ALONG THE PATH OF LARKS AND SWALLOWS
A Fresno Bee Top Ten Pick of the 2008 Rogue Festival
Recipient of a Theatre Bay Area CA$H Grant, Spring 2008
The theme is, (among other things): Love. She nails it.
Winner of the Best Female Solo Award at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2004 and 2006, and a Fresno Bee Rogue Top Five Pick in 2007 for "This Lily Was (Fontana)", Mia Paschal returns with her newest solo work, "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows".
And it's a big French kiss of a show. With a bite.
With a text inspired by the dreamscape collages of Joseph Cornell, the surreal whimsy of George Herriman's seminal comic strip "Krazy Kat", and the boxer Sonny Liston's powerful punch, Along the Path of Larks and Swallows is a poetic, magical, and darkly comic exploration of love.
Passion. Heartbreak. The sleepless nights, the overwrought romantic
flights of fancy, the tormenting insecurities (depilate, depilate, depilate!), and all the silly, embarrassing, wonderful things we do as we dance and stagger and rage through life, hoping to find someone to love us back.
Because love is crazy, isn't it?
This production is generously supported by CA$H, a grants program of Theatre Bay Area, in partnership with Dancers’ Group.
"...she delivers another beautifully written and performed show....Whether she's cheerfully delivering crisp aphorisms ...or delving into the nitty-gritty of relationships gone bad, Paschal's forceful stage presence can be hypnotic."
"she ... dived into my heart and soul, plucking out all those private triumphs and tribulations. But really she’s just acting out the truth of our collective, yet unique, experiences of romance, lust, comfort, belonging, and longing for connection."
"I feel at a loss to do her fantastic performance justice in a review, so I offer just these words: intense, deliberate, dreamy, poetic, rhythmic, entrancing, human in every sense imaginable, profound..."
"She betrays all of us who have ever been so hopelessly, achingly, unashamedly nakedly wrapped up in the mere notice of another human being."
Performances:
The 2008 San Francisco Fringe Festival - Phoenix Theatre, SF
The Rogue Performance Festival, Fresno, CA
Words First, CounterPULSE, SF
Tell It On Tuesday, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley
Mark Romyn's Thursday Night Combo, EXIT Theatre
San Francisco Theater Festival
The Marsh Rising Series, The Marsh, SF
Rogue Festival Audience Reviews
Mystical_Raisin aka Marshall Myers said:
Mia Paschal gives such an impassioned performance in this “whirlwind” tour of life and emotion, and I DEFINITELY think she is much MUCH more than a catfish!
sfpc said:
The beautiful Mia Paschal is a marvel in her new piece, which begins with a scream. Soul-baring, confrontational, sharply constructed, and thoroughly compelling. Go see it!
Nicki said:
Mia is a fabulous performer. I enjoyed every minute of her show. She does a great job expressing her feelings and life experiences through her art.
jeffatmovies said:
This performance will remain with me. My favorite of those I’ve seen.
Airplanejayne said:
I didn’t think she could wow me more than she did last year — but she did. This petite powderkeg of passion shares and bares her soul to all. This performance touched and moved me immensely. See this show!
joyunconfined said:
I fell madly in love with Mia Paschal (in a strictly platonic, admiring sort of way) when she performed at last year’s Rogue Festival, and there was no way I was going to miss her new show this year.
I’m even more in love with her now. This year is a journey through love and life with her, bobbing and weaving through uncertainty, abandon, heartache and heart’s home. As I watched I felt she had dived into my heart and soul, plucking out all those private triumphs and tribulations. But really she’s just acting out the truth of our collective, yet unique, experiences of romance, lust, comfort, belonging, and longing for connection. Her voice was her own, and yet it could easily have been mine, or that of the person sitting at either side of me. One comment I heard afterward was about how dense her material is. Don’t let that be daunting. There is a lot packed into one hour, but it isn’t hard to understand. She says as much in manner and intent as she does in spoken word. You don’t just know what she means. You feel what she means, sometimes moreso when she does NOT say it, in those spaces between the lines. So, yes, her material is dense, but it’s because she isn’t telling the tale. She IS the tale, and you are the tale. She’s not telling it, she’s living it, and you’re living it with her. She is sublime. A powerhouse of a writer, a powerhouse of a performer. This is a show that should be at the top of everyone’s list to see before it goes away.
