The creators and performers of the popular “Assisted Living: The Musical” return to Sedona by popular demand with their brand new comedy “FleaBitten: Good Buys Gone Bad”. It will be performed by its authors Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett, who are currently doing a national tour of the production. This outrageous, live theatrical event will be presented by the Sedona International Film Festival at its Mary D. Fisher Theatre. There will be three performances April 2-4.
“FleaBitten” (aka A Day at the Flea Market) delivers non-stop laughs from the opening scene. The two performers play 15 different characters in this engaging, hilarious live production.
Ever been to a flea market? Not those weekend, temporary things, but permanent ones selling everything from home paternity tests to autographed pictures of Jesus? Where everything is real as you believe it to be?
“FleaBitten: Good Buys Gone Bad” — the latest show from Compton & Bennett — is a joyful romp through what used to be called a thieves-and-fleas market. Flea markets are houses of haggle and confabs of the counterfeit, and “FleaBitten” exploits those. But the show also explores the heart and hopefulness required to work in such a setting.
The vendors here at this Flea Market put the fun in dysfunction. Part carnie, part clerk, and all heart, they convolute their way through life with answers that can't work but somehow do. Like hairdresser Earlene, whose wigs are "100% locally grown … I swept up every strand myself", Ariel, who is there because of an itinerant mime and a PA announcer who turns adversities into ads. And Juan and Maria secured love, riches and green cards there.
Chris Silk of the Naples Daily News said he laughed so hard, he snorted his drink out of his nose. Florida Weekly calls it "brilliant buffoonery." Actual flea market vendors have roared, and then looked around with chagrin, as they recognize themselves.
Whether you've been to flea market or not, “FleaBitten” shows the sordid, silly side of what really goes on behind the bargains.