New York Critic

The Submarine Show created and performed by Jaron Hollander and Slater Penney presented as part of the New York International Fringe Festival As soon as Jaron Hollander and Slater Penney walk on stage in The Submarine Show , looking goofy in their striped shirts, suspenders and glasses, we can see that the show is going to be fun. It’s an elaborate mime with tumbling and vocalizing. The two nimble performers fill up the stage for 75 minutes as if they were a whole company of actors. We follow their story as they crash in their submarine, surface to the jungle, machete their way through the brush, hunt, fly and have a series other adventures. One of them even has an out-of-body experience. The audience isn’t left out. The performers coax us to put on our imaginary regulators so we can breathe underwater. When they turn into birds, they sidle through the aisles picking up our accessories with their beaks. They’re remarkably expressive; their faces register relief, satisfa

Shake the Earth Written and performed by Lousine Shamamian Presented by Arev Productions, Inc., in association with The New York International Fringe Festival – FringeNYC Directed by Misti B. Wills Nothing’s more interesting than a dramatic juxtaposition. One of the best sorts is the abutment of the personal and the historical. It can put our lives in perspective. It throws the ordinary into a sort of dramatic relief. In her interesting one-woman show Shake the Earth , presented by Arev Productions in association with The New York International Fringe Festival, Lousine Shamamian stands on stage and tells us about coming out as a lesbian to her Armenian mother. Pretty standard for the form, which used to be called performance art. But she does something more interesting as well: she talks about the Armenian genocide, relating her great-grandfather’s experiences in 1915. She begins with her personal story. “There are no gay people in Armenia”, her mother tells her after read