"POPULARITY CONTEST," Jerk Alert Productions at WNEP Theater
BY LUCIA MAURO
Young improviser, comic and solo performer Jason Anfinsen takes an ironically unpopular approach to his new one-man effort, "Popularity Contest," running late nights at WNEP Theater. In just under an hour, he gives quirky voice to a selection of ordinary people painstakingly (and painfully) engaged in trying to attract a modicum of attention.
Combining live character studies with two short films featuring himself, Anfinsen – directed by John Lutz -- displays an engaging manner peppered with an unsettling sense of off-kilter grimness. But his performances, while strange and strangely intriguing, lack finesse and clear purpose. He tends to meander and, to a great extent, leaves audiences wondering what a contemporary carnivore, Miss Georgia Peach and a guy being stalked by a moose in Chicago have to do with his goal of using "different characters to illustrate the timeline of infancy to death and the need to be accepted at each stage in between."
The closest figure to this desperate yearning to get noticed is a Goth-inspired youth bragging over the phone to a friend about his multiple body piercings, tattoos and desire to become a heroin junkie (adding "We’re gonna cut off our ears.") A polished characterization filled with a provocative combination of awe-struck naivete and frighteningly pathetic numbness, this segment most strongly demonstrats the appeal and pitfalls of wishing to stand out from the crowd – only to be the ultimate conformist.
French fries turn out to be Anfinsen’s belabored and rather soggy leitmotif – popping up in nearly every bit (including his very astute but overlong video, "Permanent Ink," in which he details his crush on and subsequent meeting with Drew Barrymore, only to find that the anticipation can’t match the reality. All the while Anfinsen chows down on French fries at the Salt ‘N’ Pepper Diner.)
His other video, "Bad Luck," with its deliberately amateurish veneer, turns out to be the show’s biggest vanity moment. Anfinsen and another actor dodge an inanimate moose down a residential Chicago street, leading up to a pseudo-self-smirking climax about his friend getting hit by a pink bowling ball when he’s forced to take off his shirt.
"Popularity Contest" makes a few lucid points at erratic moments – like the elderly man who describes a seemingly milder form of bullying he and his friends employed as youngsters; and a predictable but outrageous piece about an Eastern European mattress salesman trying to seduce female customers so he can get his green card. Other parts hover in a baffling and bizarre self-awareness – like the lisping carnivore; an autobiographical bit about a guy of fair-skinned Nordic heritage who must face the sun – "a blaring sphere of death" -- when his family moves to Florida; and a heavy-metal fan obsessed with a band, called Blind-Folded Circumcision, while his girlfriend prefers Huey Lewis and the News.
Anfinsen, with his shaved head and boyish looks, is an accessible performer capable of serving as something of a blank canvas for his wild and weird characters. But before he can reach that much-coveted level of popularity, the writer-performer needs to concentrate on composing a crisp and thematically unified portrait rather than splattering viewers with clever character studies.•
"Popularity Contest" runs Saturdays at 10:30 p.m. through August 17 at WNEP Theater, 3209 N. Halsted. Tickets: $8-$10. Call 773-755-1693 or log onto www.jasonanfinsen.com.
