Show: Wilson Loria's OENS
Venue: Pink Venue (Mandell Theatre @ Shakespeare Festival)
Show times: 5-19 @ 11:10pm, 5-20 @ 2:35pm, 5-21 @ 3:55pm, 5-22 @ 10:40pm, 5-26 @ 6:00pm, 5-27 @ 12:55pm and 5-28 @ 7:10pm
Tickets: $9

OENS is the type of show that can be considered eye-opening (i.e. it has an agenda). The interesting thing about eye-openers is this: even if your eyes are already open, a show like OENS will only serve to affirm that your eyes should remain open. Brazilian Wilson Loria uses recorded music, live vocal music, dance, pantomime, maps and outrageous costumes to compare sailing on a galleon to collect spices from India and slaves from Africa to today's import of jobs, modern life and McDonald's to developing nations.

Wilson began the show by greeting each person in the audience, calling some of them by name, remembering who has been to his show before, who said they were coming and where they were from. He lets the audience know that they are there participating in the narrative, because they are citizens of the same Earth. Music and sound bytes from old radio broadcasts recount nearly every global war or conflict since the birth of recorded music, all the way up to George H. Bush's reign.

A romanticized ocean voyage to exotic India follows, with a stop near Madagascar to interact with aborigines, and an all-too modern council of war with the likes of Athena, Hermes and Dionysus replacing General, Secretary of Defense and other positions. The piece slowly transitions into posing questions as to what globalization of corporations and capitalism are doing to the world. The motto "We should be concerned with Being, not Posessing" provides a capstone for the messages presentedin the program.

As for the show itself, audience members will likely be lost as to the meaning of the songs (sung in portugese) and the purpose of the mime within the story structure. Some parts of the show are not as tightly scripted as others, and it shows. The real payoff comes at the end, where Wilson read from a printout, not my favorite means of delivery, but he did use the pages as a prop, so I cannot slight him on that.

Wilson will be delighted if you stop by and see his show. If you see him in the halls at Fringe, you should at least thank him for making the trip to America to share his talents with us. Fringe 2006 would not be complete without OENS; at least that's my opinion.