Liesl Garner said:
I must echo Joy in that I fell madly, passionately (in a strictly platonic, admiring sort of way) in love with Mia Paschal last year after her brilliant performance. She was at the top of my list to see again this year - and she is once again, completely amazing. Particularly moving to me was her fierce, impassioned, totally brave segment on racism - and then how she tied it together so that it wasn’t just about one woman’s experience, or one race’s experience, but that we all have our places of hurt that others can trample on - we can be the heavy girl, the too tall girl, the redhead girl, the person who loves what others find taboo. We are all human, and we all have little niches that divide us or that can bring us closer once we understand them.
I love her little spaces - so many gorgeous pictures. I love her big spaces - and how she wants to do cartwheels there. I love the Boxer on the beach and how many times she finds him, and then finds home. Oh, Mia - you are so beautiful and so deliciously complex. You speak such volumes of beauty and pain. I adore your use of the stage - your running and skipping, climbing between audience members, and then falling down to be a catfish! Who could imagine that being part of a show about love? And you pull it off brilliantly! Unbelievable! You are such a master! No one should miss this show!
Patti Thornton said:
The fluidity of full to bursting language portrayed in spoken words and powerful movement in the weakest and strongest sense, bring to life the darkest, most vulgar yet hungering spaces of humanness struggling to cope, much less understand and abide with grace juxtaposed with the brilliant mind and the radiance of love found and ultimately joyously celebrated. This is the type of performance one might be fortunate enough to catch just one and then remain long thankful.
Solitaire said:
Mia’s performance blew me away. Having been friends with her since last year’s Rogue I’ve talked with her over the year as she was building this show, from it starting in a very different place to becoming the ‘tornado’ of a piece it is now. And as I watch I realized I was sitting next to her boxer and I reveled in the powerful performance she was giving. Her words paint a visual piece of art as well as the sound of her voice sing a song. This show is not just a one-woman show, it is a ‘tornado’ and I am truly blessed to have seen it!
eric field said:
The theme is, (among other things) Love.
She nails it.
She betrays all of us who have ever been so hopelessly, achingly, unashamedly nakedly wrapped up in the mere notice of another human being. She tells on us all, we sabotage, we crave, we hate, we walk around a myriad of different emotions. We stand there, transfixed by one soul who we know, we can destroy, who simply loves us for who we are, -and we spastically, methodically, in staccato, chew through our own tendons and desires, -rather than trust. I say ‘we,’ because Mia is one of us.
She’s the beautiful damaged -who know how to rise from the ashes of our own ruin, (whether we caused it or it was visited upon us by others,) -who cares?
And this is how you fall in love with Mia.
This is why.
There is not a single blessed shallow thing about this woman. There is not one spot of insincerity in anything, ANYTHING she does. (…and yet, she never once goes into cliche’, ‘drama,’ any of the carnival acts that people pass off as ‘acting,’ these days. She’s subtle, she’s an opiate, And she’s always telling you the truth.
She is not just one who you watch and simply cannot look away from, (no, that would be too easy and too contrived, -besides anything that cold and methodical… I mean, she’s THAT good, —but that isn’t it.)
There is no antidote for Mia Paschal, and you will never want one, (just be glad that she’s benevolent.) Every girl you’ve ever loved who somebody has injured before you, who shrinks away. Every time you’ve been touched, and just couldn’t open up and rise to the warmth, only to look back and watch someone walk, and be too dry to call out.
Every memory, Every revelation, Every time you’ve ridden on a train, looked out the window, and saw something happen to someone else, —and there was nothing, nothing, not a goddammed thing you could do, but hope and pray that the one accosted somehow got away, and healed… It’s the one closest to you, who you know their secrets and their fears, and you don’t dare bring it up, ever, unless they do.
That’s Mia.
That’s us. She starts the performance, literally in one of the most surreal, comic, and startling moves I’ve ever seen… A lot of ground is covered... As she will go from point to point to point, extremely potent and truthful events were told about not just her life, but events of this past year, her person, her gender, her race, and how, when all of that mixes in?, we still have quite a ways to go. To anyone in attendance, this is at once simultaneously a universal and extremely intimate performance for every soul in a seat.
