I wasn't even in the mood to go out on Sunday, but we had 6 more punches on our 10-card. Turned out to be the best day of the Fringe for us. Saw 3 very different but excellent shows and finished up having a lovely dinner at Ginger Hop, just over the Hennepin Avenue Bridge. Parking downtown was kind of a nightmare (it is no longer free to park on the streets on Sunday. It's $2/hour 7 days a week now!). Other than that, a fine afternoon and evening.

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White Whale    * * * * *
Jack Weston (Travelshippe Productions)
Theatre Garage

Probably the best show of the Fringe for me. Certainly the most outstanding performance. Essentially a solo performance of Moby Dick with a little bit of framing fore and aft about the sinking of the Essex. Very intense. We sat down front, which is pretty much the only way to see anything at the Theatre Garage.

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To the Moon              * * * * *

Just an excellent musical performance with a little bit of comedy and story-telling. PK Ireland is a delightful old reprobate who looks a bit like Richard's long-lost brother. He's warm and funny and extremely talented. A shame that the house was so small, but he seemed totally unfazed and delivered the kind of intimate performance you might get in somebody's living room. I'd want him at my party.

Oh, and it's worth noting the New Century Theatre is probably the WORST venue at the Fringe. Just a bunch of hard chairs set up on risers maybe 2 inches high. Worked out fine for this show (again, we sat in front row) but absolutely to be avoided for any show that might require sitting any place else. 

Just one show, which I attended by myself: I was pretty sure Richard wouldn't care for it. I found it intriguing and worthwhile, but certainly not worth the 5 stars reviewers have been lavishing on it. I didn't post a counter-review to all the breathless praise, however. It would be like kicking a puppy. The show's description declares, "Through clowning, the show surpasses the victim/villain dichotomy and welcomes an open-hearted conversation about healing," which is an excellent description. It doesn't all work, but it works well enough that I would hate to discourage it.

Post Traumatic Super Delightful
by Pair of Animals (Antonia Lassar)
Phoenix Theater

The show began with Ms Lassar announcing, "Welcome to my senior thesis."  I'm taking her at her word, although the whole thing was so meta that it could have just been a play about a woman writing a play as her senior thesis. The solo performer playing all the characters being interviewed by the invisible playwright worked very well. She did a good job of finding the viewpoints and the passions of each of them, while making each characterization just over the top enough to be entertaining. The intervals of clowning worked less well, IMHO. It's not as insensitive as it sounds, just a little odd. I guess the point was to break the tension of a campus rape story, but I found it a little tedious. As for her point on Restorative Justice - I never could figure out what she meant by that. All but one of the characters in the rape storyline seemed to find the play-within-a-play healing, but it was never clear what exactly that play was. Was it the play that we the audience were watching? If so, it's a little hard to see why they didn't find it acutely uncomfortable to watch. Was there some other form of Restorative Justice going on in this story? If so, I missed it.

No Ultrapass this year, but we did buy a 10-pass for $100 (great price break, considering that the single-show price is up to $14). So far we've seen 3 very good shows, but none that made me want to stand up and holler.

My love-hate relationship with Fringe management continues to escalate. This year's user-unfriendly innovation - NO SCHEDULE GRID! In all the past years of Fringe there has been a printed Fringe Program you could pick up at the venues that included a map and a grid. The grid has also appeared on the website (albeit sometimes in barely printable form). This year - nada. No grid online, no printed schedule. When you ask the volunteers at the desk they helpfully suggest using the grid from the Star Tribune. Which is, in fact, what we are doing, as we are one of the few households left in the Twin Cities that still subscribe to our local paper. If you do not subscribe, your only option is working your way through their online scheduling algorithm. I guess if you don't do computers and don't subscribe to the paper you just don't deserve to Fringe.

Once again, the website has been "improved" by moving around the important features and making them harder to find. But minnehaha was right - the day by day schedule IS still there, just 3 levels down instead of being linked to the home page. In all fairness, once you find the scheduler it works pretty well. Response is fast and it is sortable by either time or venue. Without the grid, however, there is no way to view all the shows available in a given neighborhood other than looking through each venue individually.

So far, the highlight of my Fringe was running into the minnehahas on the patio at Sgt. Preston's (which has been renamed to something stupid and forgettable, but that's okay because the old Sgt. Preston's logo is still proudly displayed on the building). That was really fun, guys, thanks for hopping the fence and joining us!