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Horse Country Clancy Productions Eclipse, FringeHUB Until Sat 6 March Two smartly suited men, Sam and Bob, stand facing the audience. One tells a joke that's not funny. Unperturbed, they proceed into a spill about how wonderful their country, America, is. So far, there's little to no reaction from the audience. The banter continues, though at this point we start to notice that we are in fact invisible to the two and that neither of them have looked directly at each other, even though all of their exchange indicates they are heavily in conversation. No one knows exactly who or why these two are here and although there's the occasional reference to an investigation of sorts, no further clues are offered. Throughout the escalating chain of discussion, all of the items (the nine of diamonds playing card, sandwiches, cable television, mirrors and car wrecks), people (Hitler, the fictitious Joe Packard and clowns) and animals (horses, rats, seals and fish) which form the core of their topics are now beginning to metaphorically recur and become nonsensically entwined with other. You may even begin to think that you know where this is all leading to, especially when given a few hearty references to television pop culture and classic movies such as 'Cool Hand Luke' and 'Midnight Cowboy'. Horse Country as it turns out is a euphemism for America and is an absurdist and bleak look at modern living, which is made even more apparent during the last couple of scenes where Bob delivers a cognitive appraisal of the mere notion of naming objects, and Sam retells the joke told at the show's start in a more anecdotal manner. Brilliantly portrayed by Dave Calvitto and Ben Schneider, their timing and near clown like approach ton these two offbeat characters is both intensely captivating and amusingly wry. |
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