Reviews

The Two-Step is an incredible one-person piece of theater, featuring original music, physical theater, dance and an amazingly well written monologue. Produced by Cheep Art and directed by Paul Budraitis, this show tugs at all the right strings. Christine Longé gives a Tony-worthy performance as Edith, a simply stunning and enchanting woman who recounts her life story, complete with descriptions of exotic locations, and how she danced her way to a fulfilling life.

Inspired by the true-life romance of her grandparents, Longé has written a remarkable love story. Her performance of the piece is equally amazing. The audience could feel the emotion as Longé told her story in exquisite detail. Her descriptions of the places where she’d been ran the gamut from suburbia to Saudi Arabia. Her tantalizing dance moves complemented her storyline, and provided a visual delight.

This performance was the capstone of Longé’s recent Fringe tour which took her to the Winnipeg Fringe Festival and Chicago Fringe Festival before returning her home to Seattle. AXS is proud to recommend The Two-Step and Christine Longé as the national treasures they are. Don’t miss the opportunity to see this show, or any other show featuring Ms. Longé. The time spent will be well worth the price of admission.

Wow! An incandescent storyteller. Totally enthralling story of love, life and how to live it. I highly recommend.

Imaginative storytelling of one woman’s life post-WWII and beyond. Weaving together memories of song, dance, love, and travel, Longé travels forward and backward in time speaking in the voice of her Swedish grandmother who embraced life and all it had to offer. A tender affirmation for saying ‘yes’ to being met and traveling far.

Quite brilliant! You created images and scenes totally enthralling and you have an artistic gift as a solo performer. And your spoken voice is melodic and your singing voice beautiful. Thanks so much for making such a wonderful theatric event. I wish you all the success in the world and hope to see you perform again soon.

Edith, a child of the ‘20s, marries young, raises a family, and then finds her wanderlust won’t let her sit still any longer. So she leaves to travel, dance and love her way around the world.

Some might deem Edith’s early choices worthy of judgment, but Christine Longé imbues the character with a determined joie de vivre and infectious enthusiasm that make her impossible to dislike. The resulting tension also keeps us wondering what Edith will do next.

Paired with exquisitely subtle sound and lighting cues, Longé’s performance additionally conjures an impressively tactile atmosphere. I could almost smell the hot dogs at Coney Island and feel the thick air of a sweltering Arabian night.

Edith’s journey reaches far, showing us how to embrace an immense, complicated world without sacrificing our ability to embrace the moment. “If you want to have fun, you will,” she says. Who can argue with that?

I had the delight of seeing and hearing Ms. Christine Longé perform her excellent one woman show. Ms. Longé successfully casts her youthful appearance into a delightful “old soul” of a “70-something” adult reflecting on the joys, sorrows and challenges of her life, and incorporates her manifest dancing and music skills. Great writing, directing, music, sound, dancing, singing and performing. Congratulations. The full performance is VERY ENTERTAINING, joyful and reflective of our own life challenges. Hope she returns to Boulder again and again. Her potential has no topper!

This edition [of 12 Minutes Max] was heavy on theater and relatively light on straight dance, but four movement-focused acts held their own. […] Mainstream culture has largely sidelined the noble clown, but a good clown is built on a keen study of both physical expression and human nature—it will make you laugh and cry all at once. Christine Longé made herself into a very sweet clown for Anenome’s Suitcase. Accompanied by Debussy’s always-poignant Clair de Lune, Longé’s red-nosed Anenome entered [with a] simple set-up…but Longé performed the scenario with aplomb. With such attention to how her body interacted with her props, not to mention the importance of visual metaphor, her act fits neatly in a dance context, and proves that not all fine physical performers need to spin and kick their legs to communicate.

Christine Longé is an adept comedian who acquits herself well… appealing… sweet, funny, even lovely.