Mission Drift

There's a certain suspension of disbelief that's necessary when going to see any show by New York's The TEAM, who have been one of the most exciting companies at the Fringe since their 2005 Fringe First-winning debut Give Up! Start Over! (In the Darkest of Times I Look to Richard Nixon for Hope). Call their style what you will—"magical realism" might be one term; "crazy" might be another—but their shambolic, non-linear approach has always provided thoughtful, funny and sometimes prescient dissections of modern issues facing the United States.

Mission Drift is no different. Just as their last Fringe show, 2008's Architecting, looked at the Deep South through the prism of post-Katrina New Orleans, Mission Drift too melds past and present. Joan, a waitress at a Las Vegas casino complex, has lost her job–her bosses are Dutch settlers that moved to New Amsterdam 400 years ago, and have been pushing westward with dollar signs in their eyes ever since.

Longtime TEAM fans will notice a few new faces in this talented ensemble – most notably, singer-songwriter Heather Christian, whose delicious bluesy melodies and piercing vocals envelop the two-hour show with appropriate poignancy. With her piano and backing band on stage too, the suitably garish set sometimes feels a little too cluttered for the actors to fling themselves around with as much abandon as they have done in past Fringe performances. But fling they do, through space and time, offering up a blistering portrayal of American capitalism and the damaging effects of its current impotence–an unbearably sad story told with their distinctive blend of compassion, energy and charisma.