For a long time Park Borchert has been working on his show
Sweet & Sour Park. It was originally derived from his stand up comedy about his youth in Wisconsin, his exodus to New York City, and meeting the love of his life, Fung Yee. Now all that doesn't sound particularly funny until you factor in the amount of time it takes to assimilate Chinese cultural practices and idiosyncrasies. It's your classic Stranger in a Strange World theme for you English majors. The Chinese are a brilliant and hard working people, and for some reason, as in the case of his mother-in-law, when you're only four feet tall it's very hard to take no for an answer. I guess it's a matter of perspective.
The show is a mélange of music, visuals, and "confessional autobiographical monologues that plumb life's experiences for all their irony, absurdity, and edgy intensity." Mr. Borchert, who is an accomplished blues guitarist, segues through his various accounts with tasty guitar solos which in itself, would be an entertaining evening out. As a whole, one is harkened back to the seminal "Word Jazz" by Ken Nordeen or the Midwestern musings of Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion." Salted with the edginess of almost two decades of life in The Big Apple, Sweet & Sour Park is a humorous and sometimes bittersweet account of two lives brought together upon the backdrop of 9/11.
JUVIE HALL is located at 24 Bond Street just off Lafayette Street right down the street from the Public Theater. For those of you who love sushi, right across the street from JUVIE HALL is the superb restaurant named
"Bond Street" where Park Borchert and Fung Yee accidentally met for the first time.