I’ll be further honest. I cried. And when I got into the car, I cried harder. Mia, thank you for all of this.
blake jones said:
Someone wrote on one of the Rogue reviews about how there’s something to a show that sticks with you the next day. This one sticks with me, cuz it wasn’t all laid out simple and plain—you had to get involved. Half the time I didn’t know if I was listeningto a poem, a rant, a narrative story—it was kind of all these things. It was at times surreal, and sometimes hyper-real. I agree with the above posters that we are indeed blessed to have such challenging and interesting artists at the Rogue Festival.
Critics’ Reviews
Jessi, the Fresno Undercurrent
Performer Mia Paschal gave her first Rogue performance last year with "This Lily Was (Fontana)". That was a show I wasn’t really interested in seeing, but I happened to be at that venue at that time with no other plans, so I checked it out – and I was completely blown away. When I saw that she was back this year with "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows", the show became one of my first priorities. I feel at a loss to do her fantastic performance justice in a review, so I offer just these words: intense, deliberate, dreamy, poetic, rhythmic, entrancing, human in every sense imaginable, profound, and tornado (this last word her own, but a perfect descriptor). I even liked this show a little better than last year’s; I felt like it came together in a more relatable way (though last year’s was more edgy). Check out this phenomenal one-woman show, but get there early – there were few (if any?) spare seats at her Saturday evening performance (the debut of the show). Remaining performances are being held at Dianna’s North on Sun 3/2 at 2:30, Fri 3/7 at 5:30, Sat 3/8 at 2:30, and Sat 3/8 at 8:30. An additional performance has been added at Starline on Sun 3/2 at 5:30.
Donald Munro, Fresno Bee
In her solo-performance show "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows", Mia Paschal bursts onto the stage clasping a long, red velvet streamer to her bosom. The implication is clear: We're in for some heartbreak. For those of us who saw Paschal's terrific solo show last year at the Rogue, the question is: Just how dark will this outing be? Last year, Paschal offered up a searing depiction of her repeated attempts to kill herself. A blend of aching realism and abstract digressions, it was a stormy glimpse at a very complicated mind. "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows" is not as dark, although Paschal still brings more than a hint of melancholy to the proceedings. Focusing this time on matters of the heart, she delivers another beautifully written and performed show that might not be as philosophically dizzying as last year's but that still connects on several levels. Whether she's cheerfully delivering crisp aphorisms -- "I've never wanted to be a mother for the same reason I never wanted to be a dictator -- it's just too much work," she says wryly -- or delving into the nitty-gritty of relationships gone bad, Paschal's forceful stage presence can be hypnotic. What I like so very much is the way that she can hone in on little bits of life that all of us experience but never bother to articulate. For example, in one segment of the show, she approximates a crowded nightclub by walking up into the audience, squeezing between two people and talking about how assertive you have to be when ordering at a busy bar. In such a situation, you have to assert yourself by directionally launching your voice -- almost like a guided missile -- so you can pierce through the other noise in the room and catch the attention of the bartender. This is something we all do, but Paschal notices it, and in the little sliver of a physical space that she creates, we see something illuminating about human nature. I don't think anything could top the sheer, wrenching emotional power of her suicide show last year, but in many ways, this more mellow new show is as deeply affecting in another way. Relying not on the shock of the subject matter but more her extremely astute observations about the way that people behave, you walk out feeling as if you know her better than ever.
San Francisco Fringe Festival Audience Reviews
Reviewer: Marc Tozer
5 Stars
Another fringe highlight and a real tour-de-force. Watching Mia steam through this powerful narrative non-stop was truly breathtaking and memorable.
Reviewer: Turbo
5 Stars
Most polished performance of the 10 Fringe pieces I saw. The writing is wonderful ... "i m a tornado seeking a tornado 2 tornado" ... with any risk of cliche turned about into freshness. Mia is not only comfortable on stage, but has the ability to make her audience equally comfortable. It was a great performance, but about 15-20 minutes too long.
Reviewer: Xavier K.
5 Stars
Paschal combines poetic lyricism with a piercing, uncompromising intelligence, and possesses a stage presence that is both graceful and fierce. Magnificent.
