Fringe Day 8 - Thursday
Aug. 10th, 2007 11:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dreamshark7:00 PM We'll Survive if We Don't Protect Ourselves * * * * 1/2
Presented by Penelope Freeh at Grain Belt Bottling House - Atrium
Really superb dancing in a very interesting space. I particularly enjoyed the segments where the dancers wore gorilla heads. Not quite 5 stars because I would have liked a little more variety - maybe 30 minutes of the main dance and a couple of short pieces with a different tempo and style. But that's probably my failing more than the dance troupe's - I just don't have a very long attention span for non-verbal performance.
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9:00 PM The Most Mysterious Day of the Year * * *
Presented by The Missoula Oblongata at Circle of Discipline
Not the worst show I've seen this year by any means, but probably the most aggravating. So many wonderful bits: the nutso surrealism, excellent acting, bright bits of dialogue, inspired use of props. Yet the whole is so much less than the sum of its parts. What ever possessed these people to think that they needed 90 minutes for this little bit of fluff? Even an hour would have felt long (especially in that unbearably hot performance space), but an hour and a half was interminable. Jokes that would have been wonderful as throwaway lines were draggggged out and repeated until they ceased to be funny and just became annoying. The cockeyed characters were initially charming, but by they end they just became sad and tiresome. And all that time spent setting up the plot turned out to be treading water - the "mystery" was never solved, the relationships between the two feuding families went nowhere, the parakeet (the only likeable character) spent the second half of the play in a semi-catatonic depression, and the whole show ended much like the final season of The Sopranos. Unlike last year's offering (Wonders of the World, Recite) this play did not have a single moment of joy in it. This troupe has tremendous talent and creative energy, and if they're here next year I'll go see them again - provided the show isn't more than an hour long!
Presented by Penelope Freeh at Grain Belt Bottling House - Atrium
Really superb dancing in a very interesting space. I particularly enjoyed the segments where the dancers wore gorilla heads. Not quite 5 stars because I would have liked a little more variety - maybe 30 minutes of the main dance and a couple of short pieces with a different tempo and style. But that's probably my failing more than the dance troupe's - I just don't have a very long attention span for non-verbal performance.
______________________________________________
9:00 PM The Most Mysterious Day of the Year * * *
Presented by The Missoula Oblongata at Circle of Discipline
Not the worst show I've seen this year by any means, but probably the most aggravating. So many wonderful bits: the nutso surrealism, excellent acting, bright bits of dialogue, inspired use of props. Yet the whole is so much less than the sum of its parts. What ever possessed these people to think that they needed 90 minutes for this little bit of fluff? Even an hour would have felt long (especially in that unbearably hot performance space), but an hour and a half was interminable. Jokes that would have been wonderful as throwaway lines were draggggged out and repeated until they ceased to be funny and just became annoying. The cockeyed characters were initially charming, but by they end they just became sad and tiresome. And all that time spent setting up the plot turned out to be treading water - the "mystery" was never solved, the relationships between the two feuding families went nowhere, the parakeet (the only likeable character) spent the second half of the play in a semi-catatonic depression, and the whole show ended much like the final season of The Sopranos. Unlike last year's offering (Wonders of the World, Recite) this play did not have a single moment of joy in it. This troupe has tremendous talent and creative energy, and if they're here next year I'll go see them again - provided the show isn't more than an hour long!
