Mac Wellman's The Fez and TheSandalwood Box

"The Fez" and "The Sandalwood Box"are two one act plays running in concert as part of Mac Wellman's Perfect Catastrophes, A Festival of Plays.  "The Fez" begins as "My Fair Lady".  Eliza Doolittle (Rora Brown) is debased as less than human by a fiendish Prof. Higgins (Jimmy Dailey).  She washed her hands she did before coming to Prof. Higgins for voice lessons to elevate her station in life. The startling staging goes haywire in a fez frenzy.  The trajectory projects into a deafening & undecipherable melee that morphs into absurdist theater with logic to its madness.  Hats off to choreographer Jose Rivera, Jr. and scenic designer Frank J. Oliva who manage to orchestrate an interesting intersection of free for all spirit with pizzaz and a medley of music & dance styles.  Actors planted in the audience add an element of immersive theatrics that add to the madcap fusion of fun & theatrics.  "The Sandalwood Box" is a pandora box of bedlam that is ominous, poetic and bizarre.  This surreal production has a nightmarish tilt that sprouts paradoxical poetry with euphemism of woes.  The sandalwood box contains a collection of historic catastrophes foretold by Prof. Mitchell (an ominous Ashley Morton).  Wellman throws out existential questions and questions who possesses the knowledge for determining right from wrong, truth from lies.  Marsha Gates (Dorothea Gloria) lost her voice at the start of the play but finds it at a ferocious decibel sporting a menacing Cheshire Cat grin.  Gloria falls through the looking glass and shatters the avant-garde drama into a daring quandary.