Reviewer: Melissa G.
5 Stars
Her words and movements are still trickling down my spine. The show was absolutely incredible!
Reviewer: Dave O
5 Stars
Mia's performance is powerful and intense, her show is packed with metaphor and dense with meaning and subtext. Come to see this moving, thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing one-woman show. Come prepared for an incredible journey as Mia takes you Along the Path...
Reviewer: Marti Paschal
5 Stars
Yes, I'm her sister - but I think she would agree that I am one of her toughest critics. I saw this play twice in Fresno, at the Marsh Rising, and for the fourth time last Saturday at the Fringe. Each time, Mia's poetry and honesty moved me to tears. This play is beautiful and true.
Reviewer: John
5 Stars
I saw Along the Path... last saturday evening and still can't get the show out of my mind; the writing and the performance were both exquisite. The subject matter, an exploration of the heart and its yearnings, betrayals, honesty and unreliability could have devolved into a bad self-help monologue in the hands of a less capable writer and performer. However Mia Paschal brings a rare insight, honesty and humor that keeps you engaged from "the bleeding heart" right through to the "boxer on the beach". Highly recommended, 2-thumbs-up,5-stars, pink-guy-standing-on-his-seat-clapping... Michelin stars too if they did this sort of thing.
Reviewer: Marc Tognotti
5 Stars
I highly recommend Mia Paschal’s “Along the Path of Larks and Swallows.” Mia Paschal performing her own play is a double gift: you get the play, you get Mia. It's an ambitious, meaningful story and a heartfelt personal statement about what it takes to get to love in today’s world. At the beginning the pace is fast and verbally dense, even frenetic — reflecting, I think, the complexity and confusion confronted by a young, troubled heart. As the play moved forward towards its conclusion, though, I experienced the pace transforming ever so subtly, little by little. I think what I was experiencing was how, while Mia’s character learns and grows before our eyes and begins to move more surely and choicefully through her life, we the audience experience her world expanding in feeling and quality. I think this is part of what makes the ending seem all the more convincing and special, the arrival at a deeper level of awareness and a greater sense of strength than she started with. I figure it must have taken a lot of love for Mia Paschal to write a play like this. Mia gives a lot of love in performing it. In following Mia’s journey toward love I found myself reflecting on my own and felt moved, inspired and connected to Mia’s quest.
Reviewer: Emily
5 Stars
Mia Paschal's examination of the chaotic path that leads us in and out of love is ferocious and eloquent. Her writing is stunning in its originality and the power of its imagery. A truly riveting performance.
Reviewer: Marianna Klebanov
5 Stars
This was a very beautifully written performance. The humanity of the writing and the performance is very moving.
Reviewer: Victoria
4 Stars
A very dynamic piece and Mia is exceptionally passionate in her delivery. One man/woman shows are not usually my cup of tea, but the dialogue she has written is beautiful and poetic full of things to think about after you've left the theatre.
Reviewer: David
5 Stars
While I think the Saturday evening performance I attended might have been the first one, the piece felt unbelievably polished. There must be more words flowing through this incredibly packed hour that in any other festival production, but the confidence, clarity, drive, and pace never flagged. She's incredibly beautiful, open, insightful, and gifted. The lighting needs to catch up with her - particularly when she engages the audience in extreme close-up - but that's a minor quibble. Wonderful.
Reviewer: john
5 Stars
Love. Everything was said about it? I don't think so. It's a beautiful play, and original.
Interpretation was great, intense and the text is so poetic. You should run to see it !
Reviewer: Abby Schachner
5 Stars
Mia is gorgeous, so so very talented... so poetic... I wanted to stevie wonderize my head to her words. The lighting and the beautiful heart that I saw on the stage (both literally and figuratively)... well, I'm a fan. Very inspiring.
Mia is timeless.
Critics’ Reviews
"Mia Paschal performs in her own poetic narrative a solo odyssey through lovers in the near and distant lives she occupies. The hour-long journey may be likened to gangsta rap performed by the Kronos Quartet in a musical transposition, though language is the medium here. " Eryka M. Fraczek, Bay Area Reporter
Photo: Rita Cigolini
A Fresno Bee Top Ten Pick of the 2008 Rogue Festival
Recipient of a Theatre Bay Area CA$H Grant, Spring 2008
The theme is, (among other things): Love. She nails it.
