Fringe 2026 - Returning Favorites - Gabriel Mata - Latin Papi

It takes a bit of digging sometimes to realize who's actually performing a show (this will be a common theme in a subset of the posts this year).  For instance, I thought I'd already caught all the returning favorite artists from the list of shows, but then I was perusing the Dance category (since Fringe is the one time of year I can catch a lot of dance all concentrated in one place), and in clicking through to the main page on "Latin Papi" I discovered, "Oh, wait a minute, this is a new Gabriel Mata show!  How delightful!"

It just says "CuerpoxCuerpo" in the main listings under the title, but then when you open the show page right under that unfamiliar company name is "Created by Gabriel Mata and Armani Colón"

Description
Latin Papi is a bold, playful, and provocative contemporary dance performance blending sensual movement, voice, humor, and theatrical flair created by Armani Rey Colón and Gabriel Mata of CuerpoxCuerpo.

Venue – Rarig Xperimental
Content Warnings – Crude Humor, Flashing Lights, Short Show (less than 45 minutes)
Genre and Content – Dance (Modern)
Ages 18 and Up Only

Anyone who saw any of his previous Fringe outings here, Out of the Shadows (2017), Dreaming (2018), or Joteria: Our Untold Stories (2022), doesn't need me to tell them they should be getting this one on their Fringe schedule.  But it's been a minute since he was last here in 2022 so for the uninitiated, go see this, you're in for a treat.

I normally go see Gabriel's shows two, even three times in a festival and that is unusual behavior for me.  They're just that good.  Mata creates work that's funny and thoughtful and full of graceful, beautiful movement across whatever space he's in.

This show seems like it's another departure from the shows that came before (a bit more adult - crude humor, 18 and up only? color me curious), but whatever this dancer/choreographer is up to with his new collaborator, I'm excited to see it early on and then come back later for more.  That may be harder this year since the Rarig X space can easily sell out with a popular show.  But I would love to have that problem because that means this show is getting the audiences it deserves.

UPDATE: here’s some additional information on the content of the show from my press packet that I just discovered:

“Latin Papi is a contemporary dance performance with movement and surprise from the Latinx body.

Latin Papi is a bold, playful, and provocative contemporary dance performance created by Armani Rey Colón and Gabriel Mata of CuerpoxCuerpo. Blending sensual movement, voice, humor, and theatrical flair, the work reclaims the Latinx body from stereotype and spectacle while inviting audiences into a 40-minute whirlwind of charm, vulnerability, and unexpected twists. Infused with contemporary Latin sabor, Latin Papi explores how bodies of color are desired, consumed, fetishized, and misunderstood, while also honoring their tenderness, complexity, and power.

Through a series of vibrant and intimate vignettes, Colón and Mata navigate ideas of masculinity, jotería, and performance itself. Seduction and comedy intertwine with moments of raw physicality and reflection, revealing the tension between visibility and objectification. The performers shift between fantasy and authenticity, humor and intimacy, asking audiences to reconsider what it means to look at, desire, and define the Latinx body.

Rooted in collaboration and contemporary performance practice, Latin Papi seeks to create an experience that is immersive, disarming, and deeply human, opening space for connection, recognition, and dialogue with audiences.” 

There's not a lot of information posted about his collaborator Armani Colón as yet, but if you need more convincing, here's Gabriel's bio:

"Gabriel Mata (pronounced: gah-bryehl mah-tah) is a Mexican American dance choreographer, educator, and performer based in Washington DC. Brown Baby is his project based performance company and he is the director of the Latinx Movement Festival in Washington DC. Growing up as an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who assimilated to a white and Eurocentric notion of the US for a goal of citizenship, he has cultivated his own choreographic form and movement language as an act of de-centering his concert dance training. He has cultivated dance performance work under the name motion memoirs and teaching of contemporary sabor. Mata’s research is on jotería, Meximalismo, immigration, Latinidad / brownness, and community based movement forms. Mata's dance works have been performed in California, New York, Minnesota, North Carolina, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, Washington DC, and the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. His work has been presented at Stanford University, San José State University, Georgian Court University, Howard Community College, Salisbury University, Howard Community College, Santa Ana College, and American University. His dances have been commissioned by David Herrera Performance Company, Jane Franklin Dance, Atlas Performing Arts Center, Dance Loft on 14, sjDANCEco, the Minnesota Fringe Festival, the Festival of Latin American Contemporary Choreographers - SF, Moveius Contemporary Ballet, Dance Place, Silicon Valley Pride, the Hispanic National Bar Association, Latino/a/x Contemporary Dance Festival, and Corazón Folklórico DC. He is part of the Artists Advisory Council at Dance Place - Thresholds, the Latinx Hispanic Dancers United, and the Latinx Dance Educators Association. Mata is the inaugural Social Justice Commissioned Dance Artist at Dance Loft on 14th as well as the inaugural Arts Lab Fellow at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. He has received the S&R Evermay Washington Award and the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Research Grant. Additionally, he has been a current recipient of DC Commission for the Arts and Humanities Grants for cultural production."

If that's not enough for you, check out any one of my 5-star reviews of his previous Fringe shows: Out of the Shadows, Dreaming, and Joteria.  I'm a big fan of this artist and will recommend their shows to anyone who will listen so, let the recommendations begin, sight unseen.

It's in the 10pm slot on the first day of the festival, so I may already know how I'm ending my Thursday night on August 6th. 

 

 

Fringe 2026 - Vacation Prep Underway

Yesterday my Fringe buttons arrived in the physical mail.

And a handy spreadsheet full of press information arrived in my email inbox.

Even though I had a few extra days prior to the Minnesota Fringe Festival website going live to the public yesterday (Fringe With Benefits folks get a sneak peek into the website, though it's still evolving, which is its own entertainment), the homework on this year's festival continues.

