Last Day of Fringe - Sunday August 9
Aug. 10th, 2009 10:43 pmA quiet finish - Richard went to the Powderhorn Art Fair and I did nothing in particular except back up my external hard drive, which looks to be about to fail. We drove over to the West Bank to see a 7pm show and an 8:30 Fringe Encore, both of which were amusing without being particularly memorable. The first show was only 45 minutes long, which gave us time to have beer and artichoke dip at the open-air beer garden on the corner.
7pm Southern Theater
Mansion of Dust - Joseph and Sarah Stevenson Scrimshaw * * * 1/2
She's a dancer, he's the local King of Comedy. They teamed up last year for a dance/spoken word piece called "The Whisky Fairy" that was one of our favorite shows of the Fringe. This year's show was not nearly as good. The dancing was great, but the story part was tedious - a whisker-thin narrative that was not improved by silly accents and anti-French jokes. They made excellent use of props and the beautiful theater space, and Joe revealed yet another talent when the "professional European dusters" uncovered a full drum set in the empty mansion they were cleaning. Sarah is a wonderful dancer, and Joe is such an acrobatic clown that he turns in a pretty fair dance performance himself just by capering around her and copying her moves. I just wish there had been more dancing and less Inspector Clouseau.
8:30 Southern Theater Encore
Lick! * * 1/2
Terminally dumb, but it did have nice lights and flashy costumes and a lot of energy. It was a pleasant enough way to wind up 10 days of intense Fringing, but I simply cannot understand how it got all those 5-kitty ratings. The concept: reunion show of a glittery-shirted boy dance group doing what I think is deliberately bad 80's style dance routines. The dance numbers are interspersed with a schtick about how Incredibly! Sinfully! Sexy! their show is (not!) and some mildly amusing bickering within the group. The occasional reference to Transformers threw the audience into a frenzy of laughing and clapping. All of which suggests that the target audience was born between, oh... 1975 and 1979? It seems like they'd be a little old to be blown away by such juvenile humor, but I guess the performers know their niche audience.
7pm Southern Theater
Mansion of Dust - Joseph and Sarah Stevenson Scrimshaw * * * 1/2
She's a dancer, he's the local King of Comedy. They teamed up last year for a dance/spoken word piece called "The Whisky Fairy" that was one of our favorite shows of the Fringe. This year's show was not nearly as good. The dancing was great, but the story part was tedious - a whisker-thin narrative that was not improved by silly accents and anti-French jokes. They made excellent use of props and the beautiful theater space, and Joe revealed yet another talent when the "professional European dusters" uncovered a full drum set in the empty mansion they were cleaning. Sarah is a wonderful dancer, and Joe is such an acrobatic clown that he turns in a pretty fair dance performance himself just by capering around her and copying her moves. I just wish there had been more dancing and less Inspector Clouseau.
8:30 Southern Theater Encore
Lick! * * 1/2
Terminally dumb, but it did have nice lights and flashy costumes and a lot of energy. It was a pleasant enough way to wind up 10 days of intense Fringing, but I simply cannot understand how it got all those 5-kitty ratings. The concept: reunion show of a glittery-shirted boy dance group doing what I think is deliberately bad 80's style dance routines. The dance numbers are interspersed with a schtick about how Incredibly! Sinfully! Sexy! their show is (not!) and some mildly amusing bickering within the group. The occasional reference to Transformers threw the audience into a frenzy of laughing and clapping. All of which suggests that the target audience was born between, oh... 1975 and 1979? It seems like they'd be a little old to be blown away by such juvenile humor, but I guess the performers know their niche audience.