger of bleeding out. The story of a once promising student turned druggie hides in the handle of a lap top case.  By far the most interesting character is Duvalier, a Haitian immigrant to the USA, whose daughter has stayed out past her curfew.  His alternate fury and pride over his daughter is endearing and fascinating, and Augustave hits every note, nuance, and inflection with tenderness and authenticity that draws out laughter that is respectful and accessible.  It’s a delightful premise that will engage anyone who has ever wandered through a flea market and wondered about an errant object’s history, however not all the stories soar.  Dexter is too much a caricature, a hybrid of Steve Urkel with Oprah-Winfrey-pop-psychology simplification.  The reformed druggie sounds like a carbon copy from Narcotics Anonymous testimonials, and even the thug seems a little bit sentimental.  Augustave’s writing hints of greater things to follow, and his charismatic performance promises to take an audience with him as he continues to grow as an artist.

Going into the bowels of a different kind of darkness brings us to James Comtois’ NYITA Award-nominated play, Infectious Opportunity.  Wes Farley (David Ian Lee) appears to have everything: a highly paid but low maintenance professorship, a screenplay surrounded by Oscar buzz, and the disease. He’s HIV positive.  Or at least that’s what he wants everyone to believe because ever since he opened up about his “condition” he’s received all the love, support, and worship a fallible human being can stand.  The problem is that he’s as healthy as they come, and every second of his life is a lie.  Wes is haunted by Josie (Jessi Gotta), a woman who is part ghost, part fiction from his screenplay.  In Dickensian ghost of Christmas past style, she takes Wes through the seminal moments of his falsehood, showing how his not-quite-a-lie became an obscene inaccuracy until it evolved into a calculated masquerade.  Everything he has used as material has been stolen from those who have actually suffered, and even the words he uses to inspire his students are taken straight from his former professor’s lectures.  It’s sensitive subject matter, but Wes’s audacity to prey on one of the most taboo and isolated groups in society makes the stakes that much higher.  The cast is uniformly excellent, and each player is a standout.  Ingrid Nordstrom is pitch perfect in her seamless transitions from polished and fatuous TV reporter to the bookish college student, and Matthew Trumbull creates a world of meaning for the naive Professor Franklin out of his awkward body quirks.  It would be so easy to be sentimental or didactic in a play dealing so much with the AIDS community, but instead Comtois’ script focuses on an even more afflicted population: the liars and the schmucks in tacit partnership.  To use and be used is a virus of it’s own, and in the end the ad absurdum element of the plot doesn’t seem so far fetched at all.

BROWSING Written by Danna Call, Mari Gorman, Craig Pospisil. Starring Danna Call, Juliet Coffey, James D’Amico, Christopher Estrada, Roy Havrilack, Suzi Lindner, Ruth Shepard, Ryan Wright Playing at Teatro SEA, 107 Suffolk Street NYC.

THE LOST AND FOUND Written by and Starring Hans Augustave Directed by Tom McNeill and Scott Reagan Content Disclaimer (Excessive adult language, drug use, suicide) Playing at Manhattan Theater Source, 177 MacDougal Street NYC.

INFECTIOUS OPPORTUNITY Written by James Comtois Directed by Pete Boisvert Starring David Ian Lee, Jessi Gotta, Matthew Trumbull, Darryl Lathon, Ingrid Nordstrom, DR Mann Hanson, Rebecca Comtois. Content Disclaimer (Adult Language, Drug Use) Playing at The Living Theater, 21 Clinton Street NYC.

**CHECK http://www.fringenyc.org for exact show times and dates throughout the festival

Stephanie’s Grades: Browsing: D, The Lost and Found: B-, Infectious Opportunity: A

Bottom Line: It’s always a mixed bag, but there’s more greatness than grist in what’s being served up.

What BVEW Members Might Like: Fringe audiences are the theater going populace, not just friends of the cast. It’s exciting to share a downtown show with people from outside your personal independent theater circle.