Just when I think I've caught all the returning favorites from past years, another former Fringe favorite under a new banner pops up in my research.  I do love finding old friends resurfacing again with new material.  As well as brand new artists I've never seen before.

Obviously, I want to be sure to give the queer content a look so I don't miss anything intriguing.

And I have a soft spot for all the traveling artists, particularly the solo acts who have their work cut out for them in a festival this crowded with familiar faces.

It will, as always, be hard to put together a schedule where I'm not missing something.  But that's the fun of the puzzle of an eleven day festival with way too many good options.

As I try to piece together a whole new Top 20 roster, I've got plenty of returning favorites to spotlight.

And since I finally have a day off work tomorrow, kicking all that into gear, and finishing the homework phase of perusing the show listings, shall be my first assignments.

Nice to know my Fringe vacation is just a little over a month away now.

 

 

Review - Blithe Spirit - TRP - Refuses to Give Up the Ghost - 3 stars

It’s fine.  I know that sounds like I’m damning with faint praise but the production isn’t really the problem.  If you’re in the mood for a production of Noel Coward’s comedy Blithe Spirit then Theatre in the Round Players (TRP) is offering one.

“You won’t die.  You’re not the dying sort.”

The plot of Blithe Spirit does have a lot of twists and turns which it’s best not to spoil but here’s the basic premise: Charles Condomine (James Lane) and his (second) wife Ruth (Megan Blakeley) have the local doctor George Bradman (David Rinzema) and his wife Violet (Lori Constable) over for dinner along with a special guest, the town eccentric Madame Arcati (Janice Stone), who gathers them after dinner as requested for a seance to contact spirits in the afterlife.  Charles doesn’t believe in any of this, he’s just doing research for a new book project.  So imagine his surprise when the seance works and Madame Arcati conjures up the spirit of Charles’ late first wife Elvira (Dani Pazurek) - who only he can see and converse with.  Elvira now has no intention of leaving, and in fact begins scheming different ways to snatch Charles back from his new wife Ruth. Circling around the edges of all this action is the Condomines’ bumbling maid Edith (Hailey Zeissler), who’s always a bit on edge and easily traumatized by the supernatural goings on, and ends up being a bit more key to the resolution of things than one might expect.

“Next time we must really put our backs into it!”

The play has Noel Coward’s signature wit and comedy stylings, and the whole cast under Dann Peterson’s direction does a good job of keeping all the shenanigans moving right along.  In his director’s note, Peterson harkens back the play’s origins in 1941, during World War II, written as a comic trifle to allow folks to have a laugh and take their mind off the concerning world events around them in those days, if only for the run time of the play.  Certainly we can also use such distractions today as well.

“We have no guarantee that the afterlife will be any less exasperating than this one.”

I recall being similarly unengaged by a production of Blithe Spirit at the Guthrie Theater back in 2018 though it was hard to put my finger on the reason why.  Seeing the play more up close in Theatre in the Round’s intimate arena made my issues with the play come into sharper focus.  The short answer is that I don’t much like the characters.  As the play continues, nearly everyone on stage reveals themselves to be quite unpleasant, mostly in the way they treat the other people (or ghosts) around them.  So it may still be easy to laugh, but it’s hard for me to care.  The play starts with four of the characters chuckling behind Madama Arcati’s back, thinking she’s a loon and a fraud.  And when Arcati turns out to be right, characters then turn to her for help with their spooky problems but continue to berate her if she can’t instantly solve them in a way that’s most convenient for them.

“I threw off the sponge instead of throwing down the gauntlet.”

There is a nod to the notion of grief, and holding on to the memory of a loved one who is gone.  But the play doesn’t really dwell on it, particularly when the dead keep popping back up again.  Because it’s a comedy, the play doesn’t take anything seriously, which is both its strength and its weakness, since it clearly does want us to care about certain things, even as it undercuts them.  And speaking of undercutting, there’s a string of revelations of infidelity by both Charles and Elvira late in the action that makes it challenging to find any rooting value in either character, particularly Charles.  It feels like the play wants the audience to take it all as lighthearted fun but… I didn’t.

“You don’t even allow me to have a hallucination when I want to.”

The production looks and sounds great.  Thomas L. Valach’s set design makes great use of the TRP space and gives the cast an environment with a lot of character in which to play out the story, and prop designer Rick Polenek populates the space with great details and throwback items like the couple’s tea and liquor service and non-mobile phone.  John A. Woskoff’s costumes on all the characters give us an immediate sense of period.  Mark Kieffer’s lighting accents the ghostly goings on and sets the mood.  The sound design by Warren Sampson (assisted by Tatum Evans) incorporates many of Noel Coward’s own songs during and between scenes in fun ways (I was particularly amused by the way songs would get cut off by the clock chiming to kick us into the next scene.). And it must be fun for stage manager Matthew Wilhelm and assistant Grace Watkins to set off all the special effects in the second half of the evening when the spirits get down to business moving the furniture and shaking different parts of the house until they start coming apart.

“I do wish you wouldn’t be facetious with the servants, Charles.  It confuses them and undermines morale.”

It’s a well-executed production of Blithe Spirit so I’m fully prepared to admit that maybe this play just isn’t for me.  After all, I did quite enjoy another Noel Coward offering at the Guthrie of Kneehigh Theatre’s production of Brief Encounter - though that whimsical multimedia meditation was based on a much more serious exploration of two strangers embarking on an extramarital affair, so I think that made it easier for me to engage.  Even though that happened back in 2010, I still think about it and can recall specific moments, so a production of Noel Coward can stick with me if it hits just right, and that has as much to do with the underlying material as the production.

“They’re only ghost tears.  They don’t mean anything really.  But they’re painful.”

