Fringe Day 3, Part 5 - August 8, 2004, 8:30pm

Knock!
Theater Latte Da
Loring Playhouse

What a great way to end my first weekend at the Fringe, watching Jim Lichtschiedl's delightfully loopy live-action cartoon family come to life.

Not a line of dialogue - just music, lip-synched lyrics and cartoon balloon dialogue coming out of character's mouths.

Music (classical, house, adult contemporary, and pop) combined with hilarious dance and fabulously cheesy magic marker "animation" and mini-films projected on the rear screen of the space, big as life. Often bigger. And certainly funnier.

It's a hoot and a half and one of the more unusual and entertaining performance hybrids I've seen in a while. It's difficult to describe without giving an entire rundown of every moment that took place. It needs to be experienced. Then maybe the group of us who were all lucky enough to see it can figure out how to talk about it.

I look forward to seeing more episodes of this family's peculiar life on the Loring Stage. And you still have four more chances to catch it this week, so go to their show page and add it to your Fringe schedule.

(For more of my writing - plays, past blog entries and more - visit www.matthewaeverett.com)