|
PRAISE FOR AXIS COMPANY PRODUCTIONS
The Herald
There's something of Peter Lorre about Edgar Oliver in East 10th Street - Self Portrait With Empty House, an autobiographical trawl through his New York neighbourhood. The plummy-voiced resident of the big haunted house emanates considerably more eccentric warmth than the bug-eyed screen star, however. As the La MaMa veteran invites us into the twilight zone of a rooming house that's part Rising Damp, part House of Mystery, the roll call of Edward Gorey grotesques he introduces us may be strange, but he never treats these encounters with anything less than affection.
Perhaps it's because, like Frances, the "Lady Macbeth of rags", Freddie Feldman, the pop-eyed midget Khabbalist, and the others, Oliver is seeking sanctuary from the world. Although he and his sister Helen may have moved in when he was a young man in 1977, both he and his environment feel like fragile antiques from a far more precious, sepia-tinted world.
Lit from below and delivering his yarns with unique phrasing, Oliver cuts a remarkable dash, as if that other New York room-house dweller Quentin Crisp had blessed him with the mantle of left-field raconteurship. Beyond the thumbnail sketches of his neighbours, this is a love story about the house, the city and with the young actor he fell for. Randall Sharp's production brings to life what is essentially a set of routines a la Spalding Gray, but infused with a gallows humour and a guileless sincerity.
— Neil Cooper
|