Blithe Spirit runs through July 12, 2026 at Theatre in the Round Players (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis).  Tickets are available on their website.  If you need a laugh and want to get out of the house, TRP has a show for you.

3 stars - Recommended

 

 

Review - Gut - Krivski Productions - Being A Parent Is Terrifying - 5 Stars

There’s an oft-recycled quotation, so often recycled that it’s become almost a cliche, attributed to the author Elizabeth Stone, that goes, “Making the decision to have a child - it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.” On one of my regular visits out to see my goddaughter and her family, her mother mentioned to me casually in conversation that one of the simplest strategies for keeping your kids from being sexually trafficked is just to make sure that they don’t take their phone, or computer with access to the internet, to bed with them.  And sure enough, when it was time for bed, the phones and other screens were turned in for the night.  Being a parent is terrifying.  It’s also wonderful.  But nonetheless terrifying.  

“I’ve always been able to trust my gut.”

After all, at first a child is completely defenseless, dependent on you for literally everything.  Then when they’re walking around on their own, they can get hurt in any number of ways, both physically and emotionally.  And when children are younger, they’re so trusting, of everyone, perhaps even people they shouldn’t trust.  Then as they get older, they talk to you less and less.  So it can be hard to know what’s really going on, and how you can help - if you can help.  Things like climate change become more real for me when I think that my goddaughter is going to be stuck living in whatever banged up planet we leave her, long after I’m gone. This terror, of your child being vulnerable to the whims of an increasingly hostile world, is the unsettling premise at the heart of the Scottish playwright Frances Poet’s play “Gut.”  The script is getting its American premiere right here in Minneapolis thanks to Krivski Productions, led by Danielle Krivinchuk (lead actress in the production, for whom this has been a dream project for a number of years), Elizabeth Desotelle (another key actor in the four person ensemble), Julie K. Phillips (director on the production), and co-producer Andrew Troth.

“Sometimes you need to live, not knowing.”

It’s easy to see this is a labor of love by just looking at the setting before the performance even begins. Greg Vanselow’s set design maximizes every inch of space in The Hive Collaborative’s blackbox space. The set is so brightly painted in primary colors and outlines of shapes that it could be mistaken for a childcare facility out of context. In context, it’s a great many locations, both real and unreal. Maddy and Rory’s home kitchen area is the one unmoving locale, but rolling set pieces (conjuring the feel of an enormous set of child’s blocks), a clothesline, directional signs that pop out and then just as quickly retract again, a door in the wall of many uses, all keep the boundaries fluid and the story moving along.  In addition, Vanselow’s prop work populates the set with many child’s toys and games, along with items better suited to the adults in the play.  All of this is augmented, for both reality and surreality, by the lighting and sound design of Shannon Elliott.  The lights take us from regular illumination to unsettling saturated dark colors as each scene requires, and the sound of children’s laughter and playful screams get distorted to eery effect.  Bronson Talcott’s costumes ground the characters in the real world, even as one of the characters descends, both emotionally and visually through what they’re wearing and how they’re wearing it, into a spiral of escalating fear and anxiety.  Stage Manager Jennifer Long keeps the whole complex rollercoaster of a tale on the tracks for its full uninterrupted 100 minute run time.

“It’s true the corpses aren’t saying much.”
 
Maddy (Krivinchuk) and Rory (Nick Wolf), a young couple with a three-year-old (unseen) son named Joshua, leave the boy in the care of his grandmother (Rory’s mom) Morven (Desotelle) when they go on a much needed weekend getaway (new parents rarely getting much alone time as a couple). They return in the opening scene of the play refreshed and happy, but the mood gets tense when Morven recounts a tale of being out with Joshua, and him having a sudden need to go to the restroom just as she was reaching the cash register to pay for their meal. A man behind them in line offered to take Joshua to the men’s room while Morven wrangled their meals on trays and the payment for them. Seeing no harm in it, Morven took the man up on his offer.  Everything seemed to pass without incident and it might be just an awkward funny story, but Maddy and Rory are instead alarmed that Joshua’s grandmother let a strange man take the boy to the restroom.  And that’s the point from which everything starts to unravel.

“He’s probably fine but what if he isn’t?”

Krivinchuk and Wolf are great as the concerned parents, at first both in a kind of anxiety spiral together, and then diverging as Rory forces himself to find a way to move on, while Maddy becomes more fearful of all the people out in the world who could harm her son if she’s not there to protect him. This leads to multiple seismic shifts in the family unit as Maddy decides to take a leave of absence from work to stay home with Joshua, and finds her relationship with Morven fraying as the young mother loses trust in their go-to caregiver. Desotelle is heartbreaking as Morven, a woman desperately trying to repair the relationship with the young woman she’d come to think of as her own daughter.

“They’ve got to get bumped and bruised. That’s how they learn.”

And discussion of the ensemble would be incomplete without mention of Sean Dillon, who plays multiple roles, from several different parents in the neighborhood and at Joshua’s school, to a policeman, to the leader of a support group, to one of Rory’s co-workers, and of course all the nightmare visions who Maddy conjures in her waking hallucinations of adults popping up in unexpected places who mean her child harm.  Dillon is quite the chameleon, sometimes going from benevolent to menacing in the blink of an eye.

“I don’t trust you yet.”

Director Julie K. Phillips skillfully guides the talented cast through the shifting tone of the play and its different levels of reality.  The audience gets to see the world as both benign, and then also in the threatening way it can sometimes be perceived, rightly or wrongly, by an anxious parent.  It’s a tricky balance to pull off but everyone involved does it well.  Just for an extra layer of difficulty though, don’t forget that “Gut” is by a Scottish playwright, which means all the actors involved have to pull off a convincing accent for the entirety of the play as well - hats off to dialect coach Gillian C. Rosewell for putting them through their paces so it all sounds natural.  It’s easy to forget they’re all Minnesotans until the curtain call arrives and the masks finally drop.

