Flip at Fringe

Local artist Adam McCabe wrote and directed Flip which is a bleak look at America’s future in which very citizen is given a bluetooth  switch at birth which can be flipped to bring about their death. The scene opened at the dinner table where the working mom, Jeanine (Janice Fisher) is trying to enjoy a glass of red wine after a hard day’s work.  Noah, (Daniel Cooksley) her second husband is jobless. Her children are Malory,
(Chelsea Talmadge), and Caleb, (Indigo Frost) a bullied middle-schooler.

No one is happy in this play. Hope is a long lost concept. This insular family is just a speck of dust in an unforgiving universe. We get to learn the most about Malory who is desperate and depressed. She clutches an urn full of her grandfathers ashes. He had flipped his own switch. Without a shred of hope it was hard to want to know the characters. They went through the motions in their senseless lives.

In a long monologue, it became clear that Malory had likely been raped. She had dropped out of college to try and recover, but the depression never left. Noah, her step dad wanted to comfort her but that desire was misguided and turned to lust. His desire to help was really a desire for a moment’s pleasure. In the fumbling and confusion it is possible he flipped his daughters switch. This point wasn’t clear. Perhaps she had flipped her own switch. The American anthem played to announce her departure and she crumpled to the floor.

Jeanine and he son Caleb returned and somehow the son knew of his dads guilt and be beat him with a bat. The son had the habit of smiling at the most inappropriate times making him a bit creepy. Once again, the switch was flipped and the American anthem played as Noah died. There wasn’t an uplifting moment in the entire show. I suppose that was the point.

Suicide in the United States has surged to the highest levels in nearly
30 years, a federal data analysis has found, with increases in every age
group. The rise was particularly steep for women.
It was also substantial among middle-aged Americans. There were over 44,000 deaths by suicide in 2016. The program listed a suicide prevention hotline…1-800-273-TALK. www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org