Fringe 2023 Review - Ha Ha Da Vinci - A Renaissance Woman With A Tuba - 5 Stars

tweet review -#mnfringe show 23 - Ha Ha Da Vinci: if someone asked me what a great Fringe show in its purest form looked like, it'd be something a lot like this; music, magic, puppets, humor, whimsy, silliness, song, talented performer; Phina Pipia just nails it - 5 stars

To try and summarize Ha Ha Da Vinci, the traveling solo show from Phina Pipia, is to reduce it and steal a bit of its magic - sort of like the crime of explaining a joke.  So I’ll try mightily to avoid that trap while still giving you a feel for the kind of show it is, and why I think it’s one of the best shows in the Minnesota Fringe Festival this year.

“Everybody gets fooled by a different spell.”

Ha Ha Da Vinci is a whimsical funny compendium of a bunch of random elements that nonetheless add up to something that makes its own kind of sense. What happens when a tuba player working on her Renaissance graduate thesis happens upon information about the collaboration of Leonardo Da Vinci and Luca Pacioli which hints at the creation of a time machine? I won’t spoil that.

“It’s the future that takes real courage.”

Suffice to say that there are original songs and music, for tuba, acoustic guitar, an unexpected keyboard, and a bell rung by a willing audience volunteer.  There is shadow puppetry.  There is dancing.  There are surprise sheep puppets that appear when our heroine is trying to get some sleep.  There is a magic trick involving the Mona Lisa.  There are tiny radios and enormous renderings of Da Vinci’s famous diagram of the male anatomy inside a circle (that human diagram also hides a number of comical surprises). There’s a brief bout of operatic singing.  There’s a trick with a chart of seemingly random numbers that all magically add up to the same sum in any direction or combination.

“How often do you find yourself stuck on some moment in the past?”

Ha Ha Da Vinci is a skillfully crafted showcase to feature a great many, though a I dare not say all, of Phina Pipia’s many talents. She quickly charms the audience with the oddball situations she creates, so that we are all happy to follow her from one quirky episode to the next. The whole thing has an overall feel and texture to it that still makes all the many random bits described above, and the many I left out, feel like one cohesive show with a point to it - with its own sort of beginning, middle and end.  And Ha Ha Da Vinci is so enjoyable, you’re sorry to see it go when it’s done.  Treat yourself and catch it while you can.

5 Stars - Very Highly Recommended

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.