“Do not fail your son.  You *teach* him.”

Fair warning, we’re dealing with a tale of parental anxiety, and it includes the recounting after the fact of an act of child abuse (though it is not depicted onstage in front of the audience).  “Gut” goes to some dark places before it ends in an unexpected but welcome place of (nervous) hope.  Also, in the final moments there’s an uncredited cameo I won’t spoil that puts the stakes of the story in sharp relief.  But it also provides a bit of childlike wonder, which was a great note on which to end.

“It’s like I’ve opened a door in my mind and I don’t know how to shut it again.”

Because people have to find ways of dealing with the world, parents especially.  So much is beyond our control, but shutting down and trying to block it all out isn’t a viable solution.  Three cheers for therapy as a helpful coping mechanism, alongside support of family and friends.  It’s hard to know who you can trust, but you have to find a way to trust someone.  Find a solid foundation, and build out your network from there.

“If I say yes, can I come home?”

“Gut” is a stellar piece of theater, well-executed from start to finish.  It’s intense but also cathartic, and very much worth your time and money to go see.  Based on the size of the audience the night I was there, reservations are a good idea - the place was pretty packed. There’s four more chances this weekend to catch “Gut” at the Hive Collaborative (677 Hamline Avenue North, Saint Paul, MN 55104) - Thursday, Friday, and Saturday May 28 to 30, 2026 all at 7:30pm, closing on Sunday May 31st with a 2:30pm matinee.  Tickets available online here.

5 stars - Very Highly Recommended

(Photo, left to right, Morven (Elizabeth Desotelle) looks on as Maddy (Danielle Krivinchuk) tries to calm Rory (Nick Wolf) in “Gut” - photography by Molly Jay)

 

 

Review - The Hobbit - TRP - A Raucous Storytelling Exercise - 4 stars

Several times during the performance of The Hobbit at Theatre in the Round Players (TRP) I caught myself thinking, “This is a good Fringe show.”  Which is a compliment coming from me, but a bit out of place, since it’s not August and The Hobbit is more than twice as long as any Minnesota Fringe Festival show is permitted to be. But that was the frame of mind the production got me into as the night progressed, the spirit of the evening, if not the actual context. If you’re seeking out some inventive, light-hearted storytelling that conjures up a favorite old fantasy tale, then TRP has your ticket with The Hobbit.  If that’s all you need to know, you can probably skip the rest of the review and just go see the show.  The rest of this is just me trying to figure out what feels off to me personally for some reason, (and like the epic story of the evening, it does go on for a bit) and none of that detracts from the overall feeling The Hobbit is serving up.

“Some people are born to be heroes, but that’s not me.”

For the uninitiated, The Hobbit is the story of Bilbo Baggins (Isabelle Hopewell), the hobbit of the title, who is drafted by the wizard Gandolf (Win Froelich) to assist a roving band of 13 dwarfs in recovering the treasure of their former kingdom, now under the watchful eye of a dragon named Smaug. And there’s plenty of trolls and goblins and elves and other hazards they have to encounter along the way to the Lonely Mountain. (And before you ask, no, I don’t have a problem with female-identifying actors playing the roles of Bilbo and Gandolf.  They’re a hobbit and a wizard, fictional characters that don’t exist, and both actors do a fine job so the story gets everything it needs from them.  Absolutely no worries there.)

“A ring.  What’s it doing in the back of a cave?”

Director Scott Gilbert has assembled an ensemble of performers who all work well together to create the world and its many (MANY) characters. There’s also a three man band (Nathanial Brelsford, Derek Dirlam, and Sasha Rapacz) who preside over the colorful platform above an audience entrance stuffed to the gills with musical instruments both real and created out of junk to provide a score and accompaniment to the profusion of pseudo-drinking songs that pepper the narrative.  It’s not really a musical, and some songs serve to drive the story more than others, but the music does serve to keep everyone’s spirits bouyant, on stage and off.  Shout-out to the Poppen duo of Dietrich Poppen (composer) and Samuel Poppen (sound designer) for all their contributions.  The three musicians also double as additional supporting players throughout the evening.

“I know the smell and taste of dwarves and you stink of them!”

The input of Artistic Advisors (and noted clowns/physical theater/improvisors) Noah Bremer and Mark Benzel, and Movement Director Kelly Desiree (who’s also part of the dwarf/population of Middle Earth ensemble of actors) is most evident in big physical swings the production takes with things like the trolls - guys on stilts with spiky troll hair, plus great big butts on their costumes  - who capture and nearly eat the dwarves; and of course the dragon Smaug - who manifests first as an enormous puppet head that nearly gobbles up the stage space, then an actual hand puppet with wings that flies around the arena belching colored fabric as fire, and finally as a human with bolts of fabric for dragon wings - all inhabited by the very energetic Adam Iverson in his star turn for the night. Iverson also plays an equally bombastic dwarf (so many dwarf names, I think he’s Kili) who ends up at one point running around with Bilbo on his back for an extended chase scene so I’m sure he’s quite exhausted when the epic adventure concludes at the end of each performance.

“This is the key that opens the door in the mountain.”

Each actor plays so many roles that it’s sometimes hard to remember who did what, honestly.  Bryce Kalal, Troy Lowry, Jr., and Courtney Matula are the three actors I haven’t mentioned yet, not because they’re not memorable but just because like the cast, the play and this review, there’s a lot of ground to cover.  Kalal’s main role (among others) is that of the dwarf king Thorin, who leads his band of survivors back to their homeland to reclaim the treasure stolen by the dragon, and forms a reluctant alliance with Bilbo the hobbit that turns over time into one of mutual, though still suspicious, respect.  Thorin’s cape flips over to reveal a face so a stooped over Kalal can play a second dwarf as well when scenes require it.  And given my weakness with dwarf names, I just have notes tagging Lowry as the “nerdy dwarf in glasses” who always sides with Bilbo’s instincts on the journey. The roles do all start to blend together at a certain point but I believe Lowry also did a turn as Gollum and one of the trolls on stilts (forgive me if I’m mixing up my ensemble members - the program doesn’t have room to list everyone’s roster of characters).  Everyone is working very hard to keep this story rolling along and make each of their roles as distinct as possible.