Winner of the Best Female Solo Award at the San Francisco Fringe Festival in 2004 and 2006, and a Fresno Bee Rogue Top Five Pick in 2007 for "This Lily Was (Fontana)", Mia Paschal returns with her newest solo work, "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows".
And it's a big French kiss of a show. With a bite.
With a text inspired by the dreamscape collages of Joseph Cornell, the surreal whimsy of George Herriman's seminal comic strip "Krazy Kat", and the boxer Sonny Liston's powerful punch, Along the Path of Larks and Swallows is a poetic, magical, and darkly comic exploration of love.
Passion. Heartbreak. The sleepless nights, the overwrought romantic
flights of fancy, the tormenting insecurities (depilate, depilate, depilate!), and all the silly, embarrassing, wonderful things we do as we dance and stagger and rage through life, hoping to find someone to love us back.
Because love is crazy, isn't it?
This production is generously supported by CA$H, a grants program of Theatre Bay Area, in partnership with Dancers’ Group.
"...she delivers another beautifully written and performed show....Whether she's cheerfully delivering crisp aphorisms ...or delving into the nitty-gritty of relationships gone bad, Paschal's forceful stage presence can be hypnotic."
"she ... dived into my heart and soul, plucking out all those private triumphs and tribulations. But really she’s just acting out the truth of our collective, yet unique, experiences of romance, lust, comfort, belonging, and longing for connection."
"I feel at a loss to do her fantastic performance justice in a review, so I offer just these words: intense, deliberate, dreamy, poetic, rhythmic, entrancing, human in every sense imaginable, profound..."
"She betrays all of us who have ever been so hopelessly, achingly, unashamedly nakedly wrapped up in the mere notice of another human being."
Performances:
The 2008 San Francisco Fringe Festival - Phoenix Theatre, SF
The Rogue Performance Festival, Fresno, CA
Words First, CounterPULSE, SF
Tell It On Tuesday, Julia Morgan Center for the Arts, Berkeley
Mark Romyn's Thursday Night Combo, EXIT Theatre
San Francisco Theater Festival
The Marsh Rising Series, The Marsh, SF
Rogue Festival Audience Reviews
Mystical_Raisin aka Marshall Myers said:
Mia Paschal gives such an impassioned performance in this “whirlwind” tour of life and emotion, and I DEFINITELY think she is much MUCH more than a catfish!
sfpc said:
The beautiful Mia Paschal is a marvel in her new piece, which begins with a scream. Soul-baring, confrontational, sharply constructed, and thoroughly compelling. Go see it!
Nicki said:
Mia is a fabulous performer. I enjoyed every minute of her show. She does a great job expressing her feelings and life experiences through her art.
jeffatmovies said:
This performance will remain with me. My favorite of those I’ve seen.
Airplanejayne said:
I didn’t think she could wow me more than she did last year — but she did. This petite powderkeg of passion shares and bares her soul to all. This performance touched and moved me immensely. See this show!
joyunconfined said:
I fell madly in love with Mia Paschal (in a strictly platonic, admiring sort of way) when she performed at last year’s Rogue Festival, and there was no way I was going to miss her new show this year.
I’m even more in love with her now. This year is a journey through love and life with her, bobbing and weaving through uncertainty, abandon, heartache and heart’s home. As I watched I felt she had dived into my heart and soul, plucking out all those private triumphs and tribulations. But really she’s just acting out the truth of our collective, yet unique, experiences of romance, lust, comfort, belonging, and longing for connection. Her voice was her own, and yet it could easily have been mine, or that of the person sitting at either side of me. One comment I heard afterward was about how dense her material is. Don’t let that be daunting. There is a lot packed into one hour, but it isn’t hard to understand. She says as much in manner and intent as she does in spoken word. You don’t just know what she means. You feel what she means, sometimes moreso when she does NOT say it, in those spaces between the lines. So, yes, her material is dense, but it’s because she isn’t telling the tale. She IS the tale, and you are the tale. She’s not telling it, she’s living it, and you’re living it with her. She is sublime. A powerhouse of a writer, a powerhouse of a performer. This is a show that should be at the top of everyone’s list to see before it goes away.
