Fringe 2005 - Many Happy Returns - Top Ten Class of 2003 back again

Rik Reppe - Red State/Blue State

One of many nice things about the Fringe is that the good artists often like us so much they keep coming back for more.

Rik Reppe actually did that one better. He and his wife moved here from the west coast.

Rik wrote and performed his amazing one person show Staggering Toward America in the 2003 Fringe. It was one of my pre-Fringe Top Ten, ending up in a tie with Gilgamesh, Iowa for my Mom's favorite show (and a mighty close second to Gilgamesh for me). Matthew Foster declared it, I believe, the only show in the Fringe that year, required viewing. The audience reviews were falling all over themselves with superlatives. Rik's exploration of post-9/11 America had you laughing your butt off one minute, weeping the next. It was a stunning piece of theatre.

Having just set down new roots in Minnesota, he's already set to work. He traveled the deeply divided country in the throes of election and post-election fever in 2004 and found the red/blue divide to be not as clearcut as the media pundits would have us believe. I'm greatly looking forward to another dose of Rik Reppe's clear-eyed look at America. It is invariably a portrait that makes me think, and gives me hope that we may yet collectively come to our senses and build the country we're capable of.

If you missed him the first time, don't make the mistake of doing it again. This is appointment theatre, and quite likely to sell out quickly.

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