“Pretty soon my entire house was crammed with gnomes.” 

Speaking of working hard to keep things rolling along, stage manager Dominic Detwiler, board operators Laura Doty (sound) and Scott Lohman (lights), assistant stage manager Stacy Kohout, and the backstage crew of Sarah Berg, Conner Carlson, and Grace Watkins, all have quite a task to pull off every night.  It’s a marathon of lights, sound, props and costumes and they run it well, giving the cast on stage all the support they need.

“They can only be seen when the moon shines behind them.”

Lighting designer Todd Reemtsma (assisted by Benji Mielke) does deceptively simple things that crank up the theater magic, like the choice to go with black light every time Bilbo puts on the ring and becomes invisible to the other actors onstage.  The return of normal light when they take the ring off again is a quick way to reset reality.  Also, the use of a shaft of light coming down from a door in back of the audience and streaming across the space to highlight its target is remarkably effective.  Lots of moods and places and passages of time swirl around in this story, and the light matches it scene by scene in fun and intriguing ways.

“It’s a bitter adventure that must end this way.”

Since J.R.R. Tolkien’s novel is coming up on its 90th birthday next year, and this adaptation was first commissioned from playwright Greg Banks by the Children’s Theatre Company here in Minneapolis and produced back in 2019, the story itself isn’t new but the presentation is.  I’m not really a Tolkien nerd so I don’t have any issues with liberties this adaptation may have taken (and I wouldn’t be able to point them out to you with any authority) in wrangling this sprawling story into a single evening’s two-act play.  (For instance, the only reason I recognized the reference to the Battle of the Five Armies is that it’s part of the backstory for the first film in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.). So I’m not objecting to anything here from the mindset of a purist in regard to the original text. (So, what is my problem?)

“Thank you for joining us on the 30th anniversary of.. The Incident.”

The conceit of this adaptation is that it’s a bit of a post-apocalyptic storytelling set-up.  Sort of like Anne Washburn’s 2012 script, Mr. Burns, a Post-Electric Play, in which survivors gather around the campfire to recount the story of the “Cape Fear” episode of The Simpsons.  Here, instead of Springfield, we have Middle Earth (though this production isn’t nearly as bleak or odd as Washburn’s play - which I also thoroughly enjoyed).  This adaptation projects 30 years into the future, in our case 2056, August 2nd - the 30 year anniversary of The Incident.  So we’ve got a couple of months, folks.  It’s a bit uncanny that this thing was first written and performed the year *before* the Covid-19 pandemic hit.  Theatre in the Round has been transformed into a ramshackle version of a community aid center by set designer Keven Lock (assisted by Ash Aurig and Nmi a literal army of a dozen set crew folks) and prop designer Elliott Van Winkle, The center even has shelves of food, to which audience members bringing food donations for the Coyle Center have their offerings added for the night.

“I am so sorry.  They do go on.”

Then, on top of this, there’s the additional bit of exposition that the traveling actors who are supposed to be performing The Hobbit - like it’s their contribution to society at large and this celebration in particular, perhaps it’s an annual thing they do to recognize the grim anniversary? At any rate, those actors were unable to make it to the community center for some reason, so the random assortment of people on stage will instead be performing The Hobbit because… they know the story and have some of the scripts and some of the props and… it’s honestly really confusing.  Why exactly? Why any of this?  Because, after the story of The Hobbit actually gets going, none of the post-apocalyptic, “we’re not really the actors” stuff ever gets referenced again.  It’s not a framing device the script circles back to.  It’s just a set of excuses to justify the “found objects” nature of the props and costumes (which is delightful, by the way, the audience just eats it up, it’s great fun).  Nobody actually has any challenges telling the story.  They’re all remarkably good at it.  And I don’t want them not to be.  I’m not here to see bad actors stumbling around, I’m here to see these good actors tell a story well - and they do.  So the set-up in the script is just there to give the director and designer team permission to go wild and not feel constrained by the source material to do a strictly Middle Earth accurate fantasy world.  Seems like a lot of unnecessary wheel-spinning, just get to the hobbit and dwarves, please.

“We’re on a mission for gold, not friendship.”

It’s impressive how well the cast gets the audience to play along by doing things like making “oohs” and “ahhs” and wolf sounds and even singing a line or two here and there.  Audience members help flesh out the roster of dwarves in key moments right from their seats, but audience members can also opt out of participating by just crossing their arms.  The big audience participation moment is, of course, the Battle of the Five Armies, for which each chunk of the audience is drafted into a different side of the battle.  Each side has its own ludicrous war cry, each side has a barrage of “weapons” such as shuttlecocks and stress balls that the different audience sections rain down upon the central stage space on command.  But when you tear down the fourth wall like this, then tone can sometimes be a challenge.  If the battle ends up being this silly, then the meaningful death of a major character (no spoilers) can be hard to take seriously.  If they’re wheeling around a corpse under a sheet, but it’s on a long metal cart like they use in hardware stores and scene shops, and the weapon the corpse’s hands are folded over to accompany them to their grave is… well, a hockey stick, then a little of the gravitas the moment might otherwise have had is lost.

“Eagle sounds!”

