"The Bronze Bitch Flies at Noon" and "Dog Tag"

by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low • August 4, 2008 • I walked away with the impression that I usually have after one of Matt Everett’s scripts: that they’re extraordinarily well-written, quick, clever, funny and lyrical; and that that writing is at the service of a subject that just plain doesn’t hold that much interest for me.

Womb With a View is the blog of Phillip Andrew Bennett Low, one of five bloggers covering the Minnesota Fringe Festival for the Daily Planet.

Someone joked afterwards that both plays kind of feel like the setup to an insanely well-written porn: they revolve around establishing an incredible degree of romantic and sexual tension between two good-looking protagonists, then fade to black before the payoff. But I’d argue that that’s not unique to Matt’s scripts, that’s typical of the genre: romantic comedies generally revolve around catharsis and wish fulfillment. They’re pornos that are obsessed with the nuances of the mating ritual, rather than the act of copulation itself.

So it’s well-written, and pleasant enough to sit through. But if you’re not really into the idea of fucking one of these dudes, it really doesn’t have a whole lot to say.

Phillip Andrew Bennett Low (maximumverbosityonline@gmail.com) is a playwright and poet, storyteller and mime, theatre critic and libertarian activist, who lurks ominously in the desert wilds of St. Louis Park, feasting upon the hygienically-prepared flesh of the once-living. His main claim to fame is probably as co-founder of the Rockstar Storytellers, and as founder/producer of Maximum Verbosity, a garage-band-like theatre troupe that is in a state of constantly re-defining itself.