Tales From the Tunnel
Pamela Newton
August 9, 2010: In Tales from the Tunnel, originally performed in last year’s Fringe Festival, six gratingly cheerful actors caper around the stage in matching MTA T-shirts, like the Mouseketeers of public transit, reenacting subway happenings. Purportedly culled from interviews with real straphangers, these tales seem more fantastical than historical, equal parts urban legend (he’s not sleeping, he’s dead!), caricature (a stuffy Madison Avenue matron who deigns to mix with the plebes) and gross-out contest (remember when that crazy lady defecated on my shoe?). If there weren’t so much urine, feces and public sex in this material, it could be repackaged as a zany Nickelodeon show for urban tweens.
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