Here and there, there’s also a little of what I call “costume acting” and a little bit of “Minnesota humor acting.”  Costume acting is when there isn’t really a character, there’s just a hat or a wig or perhaps a fabulous dress standing in for a person.  (That’s not to knock with work of costume design coordinator Constance C. M’allowince or costume design contributor Hunter Goldsmith, or their costume crew listed in the program, of over two dozen people.  They’ve got a tall task to outfit this plethora of characters with their own distinct look.) And sometimes, with a canvas this broad and a character list this long, you need the visual shorthand, I get it.  But the big-butted trolls on stilts, for instance, had their own sense of character and relationships.  Whereas, particularly later in the action, there was a lot more “I’m putting on this cap so now I’m a goblin” going on.  Straddling the line between is someone striding on stage in a fabulous David Bowie-style wig from a very particular fantasy film, which a number of people in the audience recognized right away and started laughing.  But the actor had the attitude to go with the wig, so it worked.  Did we need the playwright to give them follow-up lines during a chase scene like “This place is a LABYRINTH!” or “It’s like working with MUPPETS”?  (OK, okay, we get it.)  Minnesota humor acting is mostly just the regional accent turned up to an 11 like we’re in the movie “Fargo” - and of course the inescapable use of the phrase “Uff-da.”  It’s a huge hit with the locals, but transplants like me can find it baffling.

“You will find your courage by morning.”
“We haven’t any time for the faint of heart.”

All that said, The Hobbit is still a really impressive group effort tackling a huge story and cast of characters and wrestling it down to just a two and a half hour run time (including the intermissions, so shorter than a lot of epic films playing in the same storytelling sandbox).  The Hobbit is a fun, ambitious change of pace for TRP, a raucous storytelling exercise that is sure to have something that entertains everyone.

The Hobbit can be found at Theatre in the Round Players (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 55454) now through May 31, 2026.  Tickets available through theatreintheround.org.

4 Stars - Highly Recommended

(Poster art courtesy of Theatre in the Round Players)

 

Review - The Yeomen of the Guard - Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company - A Musical Entertainment Full to Bursting - 4 stars

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company has been doing their very particular brand of theater in the Twin Cities for quite a while now (since 1979) but up until last weekend it had been a sort of unchecked box on my theater dance card (even though I have an actor friend who regularly signs on to be part of GSVLOC’s very impressively sized chorus). But I got an invitation out of the blue through the contact page of my still very much in progress new website to come and see their latest production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s “The Yeomen of the Guard, or The Merryman and His Maid” and thought, “What the heck, let’s give it a try.”

“It is easier to die well than to live well.  I have tried both.”

This isn’t the first time the G&S Very Light Opera company has tackled “The Yeomen of the Guard.”  Since Gilbert & Sullivan’s repertoire is a little over a dozen operettas in total, the company has been able to rotate through all the titles a few times over across the decades.  “Yeomen” has been produced three times, but the last outing was over a dozen years ago.  And so, it’s back.  Each show is a major undertaking and GSVLOC doesn’t skimp on the scale of things.

“I might have married her with my eyes open.”:

Perhaps the most impressive thing about “The Yeomen of the Guard” is the size of the production itself.  There’s ten named characters just for starters, plus another half dozen key characters known for their vocation rather than their name (a confessor, an executioner known as The Headsman, First and Second Yeoman, etc.), then a chorus of 15 singing citizens, plus of a ten man chorus of brightly uniformed Yeomen of the Guard (shout-out to costume designer/wardrobe supervisor Bronson Talcott, they must be quite exhausted with so many period costumes to keep track of). And that’s just the people you can see.  There’s a whole hidden live orchestra tucked backstage, conducted by music director Randal A. Buikema (Now, they may rotate week to week depending on people’s availability or something, but they’re all listed in the program of course and there’s nearly 60 of them in all so… whether they’re all there at once or take turns, that’s a LOT of musicians.)

“Do they not say that a live ass is better than a dead lion?”

Now, what exactly are all these people in service of?  The Gilbert & Sullivan operettas (lighter, more comedic or satirical fare than your standard opera, with spoken as well as sung dialogue, sort of the middle ground between classical opera and American musical theater) are always full of romance and plot twists (almost giddily convoluted at times) and you can count on a happy ending for (almost) everybody when they’re done. “The Yeomen of the Guard, or the Merryman and His Maid” is no different (though perhaps slightly less well-known than their oft-produced titles like “The Pirates of Penzance” or “H.M.S. Pinafore” or even “The Mikado” - all of which have crossed my path in various forms over the years).

“There are one or two rules that all traveling fools must observe.”

This play is set on the grounds of the Tower of London in the time of King Henry VIII, which if you know any British history at all, you know that setting probably doesn’t bode well for the cast of characters (my knowledge of the time period is slim, but even I wondered, “How are we going to get a romantic musical comedy out of this?”) Fear not, dramatist W.S. Gilbert and composer Arthur Sullivan have plenty of mischief up their sleeves.

“Men may bleed and men may burn.”

Colonel Fairfax (Graham Remple) has been framed by a relative for the crime of sorcery (gasp) and for this he has been sentenced to death (hence the Tower of London setting). In order to screw this disloyal relative out of any potential inheritance, Fairax enlists the help of Sir Richard Cholmondeley (Eric Sorun) to quick find him a woman to marry so when his head gets chopped off, his newly minted widow will be very rich instead. The woman in question is the Maid of the subtitle, Elsie Maynard (Mary Kettlewell), a traveling singer who just happens to be passing through town at the time with her artistic partner, the Merryman of the subtitle, a traveling jester named Jack Point (Sam Vinitsky).  A quickie marriage to a doomed man, who she doesn’t even see during their offstage ceremony, certainly seems like a quicker way to riches than being a touring artist in the 1500s.

“He was to have died but he did not die - the scandal!”

