Images: 
Total Rating: 
**1/4
Previews: 
(editor's note: title misspelling is part of the photograph)
Opened: 
February 5, 2017
Ended: 
February 5, 2017
Country: 
USA
State: 
Florida
City: 
Sarasota
Company/Producers: 
2017 Company & Gotta Van Productions
Theater Type: 
Regional
Theater: 
Crocker Memorial Church
Theater Address: 
1260 Twelfth Street
Phone: 
941-725-0177
Website: 
gottavan.org
Running Time: 
1 hr
Genre: 
Solo w/ Music
Author: 
Kaylene McCaw
Review: 

Flanked by her audience, Kaylene McCaw walks, waving two large flags of quasi-transparent gold material, down the central aisle. She sings “O-le-o-le-ocean-free” until taking to the stage. Another wave and she stresses that “free” was her important word. She next calls attention to her blue hair. At a Masonic temple, she fell in love with a gal with blue hair and decided to be “magical like her...and tell stories that change the world.” They’re revealed in rites and ceremonies such as will follow.

McCaw’s stories in Guidance on Demand might be characterized as new age-y about old-y subjects: life, love, and death. She thinks stories are the “original form of technology” with which she intends to involve the audience through jazzy feelings and song and admonitions to dispel fear. She goes into some detail about she, herself, being old but then not saying she’s old because then she’d be old. What follows is very little actual narrative.

McCaw says “you are the master of your destiny” and “decide to live” (which gets the audience clapping) and other such wisdoms. God is defined as other than the “angry old guy” or as “good, boring” or “the most high” who “made all good things, like light.” That’s a cue for waving the flags again and saying, “If you knew you could, you’d make the whole world good.” Presumably, she’s talking to the audience, not the good god. This leads to her leading all in “Row, row, row your boat” in the way most used to sing it in second or third grade.

“How can you find your Avatar and start using your robotic system?” Before another song, she reveals, “You’re the only one who can steer your life.” This kind of wisdom, in ceremonial cadences, goes on until McCaw refers to her web site and gets everyone to breathe together. A sort of prayer precedes the exit of “Our Lady Melody — senior software technician with Universal Tech Support.”

John Reynolds played his guitar very well both to accompany singing and to punctuate McCaw’s utterances of “Life Cycle Celebration.”

Cast: 
Kaylene McCaw; Guitarist: John Reynolds
Technical: 
Dramaturgs: Ann Morrison & Blake Walton
Critic: 
Marie J. Kilker
Date Reviewed: 
February 2017