Friday, July 24, 2009

Fringe 2009 - FFA 2 - My Sinking Ship

"Day 1 - What the hell?! Where's the yacht I was tied to last night?!"

Mumble Mumble Productions

My Sinking Ship

Promised to be the best spoken word in a raft ever! Stuck at sea in a raft, Rockstar Storyteller and SlamMistress of Poetry SlamMN!, Allison Broeren, passes the time by spitting stories about ridiculous situations involving beer faries, SCUBA diving with Santa, and more!

A preview notable first for the all-star raft carrying party who helped get Allison's inflatable raft onstage and in place (even nudging host Robin Gillette off to the side a little) - Laura Bidgood & Curt Lund, Katherine Glover, and Ben Sandel.

I've talked elsewhere about why Allison is one of my returning favorites, so I won't belabor that here.

She was just as amusing in her own slightly befuddled, slightly exasperated way as she always is. This time, set adrift, on a sea of stories as well as water, drifting back and forth from memory to present.

An inflatable raft is not a music stand however, so dealing with a spoken worder's pages of a script-in-progress was a little trickier than usual. But Allison juggled her papers (and life vest, of course) and kept on going.

I'm liking how several storytellers/spoken word artists this year are dealing with things like props and costumes (even, gasp, sets) and there's always this initial awkward moment of contact they have with it in the early going, as if to say, "What the hell am I supposed to do with this object? Why the hell am I wearing this? I just need a black void and a music stand and my regular civilian clothes to do my job. What's all this extra... stuff?"

Hey, the Fringe is all about venturing outside your comfort zone, right?

When the good-natured fellow in a shark outfit came slithering across the stage and smiled up at Allison in the raft, I was enchanted.

"Day 5 - Sharks start talking to me."

All this, and out by the yellow light of the 30 second warning.

This will indeed be "the best spoken word in a raft ever," and not just because there's only one spoken word raft out there right now. Allison is always a pleasure to hear grappling with absurdities of everyday life, this time in a non-everyday situation.

The Fringe's YouTube page has the clip of her preview up now, so I've attached it below. Some other online resources...

My previous coverage

Her show page

The Fringe-For-All preview...

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