Killing Kevin Spacey

The creators of previous Fringe hits _The Bible (Abridged)_ and _The Movies (Abridged)_ are back, this time minus their usual parenthetical. Despite it’s critical acclaim last year I was disappointed with _The Movies_, having found the abridged cinema spoofs to be generally flat and earnest. I thought I’d give the group a second chance with *Killing Kevin Spacey*, based on the assumption that this year they were creating a narrative themselves, rather than just finding excuses to reenact their favourite cinematic moments.

I was half right. Killing Kevin Spacey is about Charlie, a hangdog whipping boy who hates his monotonous life, loathes his boss, is abused by his girlfriend, and can do nothing but embarrass himself in front of his crush. The setup seemed promising, borrowing elements discreetly from _American Beauty_, including Thomas Newman’s familiar score. A fortuitous delivery from NetFlix offers Charlie an epiphany: he sees his life reflected in a series of Kevin Spacey’s characters, particularly his roles in _American Beauty, The Usual Suspects_ and _Glengarry Glen Ross_. His eyes opened, Charlie vows to never be ‘Spaceyed’ again and resolves to pick a new icon to emulate: Al Pacino.

Unfortunately, the till-now promising effort went a bit off the rails at this point. Charlie attacks each of his life’s problems with one of Pacino’s most recognizable hyper-masculine monologues, typically without any success. Again the play becomes a vehicle for a series of film-geek homages, though it’s not without it’s humour. In between the borrowed scenes the story follows a cliché underdog romance, which doesn’t seem intended to do more than string the soliloquies together.

Elan Wolf Farbiarz does Verbal’s ennui as well as Scarface’s swagger, but Joshua Levine carries most of the show with his physical humour in filling out the entire supporting cast single-handedly. If you enjoyed their previous efforts then this is definitely for you, but I personally would like to see these guys stop abridging their favourites fan moments and create something all their own.

_Killing Kevin Spacey presented by Wolf Productions; Produced by Elan Wolf Farbiarz; Written by Elan Wolf Farbiarz and Cory Terry; Performed by Elan Wolf Farbiarz and Joshua Levine; Stage Managed by Kate Peters_

For more information you can go "here":http://www.fringetoronto.com/fringe09/indoorBYOV_listings.html#K

Or you can Charlie Kaufman yourself "here":http://www.fortlauderdalefringe.com/