A Day In The Life Of A Fool

Written and performed by the drama students of Airport High School in Carlton, Michigan, A Day in the Life of a Fool is a filmed stage play illustrating the horrors of teenage drinking and driving. Set in a graveyard, the play alternates between students (made up to look like car accident victims) telling their tales and video clips of real news footage of car accidents projected on a large screen. The stories the students tell are a bit on the melodramatic side. For instance, the character of Tammy describes how a bitter argument between her and her mother drove the latter out of the house. Tammy drank and then decided to take her younger brother out for a drive (but didn't fasten his seatbelt). The resulting head-on collision killed the brother, and Tammy discovered that the other driver (dead) was none other than her mother. As befits high school drama students, the "stories" are all basically delivered in the one note James Dean "You're tearing me apart!" mode, making for nearly an hour of well-intended, if somewhat monotonous, histrionics. All of this might still be acceptable were it not for the fact that the audio mix on the video clips of real news footage is totally muddled. So, about every five minutes, viewers will be fiddling with the volume control. Not a necessary purchase. (Available from: Brainstorm, Inc., 6240 N. Hix, Westland, MI 48185; (313) 722-8560.)