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REVIEW: RAVE MOM
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Burning woman
"Rave Mom" is Ann Magnuson's movingly personal story of questionable romance and improbable adventure leading from the dot-com bonanza to the L.A. rave scene to the Burning Man festival.
By ROBIN EISGRAU
Offoffoff.com
Nearly 20 years after beginning her performance careeer in the East Village,
Ann Magnuson returns to the neighborhood with a witty, vibrant, thoroughly
entertaining one-woman show. "Rave Mom" is Magnuson's tale of dabbling in
the L.A. rave scene, replete with some drug experimentation and her
reflections on what she encounters.
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| RAVE MOM | Written and performed by: Ann Magnuson.
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As she goes on a trip (in more ways than
one) to Las Vegas with friends to see a New Year's Eve Marilyn Manson
concert, she talks about how she's being romantically pursued by a dot-com
millionaire who wants to fly her to a distant locale for their first date.
The two storylines dovetail effectively as Magnuson talks about her equal
bemusement at both scenarios. She holds the dot-com guy at bay (in the show
she refers to him as Moneybags) not wanting to seem like she can be bought
and modeling her behavior after Doris Day's in "That Touch Of Mink."
Whenever she mentions Moneybags, a clever sequined carrot dangles from
above.
As she tries to get a grip on things with this guy, she lets her
friends convince her to go to a rave, where she tries to fit in although she
feels out of place. (She talks about pulling her "Cat In The Hat" hat over her
crow's feet and giving it her best shot.) She juxtaposes her description of
the rave with her tale of Moneybags' lame Oscar party, where it starts to
occur to her that he might not be Prince Charming after all (especially
considering he does more drugs than the ravers).
Magnuson's pop-cultural
savvy and skills as a raconteuse make "Rave Mom" an engaging journey. She
punctuates her description of the rave scene with apropos music and dancing.
The show is also very moving when Magnuson remembers her late brother,
Bobby. The part when she talks about visiting the Temple of The Sad Story at
Burning Man and reflecting on seeing him at a hospital as he is dying of
AIDS is truly poignant. Magnuson descirbes a samll radio in the room playing
an oldies station and Petula Clark's "I Couldn't Live Without Your Love"
swells in the background as he slips away. (I found myself blinking back
tears at this moment.)
With this show, Magnuson displays her twin gifts for
holding up a culturally resonant mirror to our times, and for being a
supremely dynamic performer.
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OCTOBER 20, 2001
OFFOFFOFF.COM • THE GUIDE TO ALTERNATIVE NEW YORK
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