Liesl Garner said:
I must echo Joy in that I fell madly, passionately (in a strictly platonic, admiring sort of way) in love with Mia Paschal last year after her brilliant performance. She was at the top of my list to see again this year - and she is once again, completely amazing. Particularly moving to me was her fierce, impassioned, totally brave segment on racism - and then how she tied it together so that it wasn’t just about one woman’s experience, or one race’s experience, but that we all have our places of hurt that others can trample on - we can be the heavy girl, the too tall girl, the redhead girl, the person who loves what others find taboo. We are all human, and we all have little niches that divide us or that can bring us closer once we understand them.
I love her little spaces - so many gorgeous pictures. I love her big spaces - and how she wants to do cartwheels there. I love the Boxer on the beach and how many times she finds him, and then finds home. Oh, Mia - you are so beautiful and so deliciously complex. You speak such volumes of beauty and pain. I adore your use of the stage - your running and skipping, climbing between audience members, and then falling down to be a catfish! Who could imagine that being part of a show about love? And you pull it off brilliantly! Unbelievable! You are such a master! No one should miss this show!
Patti Thornton said:
The fluidity of full to bursting language portrayed in spoken words and powerful movement in the weakest and strongest sense, bring to life the darkest, most vulgar yet hungering spaces of humanness struggling to cope, much less understand and abide with grace juxtaposed with the brilliant mind and the radiance of love found and ultimately joyously celebrated. This is the type of performance one might be fortunate enough to catch just one and then remain long thankful.
Solitaire said:
Mia’s performance blew me away. Having been friends with her since last year’s Rogue I’ve talked with her over the year as she was building this show, from it starting in a very different place to becoming the ‘tornado’ of a piece it is now. And as I watch I realized I was sitting next to her boxer and I reveled in the powerful performance she was giving. Her words paint a visual piece of art as well as the sound of her voice sing a song. This show is not just a one-woman show, it is a ‘tornado’ and I am truly blessed to have seen it!
eric field said:
The theme is, (among other things) Love.
She nails it.
She betrays all of us who have ever been so hopelessly, achingly, unashamedly nakedly wrapped up in the mere notice of another human being. She tells on us all, we sabotage, we crave, we hate, we walk around a myriad of different emotions. We stand there, transfixed by one soul who we know, we can destroy, who simply loves us for who we are, -and we spastically, methodically, in staccato, chew through our own tendons and desires, -rather than trust. I say ‘we,’ because Mia is one of us.
She’s the beautiful damaged -who know how to rise from the ashes of our own ruin, (whether we caused it or it was visited upon us by others,) -who cares?
And this is how you fall in love with Mia.
This is why.
There is not a single blessed shallow thing about this woman. There is not one spot of insincerity in anything, ANYTHING she does. (…and yet, she never once goes into cliche’, ‘drama,’ any of the carnival acts that people pass off as ‘acting,’ these days. She’s subtle, she’s an opiate, And she’s always telling you the truth.
She is not just one who you watch and simply cannot look away from, (no, that would be too easy and too contrived, -besides anything that cold and methodical… I mean, she’s THAT good, —but that isn’t it.)
There is no antidote for Mia Paschal, and you will never want one, (just be glad that she’s benevolent.) Every girl you’ve ever loved who somebody has injured before you, who shrinks away. Every time you’ve been touched, and just couldn’t open up and rise to the warmth, only to look back and watch someone walk, and be too dry to call out.
Every memory, Every revelation, Every time you’ve ridden on a train, looked out the window, and saw something happen to someone else, —and there was nothing, nothing, not a goddammed thing you could do, but hope and pray that the one accosted somehow got away, and healed… It’s the one closest to you, who you know their secrets and their fears, and you don’t dare bring it up, ever, unless they do.
That’s Mia.
That’s us. She starts the performance, literally in one of the most surreal, comic, and startling moves I’ve ever seen… A lot of ground is covered... As she will go from point to point to point, extremely potent and truthful events were told about not just her life, but events of this past year, her person, her gender, her race, and how, when all of that mixes in?, we still have quite a ways to go. To anyone in attendance, this is at once simultaneously a universal and extremely intimate performance for every soul in a seat.
