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August 26, 2005
TT: Snapshots from the Fringe
I reported on this year's New York International Fringe Festival (which runs through Sunday) in today's Wall Street Journal drama column. The most talked-about show I saw was Bridezilla Strikes Back!:
For those who don't keep up with reality TV, "Bridezillas" is the series that follows a group of increasingly demented brides-to-be as they plan their Must...Be...Perfect Weddings. Cynthia Silver, now a faculty member at New York's Atlantic Theater Company, was approached to take part in the first season and jumped at the chance for network TV exposure, taking for granted that it was a straight documentary and not realizing that the producers would edit the cinema-verité footage to make their subjects look as bitchy and neurotic as possible. Co-written with Kenny Finkle, "Bridezilla Strikes Back!" is the story of how she descended into the double-barreled maelstrom of a wedding and a hit TV show and emerged sadder but wiser.
I assumed Ms. Silver would tell her tale with the wised-up detachment of a media-savvy Manhattanite, but the tone of "Bridezilla Strikes Back!"--frankly confessional, rough around the emotional edges, unexpectedly poignant--is nothing like what I'd expected...
No link, so to read more about this and the four other Fringe Festival I reviewed, buy a copy of today's Journal. (Alternatively, go here to subscribe to the Online Journal, where you can read me every week and lots of other good stuff every day.)
Posted August 26, 2005 12:05 PM
