BOB BRADER
AFTRA
"Honest and funny...Brader delivers with an infectious mix of humor, horror
and insight...a thoroughly enjoyable ride"
-Robert Attenweiler, nytheatre.com

FRIGID New York presents
The John Montgomery Theatre Company production

Preparation Hex

Written and Performed by Bob Brader
Directed and Developed by Suzanne Bachner
Lighting Design and Technical Direction by Douglas Shearer
Graphic Design by Michael Koch

“Who would put a hex on me?” is the question Bob Brader tries to
answer in his new dark comedic monologue from the creative team
who brought you Spitting In The Face Of The Devil.  Preparation
Hex is about hemorrhoids - and it's a love story.

The Red Room
85 East 4th Street
Between 2nd and 3rd Ave.
Tickets $10
Call SmartTix for tickets  212.868.4444
or online @ FRIGIDnewyork.info
Industry please call JMTC at 212.758.3820

Thursday, February 28th @ 10:30pm
Saturday, March 1 @ 11:30pm
Tuesday, March 4 @ 7:30pm
Saturday, March 8 @ 8:30pm
Sunday, March 9 @ 2:30pm
Running time: 60 minutes
FRIGID PREVIEW
NEW YORK THEATRE.COM
FRIGID Festival Preview (Episode #195): A preview of eight shows featured in FRIGID New York:
"American Badass," " Antonin...Mon Artaud," "Chosen," "ExcesSecret Circus," "Preparation Hex,"
"Sporknotes, "Whence Came Yet, Scarlett O'Hara O'Hanrahan," and "Working It Out"

Preparation Hex
reviewed by Robert Attenweiler
Feb 28, 2007


The title of Bob Brader's new play, Preparation Hex, lets you know exactly what
you're in for. Within the title are "Preparation H," "Hex," and "ex"—all the main points
of Brader's honest and funny one-man show. So, it's hemorrhoids, the occult, and
former loves gone sweet and sour that Brader delivers with an infectious mix of
humor, horror and insight at The Red Room now, as part of the second annual
FRIGID New York Festival.
Brader begins his monologue (think a lighter-hearted, confessional Spalding Gray)
with the horrendous anchor of this piece: he has come down with hemorrhoids one
week before his new play is supposed to open. And, as he points out several times,
the play is a desk monologue. He needs to be able to sit down the entire time. And
he has received a scathing review from a preview performance. There is only one
answer, he figures. Someone must be out to get him. He must be hexed. So, the
week ticks down and while Bob soaks in the soothing water of his sitz baths, his mind
drifts back to stories about those who, he thinks, had cause to want to punish him.
Not surprisingly, all of these stories are about relationships gone bad.
But Brader is building a well-balanced story here. His descent into pain and the
humiliating possibility that he may have to cancel his show over his condition
wonderfully parallel his stories about his personal life that, at first, seem equally
painful but, as they unfold, become a touching account of Brader finding love (after
which, he tells about the hemorrhoid rupturing).
Brader has enough charm that we believe his romantic conquests and enough
nervous energy that we sympathize with him, believing him to be an underdog, while
he is the hero all along. Brader and his director and co-developer, Suzanne Bachner,
have a great sense of the structure of the monologue show. Brader varies his pace,
earns his pauses, and delivers different characters in voices that sound natural, like
when you imitate a friend when telling a story.
All told, the show could be tighter still, but, as it stands, it is a thoroughly enjoyable
ride through one man's rather uncomfortable times.
Written/created by: Bob Brader
Directed by Suzanne Bachner
Presented by The John Montgomery Theatre Company