IndyFringe: Crossing the Bridge

Wednesday I had time to catch one IndyFringe show, making my way down to The Earth House, by Lockerbie UMC at East and New York streets, to catch Crossing the Bridge, by Leonix Movement Theatre Ensemble of Los Angeles.

Don't be alarmed by the term "movement" -- it's nothing weird and is mainly pantomiming to help tell and advance the easy-to-follow story. As for the tale, it is about a man's dying, and how he and his sister work through it. The show opens with the players relating the various euphemisms for death ("kick the bucket," etc.), but it turns out the title of the show is more than that, as the first and last scenes reveal. Those who saw the three-minute teaser last Thursday know that there is a fair amount of humor, especially in the chaos of the hospital and a scene in which our central character receives his "verdict." But the serious undercurrent eventually takes over the narrative, and as it reaches the inevitable conclusion, have a hanky ready.

It's almost an edgy-theatre cliche to have a gay man dying of AIDS -- though to be accurate, it's actually a cancer that's killing him. Still, anyone who has had to help a loved one "pass over" can connect with this material. It's not the story so much of a disease but rather of people facing what we all eventually have to face, and overall a tragicomically beautiful performance.