SALT LAKE CITY — One of the best parts about the Great Salt Lake Fringe Festival is seeing shows at the germination phase when they are just getting started. I love thinking of classics that we know and love and wondering what they must have been like in that first workshop or staged reading. Hark! is such an experience and I think there is real potential in this one act play if playwright A.B. Harrison keeps working on it.
Show closes August 4, 2024.
Hark! tells the story of 2 people who have been marooned on a desert island and grow increasingly desperate for human connection beyond their own interactions. Griz Siebeneck plays The Maiden and Percy Cordero is the pirate Longbeard. As the play goes on we start to realize this isn’t a reality like our own as surreal and silly things begin to happen particularly to Longbeard.
Harrison, in the playwright’s notes, says he wanted to “get a little bit weird” but that he wanted “the characters in the absurd to go on a journey,” and I’d say he succeeds in this goal. Some things that happen are quite outlandish and wild, but the performances feel real and the responses genuine to what they would feel if these things happened to them and if they were marooned on an island together.
They didn’t list a hair and makeup person in the program but they do give Cordero an impressive beard and wig that truly does fit the name Longbeard. The set is simple with a pile of wood that is maneuvered into a fire and raft at various times, and there is background music played throughout the show (uncredited in the program.)
I enjoyed the interaction between Siebeneck and Cordero. They have a nice comedic chemistry and bounced off each other well. I particularly enjoyed Siebeneck’s sarcastic responses to Cordero’s more earnest understanding of the world. Also Rachel Pace coming in as a puppeteer with crab and bird puppets was a cute way to break up dialogue and give the blank room a sense of place near the ocean.
Harrison says in the notes he was inspired to write Hark! during the pandemic, and you can see that in the narrative. It is, after all, about these isolated individuals trying to find connection. We can all relate to what they are going through. I would just work on the humor. Some of the jokes didn’t land like a long segment with Longbeard getting pregnant feels tired and just not that humorous. What was more funny is banter about whether they were going to have sex or not, and if they found each other attractive at all. That more grounded relatable humor worked better.
That said, there is potential in Hark! and I hope they keep working on it. The website says 60 minutes but it was a lot shorter than that in reality. Probably more like 40 minutes. It is directed by Taylor Elliott and there are 2 more chances to see it at Fringe on the 2nd and 4th.
These reviews are made possible by a grant from the Salt Lake County Zoo, Arts, and Parks program.
