The genie-in-a-bottle mythology we’ve all enjoyed in movies and on the “I Dream of Jeannie” TV series is both debunked and expanded in a charming new comedy that is being presented at the New York International Fringe Festival.
“Wish We Were Here” follows a hapless unemployed actor (Michael Phillis) who wishes on a hookah while stoned one night and is stunned to have a gorgeous genie (Christine Corpuz) pop out of his drug paraphernalia.
Granted the usual three wishes, the stoner actor makes his first wish “I wish for unlimited wishes!” and lives to regret it (sort of).
The show we are watching is an off-shoot of the actor’s desire to create an autobiographical one-man piece that might jumpstart his career.
“Wish We Were Here” isn’t quite what the actor expected, however, since the genie keeps threatening to take over the show and humiliate her “master.” The genie contradicts much of what the actor tells us, and makes her own case against his piggish attempt to abuse her powers.
The unlimited-wishes wish triggers a contractual “addendum” that results in the genie being permanently assigned to the actor but with the freedom to tweak his desires with her own improvisations.
Within this rather silly supernatural premise, “Wish We Were Here” manages to include surprisingly pointed satire of the over-sized expectations central to modern American life.
Phillis wrote the show and co-produced it with his pal Corpuz. She lives in New York and he lives in San Francisco but together they’ve created “Bowdashoot Productions,” a “bicoastal artists’ collective (whose) mission is to create art that promotes positive change.”
Corpuz and Phillis are a comedy team of the first order — his attempts to gain control of the genie and her witty manipulations make for a very winning hour in the theater.
(The Fringe Festival will present only one more performance of “Wish We Were Here” on Saturday at 5:30 p.m. at the CSV Cultural and Educational Center at 107 Suffolk St. Tickets are $15 and may be ordered online at www.FringeNYC.org.)
