Here's a rundown of all the 4 Star and 3.5 Star shows I've seen so far in the Minnesota Fringe Festival this year, all come Highly Recommended:
4 Stars
tweet review - #mnfringe show 21 - A Jingle Jangle Morning: puppets, flying saucers, ingenious use of cardboard set pieces; young girl accidentally transported to alien planet during theft of the moon; inventive, highly-stylized kids tale stops just short of transcending its genre - 4 stars
Phoenix Presents: How To Kill A Horse
tweet review - #mnfringe show 39 - Phoenix Presents: How To Kill A Horse; breathless, exhaustive, original one-man musical on the title task; inventive use of slides and different methods of song and storytelling; swindlers/killers all start to blend together but solid first stab - 4 stars
Phoenix Presents: Slices
tweet review - #mnfringe show 38 - Phoenix Presents: Slices; quartet of well-acted monologues crafted skillfully by Clay McLeod Chapman which get unexpectedly, progressively grimmer; bizarre but detailed examination of darker side of humanity; and... your point...? - 4 stars
Starved: The Astonishing True Story of the University of Minnesota Starvation Experiment
tweet review - #mnfringe show 37 - Starved (and its enormous subtitle): crams as much into 1 hr as it can about true story UofM starvation experiment; well done sketch of larger story; needs more time than Fringe offers to flesh out characters and emotional resonance - 4 stars
Uncle Walt
tweet review - #mnfringe show 40 - Uncle Walt: the disembodied head of Walt Disney turns 2 brothers against each other so he can get a new body out of one of them and regain his empire; no, really, that's the plot; pitch black comedy, well executed (no pun intended) - 4 stars
tweet review - #mnfringe show 10 - What If We Hugged?: Levi Weinhagen tells 2 tales of trying to understand what his body is telling him, the birth of his daughter, and his own heart surgery, knit together with improvised commercial breaks; more parts than 1 whole, but getting there - 4 stars
Full review here.
Yes No Maybe (please explain)
tweet review - #mnfringe show 26 - Yes No Maybe (please explain): charming, funny and heartfelt exploration of a woman's high school years and first love, prompted by a mountain of old handwritten notes and a singing/dancing/videotaping chorus of her subconscious - 4 stars
3.5 Stars
Behemoth
tweet review - #mnfringe show 44 - Behemoth: appreciate the experimentation with time; may have just reached my "dead parent" limit this Fringe; strategies for dealing w/terminal diagnosis seemed more grounded in plot structure than emotional reality; close; another draft? - 3.5 stars
Breakneck Midsummer Night's Dream
tweet review - #mnfringe show 32 - Breakneck Midsummer Night's Dream: admire Tim Mooney's work, but Shakespeare's clowns are not my favorite (YMMV), and that's half this show; that plus all the chemically-altered, non-consensual love antics; hard for me to enjoy this script anymore - 3.5 stars
Coyfish
tweet review - #mnfringe show 33 - Coyfish: college student strikes up online relationship with trans person still on journey to full awakening; awkward, rushed; good intentions but needs more than Fringe show run time for depth and not to feel like a gimmick - 3.5 stars
tweet review - #mnfringe show 6 - Two Stars In The Vast Dark: haven't quite figured out what's going on in this whimsical sci-fi musical/concept album yet; performers are amusing; if you like the The Mountain Goats sound, you'll love it; if you don't, could be a long 45 minutes - 3.5 stars
Full review here.
Here's some handy links to a rundown of 5 and 4.5 Star shows I've seen this year, also the 4 and 3.5 Star shows, and the rest, plus this year's Top 10 list, and Top 11-20 List, and the full list of all returning favorites in the 2023 Fringe, plus a link to all the 2023 Minnesota Fringe Festival coverage.
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