I’ll be further honest. I cried. And when I got into the car, I cried harder. Mia, thank you for all of this.
blake jones said:
Someone wrote on one of the Rogue reviews about how there’s something to a show that sticks with you the next day. This one sticks with me, cuz it wasn’t all laid out simple and plain—you had to get involved. Half the time I didn’t know if I was listeningto a poem, a rant, a narrative story—it was kind of all these things. It was at times surreal, and sometimes hyper-real. I agree with the above posters that we are indeed blessed to have such challenging and interesting artists at the Rogue Festival.
Critics’ Reviews
Jessi, the Fresno Undercurrent
Performer Mia Paschal gave her first Rogue performance last year with "This Lily Was (Fontana)". That was a show I wasn’t really interested in seeing, but I happened to be at that venue at that time with no other plans, so I checked it out – and I was completely blown away. When I saw that she was back this year with "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows", the show became one of my first priorities. I feel at a loss to do her fantastic performance justice in a review, so I offer just these words: intense, deliberate, dreamy, poetic, rhythmic, entrancing, human in every sense imaginable, profound, and tornado (this last word her own, but a perfect descriptor). I even liked this show a little better than last year’s; I felt like it came together in a more relatable way (though last year’s was more edgy). Check out this phenomenal one-woman show, but get there early – there were few (if any?) spare seats at her Saturday evening performance (the debut of the show). Remaining performances are being held at Dianna’s North on Sun 3/2 at 2:30, Fri 3/7 at 5:30, Sat 3/8 at 2:30, and Sat 3/8 at 8:30. An additional performance has been added at Starline on Sun 3/2 at 5:30.
Donald Munro, Fresno Bee
In her solo-performance show "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows", Mia Paschal bursts onto the stage clasping a long, red velvet streamer to her bosom. The implication is clear: We're in for some heartbreak. For those of us who saw Paschal's terrific solo show last year at the Rogue, the question is: Just how dark will this outing be? Last year, Paschal offered up a searing depiction of her repeated attempts to kill herself. A blend of aching realism and abstract digressions, it was a stormy glimpse at a very complicated mind. "Along the Path of Larks and Swallows" is not as dark, although Paschal still brings more than a hint of melancholy to the proceedings. Focusing this time on matters of the heart, she delivers another beautifully written and performed show that might not be as philosophically dizzying as last year's but that still connects on several levels. Whether she's cheerfully delivering crisp aphorisms -- "I've never wanted to be a mother for the same reason I never wanted to be a dictator -- it's just too much work," she says wryly -- or delving into the nitty-gritty of relationships gone bad, Paschal's forceful stage presence can be hypnotic. What I like so very much is the way that she can hone in on little bits of life that all of us experience but never bother to articulate. For example, in one segment of the show, she approximates a crowded nightclub by walking up into the audience, squeezing between two people and talking about how assertive you have to be when ordering at a busy bar. In such a situation, you have to assert yourself by directionally launching your voice -- almost like a guided missile -- so you can pierce through the other noise in the room and catch the attention of the bartender. This is something we all do, but Paschal notices it, and in the little sliver of a physical space that she creates, we see something illuminating about human nature. I don't think anything could top the sheer, wrenching emotional power of her suicide show last year, but in many ways, this more mellow new show is as deeply affecting in another way. Relying not on the shock of the subject matter but more her extremely astute observations about the way that people behave, you walk out feeling as if you know her better than ever.
San Francisco Fringe Festival Audience Reviews
Reviewer: Marc Tozer
5 Stars
Another fringe highlight and a real tour-de-force. Watching Mia steam through this powerful narrative non-stop was truly breathtaking and memorable.
Reviewer: Turbo
5 Stars
Most polished performance of the 10 Fringe pieces I saw. The writing is wonderful ... "i m a tornado seeking a tornado 2 tornado" ... with any risk of cliche turned about into freshness. Mia is not only comfortable on stage, but has the ability to make her audience equally comfortable. It was a great performance, but about 15-20 minutes too long.
Reviewer: Xavier K.
5 Stars
Paschal combines poetic lyricism with a piercing, uncompromising intelligence, and possesses a stage presence that is both graceful and fierce. Magnificent.
