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It's said that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. Likewise, so are the cobblestone streets that lead to the New School Drama Center at 151 Bank Street, on the grounds of the old Westbeth Theatre. And one would hope, but hope against hope, that perhaps a play like Michel Tremblay's Manon/Sandra, running therein as part of this year's Fringe Festival and translated from its original form by John Van Burek, might be less of a fresh hell than what was unleashed upon an unsuspecting public who gathered to bear witness.
To the show's credit, director Pia Furtado offered a missive in the program in which she herself described the script as "confounding" and "a challenge." And it's not difficult to see why that was, in fact, the case. However, for little else besides the outrageously impressive performances of its two main thespians and the two musicians involved, there are no other words to describe it, but to call it a big and extremely dull dud.
Having been presented after the fact with the knowledge that the play was in fact written twenty-seven years ago in 1983, which accounts for the colloquialisms of both characters, one might allow for some proverbial wiggle room in observing Manon, a fiercely Catholic spinster who only lives for the glory of the goodness of Christ, and Sandra aka Michel, a lonely and sex-driven drag queen, whose lives seem strangely parallel until nearly the very end of the play, when we learn that they were childhood friends, grew up on the same street, and now once again live side by side with neither reaching out to communicate. In fact, the two had always considered one another as twins when they were children because they shared a birthday. But this is by no means 
enough to make up for the weak script by Tremblay, which at best could be described as too limp to even be a plate of al dente pasta. One is given to imagine a high school senior, one with a brain and great theatrical ambition but no true life experience, writing this play based on quite a confounded concept and expecting it to be on a level with Lillian Hellman.
And while the script leaves plenty to be desired, it must be noted that the actors have taken what was offered and delivered the finest performances possible. Tina Mitchell simply crackles with purpose as Manon. And Ken Barnett gives a simply shattering performance as Sandra. Matt O'Hare and Helen Yee provide phenomenal accompaniment on instruments and background vocals/noises as well. But most confusing is the presence of a chair on stage left, upon which has been placed a laptop computer showing all of the action through a webcam placed at another angle in Sandra's section of the stage. Forgive me, gentle readers, but this critic finds no such necessity for this sort of unconventional convention. Or maybe, frankly, the whole damned aspect of it was over my head.
In closing, this last go-round could well mark the end of the line for Manon/Sandra, which, on balance, might not be such a bad thing.
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