"Dystopia Gardens" shines at Fringe NYC

   The 15th annual New York International Fringe Festival is underway and among the 200 some offerings is an ingenious thing called Dystopia Gardens––a sketch-play send-up of the future.  This future is in the spirit of the genre of dystopian films like Brazil and Logan’s Run with a little help from George Orwell.  Creators Jerry Miller and Will Nunziata have produced, costumed, written, and performed a dozen characters each in this very funny one act entertainment about a mythical future in a bubble protected city on a scorched earth.  The series of vignettes are directed by Paul Stancato and held together with original music, crazy sounds and video interludes of a Big Brother inspired host, cover topics of future living such as waiting in line for services, ordering fast food, brainwashing and human waste disposal (i.e. toilet humor).  By hook or by crook the team has cleverly assembled comic and effective costumes made out of supplies from what looks to be the 99 cent store.  They play kids, women and the various male characters of the world in a “Kids in the Hall” kind of way, which adds a layer of laughs over the smart sketches infused with an insightful humor in situations ripe for parody.  Multileveled humor is the key to this inspired work, for it is both low  burlesque and high minded satire.  This piece actually comments more on our contemporary life than an imagined future, which is what makes the underlying themes ring true.  Underneath the lunacy is an illumination of humanity.  The show is self-described as “sex in a pool of funny,” but that only partially describes a work that is deeper than mere sketch comedy.  Moreover, the two actors are fearless and shameless in a “can’t believe they went there” kind of way.  Dystopia Gardens is among the best of what the Fringe Festival has to offer.