Fringe - Saturday

[dreamshark]

A perfect weekend Fringe day, despite a late start and a change of plans (maybe even because of that, come to think of it). The weather was warm and sunny and perfect for biking. We got in 5 shows, 12-14 miles of biking, a couple of beers and an iced coffee and lots of bar food. As if that weren't enough, four of the shows were 5-star winners! What's not to love about a day like that?

For our first show we'd planned to rendezvous with ambertatge and a bunch of her friends at Rarig Center for Shakespeare's Land of the Dead. However, we got off to a late start, encountered a lot of cross-traffic headed for the Powderhorn Art Fair, and at 1:05 we were just cruising past the Bedlam Theater. There's no point in arriving 10 minutes late for a 1-hour play, so we decided to check out Fringe Central at the Bedlam instead. This is a nice idea that seems to be seriously under-utilized, at least during the day. It's really just a space that Fringers can use to relax and chat, look through the schedule, and grab a beer and a snack. We did all of that. I had to pay for my beer, but we arrived just in time for free ice cream and cake. There weren't a lot of people at the long tables, but we sat next to a Fringe performer named Dixie dandling a very cute baby on her knee and had a nice chat. Her show doesn't start 'til Tuesday, but now I think I might check it out: The Thinnest Woman Wins.

After much schedule browsing we finally settled on a 2:30 show choice: The Pumpkin Pie Show by Horse Trade Theater Group. This was our first random schedule-filling choice, and what a piece of serendipity that was! (see review below). We discovered that 6th St. made a pleasant route for biking between the Bedlam/Mixed Blood side of the West Bank and Rarig Center and we made good use of it over the next few hours. As we were heading back to Rarig for the second time we encountered barondave and joined forces for the next two shows. For our last show of the day we followed his recommendation and headed over the river to the Soap Factory for one more superb and surprising show: Deviants. Despite various between show snacks on the West Bank we were starving by this time and made a satisfyingly greasy meal out of bar food at Pracna on Main before heading for home. Rather than doing the obvious and retracing our path we attempted a short cut back to the light rail line that ended with us hauling our bikes through the dirt around huge and inexplicable construction machinery and over an orange fence. But we eventually made it back to the Midtown Bike Path and home.

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The Pumpkin Pie Show
Horse Trade Theater Group. * * * * *
Two absolutely superb story-tellers. Their sense of humor is a little mordant and definitely Not For Children, but rest assured that their topics are not the same old same old. For each performance they pick 5 stories at random from their repertoire of 14, so it might be worth a 2nd visit.

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Orange * * *
Questionable Company Theatre
This is a perfectly fine little show for filling in an empty time slot, but I wouldn't plan my day around it. The poor little thing probably suffered from being sandwiched in the middle of an otherwise flawless run of 5-star polished professional productions. Basically, a talented group of young actors from Carleton College present material that would have made a terrific 20-minute skit. However, stretched to fill an hour it became a bit tedious. [edited to raise rating from 2-1/2 to 3]

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The Cody Rivers Show Presents: Stick to Glue * * * * *
The Cody Rivers Show
These guys are simply indescribable. So much imagination, so many words, so much physical energy, all delivered with such rapid-fire precision that the mind reels. I made the mistake of having a beer before this show, and I just couldn't keep up. I think my favorite joke (the charades skit) was one that I had to have explained to me afterwards because it went by so fast that I couldn't put all the pieces together before they were on to the next skit. I think that their show last year was actually better but I still can't justify giving them less than 5 stars. Note to self: COFFEE before Cody Rivers, not beer!!

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Mortem Capiendum * * * * *
Four Humors Theater
It's hard to follow Cody Rivers and still make an impression, but these guys managed it. This is the same bunch that did "Bards" and "Deviled Eggs" in previous Fringe shows, and this one was of the same high quality. Just a very well-written, brilliantly acted, one-act play on an oddball topic.

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Deviants * * * * *
Live Action Set
Whoa. This is not the kind of show I would have expected to like, but I did in fact like it very much. It's another one of those dance/spoken word combos with spooky music and ambitious special effects. The subject (forbidden desires) is very dark and surprisingly kinky: absolutely Not For Children. Some of the audience members looked quite dismayed - I wonder if they were expecting another clown show like last year. I'll tell ya, none of us who saw this show will ever be able to look at a banana the same way. But it's really good, honest! The imagery is powerful and the performers are unbelievably energetic and apparently impervious to pain. I recommend seeing this one immediately; after a week of this the performers are going to be swathed in Ace bandages, synthetic skin, eye-patches and possibly a peg leg or two. The dancer in the slinky black dress was already sporting a knee brace on Saturday, and if she makes it through the week without breaking an ankle in those 4-inch spike heels it will be a miracle. btw, when people refer to the Soap Factory as "an interesting space" they mean that no matter where you sit it's impossible to see around the huge wooden pillars. Just pick a spot where nobody's head is in your way and accept the fact that you aren't SUPPOSED to see the performers all the time. The performers have come to terms with the space and will repeat anything important in several different locations so everybody gets to see it. The peek-a-boo nature of the action actually adds to the creepy ambience.

Comments

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Glad you liked Deviants. Recommending a show like that is always a crapshoot, since the experience is so personal.

Well, off to Bryant-Lake Bowl for breakfast and two Fringes in a row...

[geohard.livejournal.com]

sounds like a fun fringe.
Next time though could you use a cut tag?
Thanks, I'm checking in from SD & bandwith is scarce out here