But wait, there’s another plot afoot!  Fairfax, in his life of military battles, has saved his share of lives, one of them being that of Sergeant Meryll (Waldyn Benbenek), one of the titular Yeomen of the Guard, in this case guarding the Tower of London and all its prisoners.  With the help of his daughter Phoebe (Charlotte Smith), they steal the keys off the unsuspecting head jailer Wilfred Shadbolt (Trevor Woggon). Meryll also gets his son Leonard (Andrew Peterson) to lay low for a while out of town, and after they spring Fairfax from his cell, he “shaves off” his charming but incredibly fake beard and pretends to be Meryll’s son Leonard instead, taking up a new job with, you guessed it, the Yeomen of the Guard, following in his fake dad’s footsteps, keeping watch over the prison cells from which he just escaped.

“I didn’t become an assistant tormentor because I like tormenting.”

Will Fairfax blow his own cover by getting a little too close to his “sister” Phoebe? What will Elsie do now that she’s not the rich widow she expected to be? Will the unlikely alliance between Shadbolt, who has feelings for Phoebe, and Point, who yearns for his now inconveniently married costar Elsie, manage to land them the women they pine for, or will it just further complicate matters?  There’s a lot of singing, dancing and comedy going on before everything shakes out and people get their heart’s desire (well, most people anyway - when this romantic game of musical chairs reaches its end, someone will inevitably be left standing alone).

“When a jester goes a-wooing and he wishes he was dead.”

Stage director Gary Briggle and music director Buikema ably manage the impressive task of wrangling over 40 people onstage (plus dozens of musicians offstage) through the wild sprint of all that music and a thicket of clever lyrics. Like most Gilbert & Sullivan operettas, the story is peppered with a combination of large cast musical numbers as well as solos, duets, trios and quartets full of gorgeous harmonies that show off all these powerful, talented voices in the cast to great effect.  We also get a full-on overture that allows the orchestra to take the spotlight, while characters come and go across the expanse of Michael Hoover’s spectacular set, and Carl Schoenborn’s lights get to play across the space as the overture moves from one melody to the next.

“The journey many gallant hearts have taken.”

Given the sprawling scope of the production, it was often little touches that made me realize just how much the people care when putting this show together.  For instance, the pre-show announcement to turn off your cell phones? They’ve got a whole comedic Gilbert & Sullivan-esque mini-song (lyrics from citizen chorus member Holly Windle) performed by the black clad executioner (Mike Tober) ax in hand, backed up by a couple of the Yeomen of the Guard with the subtext of “don’t make me come out there” if someone forgets to turn off their ringer. Also the opening moments of music in the play before the first song really kicks in, have this swirling quality to them, so someone thought, “Hey, let’s get these two ladies a spinning wheel and have the spinning match to the music” so props designer Christine Keller went out and found a functional spinning wheel (?!) for the purpose of that moment. Doesn’t have a larger impact on the plot of the play, but the attention to detail is admirable.  And kudos to the stage management team of Kevin Lindee and assistants Taryn Shucha and Brianna Sullivan (no relation?) - it’s a mighty feat to keep the many moving parts of this thing going and the whole production flows remarkably well.

“Phoebe”
“Who should she be?”
“Your sister.”

If you need a light-hearted distraction for a couple of hours in these very strange days we’re all living through, “The Yeomen of the Guard” might be just the escape you need.

The Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company’s production of “The Yeoman of the Guard” runs now through Sunday, March 29, 2026 at the Conn Theater at Plymouth Congregational Church (1900 Nicollet Avenue South, in Minneapolis).  The show runs Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:30pm with matinees on Saturdays and Sundays at 2pm. (Ticket availability is already limited for one of those matinees so get your reservations in soon if you’re interested.) Tickets can be purchased through their website: gsvloc.org

4 Stars - Highly Recommended 

 

[photo (left to right): Jack Point (kneeling, Sam Vinitsky), Phoebe (Charlotte Smith), Elsie (Mary Kettlewell) and Fairfax (Graham Remple) in the Gilbert & Sullivan Very Light Opera Company’s production of “The Yeomen of the Guard” - photography by Stephen Hage] 

 

Review - The Cake - TRP - A Slightly Lopsided Confection - 4 stars

The latest new play offering from Theatre in the Round Players, The Cake, by Bekah Brunstetter, is a romantic comedy/drama about four people (plus a baking show host) each in their own way coming to terms with an adorably awkward lesbian wedding.  All of that is to say this production should be right in my wheelhouse.  (And I’m loving all the new and new-ish plays that TRP is bringing to the Twin Cities of late.) So why don’t I like this particular production more than I do?  That’s the question I’ve been puzzling over ever since I saw The Cake.

“See, what you have to do is really, truly follow the directions.”

It’s certainly not a failing on the part of the cast, all five of whom are game for all the laughs as well as the angst in the story.  Natavia  Lewis as Macy, and Via Logan as Jen make for a charming couple of brides to be. Jenny Ramirez as Della the baker, and D’aniel Stock as Tim the plumber make a very convincing middle-aged married couple. And Kjer Whiting is suitably wacky and unhinged as George, the host of the baking competition show that haunts Della’s nightmares.

“She can’t not love, which is really annoying.”

It’s also not the fault of the production team, who go all out to create this world.  Director Jennie Ward, assisted by Intimacy Director H. Ashley, gets great performances from the two couples, who we see a lot of in the bedroom in scenes that are by turns sweet, hot, funny and sometimes uncomfortable. (Butter cream frosting and mashed potatoes will never be the same again.) Ward also doubles as Sound Designer, assembling a pre-show song list with everything from Ethel Merman’s rendition of “If I Knew You Were Coming I’d Have Baked A Cake” to Melanie Martinez’s “I’m Not A Piece of Cake” to get the mood of the evening off to a lively start. 

