Fringe - midweek report

I'm getting a little burned out on the magic of the Ultrapass, and have been trying to target exceptionally good shows rather than cramming in as many shows as possible. I've seen 22 and am running out of steam. Richard (who is still enchanted with the all-you-can eat aspect, and probably always will be) is at 30-something. My scheduling strategies have been pretty successful.  Here's the tally so far. I believe that the slant towards high ratings reflects wise choices rather than grade inflation. I've seen a lot of really excellent shows, and only one that I would consider a dud (and even that one was not without its charms).

• 5-kitty shows: 6
• 4-kitty shows: 8
• 3-kitty shows: 7
• 2-kitty shows: 1 (really 1-1/2 rounded up)

The Fringe people are always tinkering with the format. Some new ideas are better than others. A real loser in the bright idea department was requiring the house manager to take the stage before every performance and deliver a pointless, scripted, deadly dull introduction ("Hello, I'm xxx, the house manager. Welcome to the 2010 Fringe Festival, featuring 169 performances in 19 different venues! blah de blah de blah blah blah...")  There is absolutely no useful information in this monologue unless you consider it important to let people know in advance that if the play stops suddenly in the middle, the house lights come up and the house manager sprints onto the stage to make an announcement -something is going on.

Needless to say, active Fringers got bored with this pretty quickly. Mostly people just did what they do on airplanes while the flight attendant explains how to use a seatbelt (ignored it). At some of the rowdier venues (e.g., Mixed Blood) audiences started cheering and applauding inappropriately throughout the spiel. Eventually a Rocky Horror style call and response routine started popping up ("How MANY shows are there??" ...  "How many venues??").  Sometime in the last couple of days the intro quietly disappeared. I'm sure the house managers are even more relieved than the audiences.

Today's lunch

I'm no longer taking pictures of my lunch every day, but this one came out especially pretty.

Dumpling lunch - Aug 13, 2010 Salad in top tier, with 3 grape tomatoes and one peppadew pepper stuffed with (light) cream cheese. Entree tier: Thai Veggie Gyoza from Trader Joe with green onion, peapods and some more grape tomatoes.

Fringe reviews - Tuesday and Wednesday

Yikes, falling behind. I've actually been posting reviews of most of the shows on the Fringe site, but I like to have them here as well. Not that very many of my FL is interested (barondave excepted) but I like to look back at them the next year for reference.

Tuesday, August 10
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Green as Grass                            * * *
presented by Far from the Tree 
Venue: Jungle Theater

living traces - burning breath         * * * 1/2 (rounded up)
presented by The Manhattan Experimental Theater Workshop
Venue: Jungle Theater

Wednesday, August 11
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Bloddeuwedd                * * * * *
presented by Mark Hunter (acted by Erin Daly)
Venue: Ritz Studio

( Read more... )

Fringe Thursday - Day 8

 
Spin          * * * *
presented by Outspoke Productions
Venue: Ritz Proscenium

A real treat. Unusual mixture of spoken word, song, slide show and percussion bicycle.  The content is great too - a mixture of fascinating historical tidbits, speculation, personal experience and musical experimentation. Annie Londonderry is my new hero!  I can't believe I never heard of her before!  The show loses its focus a bit during the last 15 minutes, detouring into an over-long song decrying mass consumerism *yawn* and never quite finding its way back to its bicycle core. But it's still a very solid 4 kitties.


Missing: the fantastical and true story of my father's disappearance and what I found when I looked for him       * * *
presented by Jessica Ferris
Venue: Intermedia Arts

Starts out strong with some inventive physical theater and creative use of simple props to convey emotion. Kudos to Jessica Ferris for having the guts (and the flexibility) to wriggle her very substantial body through that tiny hole with all of us watching her long struggle. It was a curiously effective portrayal of her inner child's desperation and compulsion to keep searching for her missing father. And wonderful job turning that metal box into a full-fledged character in the play. Things get a little hard to follow after that. Jessica rotates through the roles of a few too many relatives to keep track of as she interviews them one after another in her quest to figure out who her father really was (is) and if he is still alive. Eventually she straightens out some of the confusion by making a pictorial family tree for us and naming them all, but I still had some difficulty figuring out when she was speaking as her mother and when as Grandma Sally, and some of the stories just seemed irrelevant (what was that business with Grandma Nina and the bed linens?).  As Jessica's search continues it becomes more obvious just how permanently wounded she and her whole family have been by two generations of compulsive liars in their midst.  Ultimately it's all just a very sad story with no resolution. I hope this poor young woman eventually comes to terms with just what she can and can't control about her family and moves on.

Fringe plan for the final weekend

Man, Saturday looks bleak.  One West Bank show both Richard and I want to see at 1:00 but nothing after that until late in the evening - not worth hanging out all day on the WB for that. Okay, we've put together a plan.  Drive to Playwright Center for the 1:00 then home, then hit a few Uptown shows in the evening.

1:00    Do Not Kill Me, Killer Robots!
Playwright Center
I know it sounds stupid, but so did "Show Goons."  It's gotten great reviews.

4:00  The Anton Kissbougel Technique
Balance Fitness Studio
Richard isn't interested in this one, but since it's right in the neighborhood (and across from the ice cream shop) I just might check it out.

7:00 Flops!
Intermedia Arts
I'm a little dubious about this one, but Richard wants to see it and it's close to home.

SUNDAY - looks much better

Pretty all the remaining shows I want to see are lined up like sitting ducks on Sunday evening. This probably IS worth biking to the West Bank for.

2:30 p.m.
Idiosynchronicity
presented by Rob Callahan 
Venue: U of M Rarig Arena

4:00 p.m.
The Jack Chick Plays
presented by Colder by the Lake
Venue: U of M Rarig Arena

5:30 p.m.
The Princeton Seventh
presented by Partizan Theater 
Venue: U of M Rarig Thrust

7:00 p.m.
Fruitcake-Ten Commandments from the Psych Ward
presented by Rob Gee 
Venue: U of M Rarig Thrust

This last one leaves us in the Rarig with one last chance to get into the Shel Silverstein show, which will undoubtedly be the Encore presentation in the Experimental stage.