Reviewer: Melissa G.
5 Stars
Her words and movements are still trickling down my spine. The show was absolutely incredible!
Reviewer: Dave O
5 Stars
Mia's performance is powerful and intense, her show is packed with metaphor and dense with meaning and subtext. Come to see this moving, thought-provoking and sometimes disturbing one-woman show. Come prepared for an incredible journey as Mia takes you Along the Path...
Reviewer: Marti Paschal
5 Stars
Yes, I'm her sister - but I think she would agree that I am one of her toughest critics. I saw this play twice in Fresno, at the Marsh Rising, and for the fourth time last Saturday at the Fringe. Each time, Mia's poetry and honesty moved me to tears. This play is beautiful and true.
Reviewer: John
5 Stars
I saw Along the Path... last saturday evening and still can't get the show out of my mind; the writing and the performance were both exquisite. The subject matter, an exploration of the heart and its yearnings, betrayals, honesty and unreliability could have devolved into a bad self-help monologue in the hands of a less capable writer and performer. However Mia Paschal brings a rare insight, honesty and humor that keeps you engaged from "the bleeding heart" right through to the "boxer on the beach". Highly recommended, 2-thumbs-up,5-stars, pink-guy-standing-on-his-seat-clapping... Michelin stars too if they did this sort of thing.
Reviewer: Marc Tognotti
5 Stars
I highly recommend Mia Paschal’s “Along the Path of Larks and Swallows.” Mia Paschal performing her own play is a double gift: you get the play, you get Mia. It's an ambitious, meaningful story and a heartfelt personal statement about what it takes to get to love in today’s world. At the beginning the pace is fast and verbally dense, even frenetic — reflecting, I think, the complexity and confusion confronted by a young, troubled heart. As the play moved forward towards its conclusion, though, I experienced the pace transforming ever so subtly, little by little. I think what I was experiencing was how, while Mia’s character learns and grows before our eyes and begins to move more surely and choicefully through her life, we the audience experience her world expanding in feeling and quality. I think this is part of what makes the ending seem all the more convincing and special, the arrival at a deeper level of awareness and a greater sense of strength than she started with. I figure it must have taken a lot of love for Mia Paschal to write a play like this. Mia gives a lot of love in performing it. In following Mia’s journey toward love I found myself reflecting on my own and felt moved, inspired and connected to Mia’s quest.
Reviewer: Emily
5 Stars
Mia Paschal's examination of the chaotic path that leads us in and out of love is ferocious and eloquent. Her writing is stunning in its originality and the power of its imagery. A truly riveting performance.
Reviewer: Marianna Klebanov
5 Stars
This was a very beautifully written performance. The humanity of the writing and the performance is very moving.
Reviewer: Victoria
4 Stars
A very dynamic piece and Mia is exceptionally passionate in her delivery. One man/woman shows are not usually my cup of tea, but the dialogue she has written is beautiful and poetic full of things to think about after you've left the theatre.
Reviewer: David
5 Stars
While I think the Saturday evening performance I attended might have been the first one, the piece felt unbelievably polished. There must be more words flowing through this incredibly packed hour that in any other festival production, but the confidence, clarity, drive, and pace never flagged. She's incredibly beautiful, open, insightful, and gifted. The lighting needs to catch up with her - particularly when she engages the audience in extreme close-up - but that's a minor quibble. Wonderful.
Reviewer: john
5 Stars
Love. Everything was said about it? I don't think so. It's a beautiful play, and original.
Interpretation was great, intense and the text is so poetic. You should run to see it !
Reviewer: Abby Schachner
5 Stars
Mia is gorgeous, so so very talented... so poetic... I wanted to stevie wonderize my head to her words. The lighting and the beautiful heart that I saw on the stage (both literally and figuratively)... well, I'm a fan. Very inspiring.
Mia is timeless.
Critics’ Reviews
"Mia Paschal performs in her own poetic narrative a solo odyssey through lovers in the near and distant lives she occupies. The hour-long journey may be likened to gangsta rap performed by the Kronos Quartet in a musical transposition, though language is the medium here. " Eryka M. Fraczek, Bay Area Reporter
Photo: Rita Cigolini