“We wanted to do it in the fall, while fall is still a thing, which isn’t much longer.”

Set Designer Keven Lock, assisted by Ash Aurig, plus the work of Prop Designer PJ Graber, creates the bright pink world of the bakery Della’s Sweets where nearly all of the non-bedroom action takes place. The bakery display cases turn out to be on wheels so the set ends up being a lot more versatile than you expect on first glance at the start of the evening. There’s also some inventive prop work where instead of actual cooking ingredients, which could leave a mess, the baked goods in process at Della’s bakery are manifested using bolts of colorful and sparkly cloth. It’s a great theatrical flourish. Lighting Designer Todd Reemtsma reinforces the reality (or unreality) of any given location as the story moves from place to place, and gives a lovely romantic look to the oddball wedding procession.

“Because the world is gonna change, but we cannot.”

Costume Designer Emma Shook gets a chance to really go for broke with this script and she takes it. The most over-the-top entries includes bakery show host George’s looks, which get progressively more outlandish as the evening progresses, and the spectacular bridal outfit for Jen, complete with headpiece, LONG train, and so many lights, befitting a woman of whom her partner Macy says, “You get weird in craft stores.”  Kudos to Stage Manager Indigo Cabanela-Leiseth and assistant Taylor Koehler for keeping the whole thing moving so smoothly from location to location, from normal scene to bakery show nightmares.
 
“I don’t respect these people.”
“I’m one of them.”
“No, you’re not.”

The playwright Bekah Brunstetter also has quite a career going in both TV writing and theater. The script for The Cake alone has been produced over 80 times, and she’s currently got commissions to write plays for four major regional theaters around the country.

“Would it even be a wedding if someone wasn’t mad at somebody?”

But the more I think about it, the more I think the fault here is with the play itself, not the production. The Cake has a great set-up. Jen comes to Della’s bakery because Della and Jen’s late mother were best friends. Della and her husband Tim were never able to conceive children, so it feels like Jen was in some ways the daughter Della never had. Jen’s return to the bakery is to ask Della to bake the wedding cake for Jen and Macy’s ceremony. But Della’s conservative Christian values cause her to hesitate. Another complication is this story is set in North Carolina, and Macy is African American. Just for good measure, Della is trying to rekindle the fire in her marriage bed, but Tim’s a bit uneasy with intimacy since he learned his sperm are the reason they can’t have kids of their own. So everyone’s comfort levels are a little off kilter.

“It tasted like the back of my mouth after a good cry.”

The Cake has a lot of great scenes, a lot of funny one-liners, and a big helping of earnest discussions and honest arguments. The uplifting thing is that these four unsettled people do all realize they love one another, and that helps them, to varying degrees, push through their discomfort and reconnect. It just doesn’t get to that end point without taking unexpected shortcuts.  Which is odd, because the run time isn’t short (at a little over two hours) but it still feels like some things are missing. Also, it’s a bit lopsided and I’m not entirely sure why. The first act is listed in the program as being 80 minutes and the second act as 30 minutes. The night I saw it, the first act was more like 90 minutes and the second act more like 20 minutes. And the audience wasn’t sure at first when intermission arrived that the first act was actually over. It just kept going scene after scene and we all thought this might be yet another transition, but no, house lights came up.  So the end of the first act, long as it is, isn’t entirely obvious.  The break could have come a few scenes before that and the flow of the story would still be fine.

“This cake is full of angel saliva and good deeds.”

As it was, we left the first act after a pretty major fight between Jen and Macy that could well have led to the marriage being called off, plus Della and Tim had a very awkward non-sexual encounter that seemed equally hard to bounce back from. Then in the second act, if my notes aren’t failing me, there are just four scenes. Jen and Della have a scene, Della and Tim have a scene, Jen and Macy unexpectedly get married anyway, in a pantomime set to music, no dialogue (so I guess that huge argument at the end of act one wasn’t such a big deal after all?), and then Macy swings by to have a chat with Della, in which she tells her among other things that she and Jen made up because Jen told Macy about that top of act two conversation with Della and… that solved everything? offstage? unseen? and they had a lot of other issues that couldn’t be solved by a simple Jen/Della conversation.  But hey, the play needs to be over and fast, so the lesbians don’t get a heart to heart reconciliation scene, but the straight couple does?  That feels… like a weird choice for a super short second act.

“It’s not natural.”
“Neither is confectioner’s sugar.”

Also, though the baking show nightmare scenes are certainly theatrical, they don’t seem necessary to the plot, or even Della’s character development.  They happen a lot throughout act one and then they just… stop.  They don’t lead anywhere.  They also have a pretty harsh, misogynistic tone to them.  Now, you can say, oh it’s just Della putting herself down, but the way it’s staged, it feels like the author putting Della down. Again, Kjer Whiting is fabulous in executing the role. I’m just not sure what the character is doing for the story.

“Could you please put your clothes back on?  I’ve had a long day.”

But again, over 80 productions of The Cake and counting, one of them off-Broadway, so what do I know?  Your mileage may vary.

“Us, walking toward each other.”

My own qualms aside, it’s still a great cast and great production team delivering a production with a lot of heart, and forgiveness, and growth, as human beings find a way to connect beyond their differences - and we could definitely use a big dose of that right about now.

“Guess I thought I was gonna do something great with my life.”

If you’re looking for a play with a positive vibe that doesn’t talk down to any of its characters or dismiss their worldview but instead tries to understand all sides in an effort to bring them together, then TRP has your ticket with The Cake. (No, I will not be making any “cut yourself off a slice” jokes.)

The Cake runs at Theatre in the Round Players (245 Cedar Avenue, Minneapolis, MN 554554) through March 15, 2026.  Tickets are available through their website.

4 Stars - Highly Recommended