Fringe Review: Teething Emotionalities: WOOF
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Awkward, and hilarious, life lessons are on candid, comedic display.
SHOW: Teething Emotionalities: WOOF
GENRE: Comedy
GROUP: Tabitha Vidaurri and Alyson Goodman
ATTENDED: Friday, Sept. 11, 8:00 p.m., The Rotunda
CLOSES: Saturday, Sept. 12
BRIEF SELF-DESCRIPTION: In this series of comedic monologues, Tabitha and Alyson chronicle life lessons they absorbed during awkward stages in their lives.
WE THINK: Alyson Goodman and Tabitha Vidaurri enter from opposite ends of the stage in their "two-person one-woman show," Teething Emotionalities: WOOF. Goodman looks harried (or hungover) and carries a case of PBR and a pizza box. Vidaurri looks prim and carries a saxophone case and a water (vodka?) bottle. They drop their items and, after Goodman cracks open a beer and eats part of a slice of pizza, they walk to center stage and feign a chance meeting full of awkward pleasantries. After they suggest meeting up again soon (Goodman, "for beer," Vidaurri, "for coffee"), they part.
And then Goodman jumps into an animated monologue about her childhood porn addiction. The girl missed 80 days of school in one year because she kept faking sick to stay home and masturbate! EIGHTY days!
Teething Emotionalities is full of stories like this, ones that put the performers' most unflattering moments in full view for the audience to identify with or laugh at. And they are funny – even, somehow, Vidaurri's recounting of her drunken, failed suicide attempt that prompted her to finally join AA.
Goodman and Vidaurri are very different performers, brash and deadpan, respectively. It works, though.
As they take turns being in the spotlight, we get a sense of who each of them is via their tales of growing up and the choices they made along the way that led them to this point. They certainly don't have it all figured out, but they can make us feel better about being in the same boat. Hell, we ALL looked weird in those sparkly tutu getups we had to wear for dance class portraits.
Why did they put makeup on 4-year-olds, anyway?
