Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - One Hit Thunder - Hashtag Twist!

Tweet Review - How many jokes can you cram into 57 minutes? Ask Josh Carson and Co. - One Hit Thunder FTW - 5 stars

There is something wonderfully hilariously exhausting about Mainly Me Production's latest Fringe hit One Hit Thunder.  Mom kept saying she wished she could go back to see it a second and third time because the jokes come flying at you in bunches. 

"No stage ninjas?!"

Between the rapid fire delivery and rolling waves of audience laughter it's easy to miss just as many jokes as you catch.  This is the kind of problem you want to have with your entertainment.

"Uh oh, looks like someone raised the Threat Level to 'Douche.'"

Granted, Mom and I saw it opening night so there was the added suspense of "Will they get the entire joke-stuffed show in under the wire, or will the house lights come up on them before they're done?" 

"I'm not the first person to see a nipple at the zoo and think, 'Why ain't nobody riding that?'"

Jeff Larson, current Fringe Associate Director, and successor to Robin Gillette as next year's new Fringe Executive Director, was in the audience with us that night.  When they made it to the end, the actors gleefully shouted "3 minutes left, Jeff!  3 minutes left!"  To be fair, the house lights were coming up on Sulia Altenberg's rendition of "My Life Would Suck Without You" at the time, but the plot itself was indeed complete at that moment.

"Walk a mile in the other person's shoes. That way, you're a mile away, and you've got their shoes."

That's also part of the fun of a Mainly Me production.  In addition to the breakneck wackiness of it all, a Josh Carson script is always fully embracing the community of where it's being performed.  In-jokes?  Maybe.  But the great thing is such things also work as regular jokes, but work on an additional level if you're in the know. 

"I've read the books so I'm always pissed off."

Every year, they taunt the good-humored Robin Gillette on stage.  Every year, the taunts get more elaborate.  In One Hit Thunder, one of the villains is named Gillette, and his mother was a redhead who is surely going to hell.  They took a swipe at Larson in the script, too, and warned him in the program to "buckle up." 

"It's just for a second, then Courtney Love pops back up."

All that may sound harsh, but that's the thing about Carson - he's a vicious satirist, but he never attacks anyone personally who isn't willing to laugh at themselves.  His comedy is that seemingly impossible combination of razor sharp and completely good-natured. 

"There'll be plenty of time for topical comments at dinner."

He wields comedy like a blunt instrument, but he'd feel horrible if he thought he'd truly hurt anyone's feelings.  It's likely the impetus behind the fact that so many of the characters he plays on stage in his work get the crap pummeled out of them.  He's not going to beat up on anyone else unless he beats up on himself (often quite literally) twice as badly first.

"Let's show everyone that we're not incontinent!"

In One Hit Thunder, party girl Caitlin MacGuffin (Brigid Kelley), daughter of President Tyler MacGuffin (Jim Robinson), has been spirited off to a vague (and not at all racist) third world country ruled by General Radnor (also Robinson) and his flighty son Prince Gillette (Andy Kraft).

"I don't think they have wifi yet."
"I don't think they have 1987 yet."

Rather than send in Jack Bauer-esque CIA Agent Jackson Chase (MJ Marsh) to torture and blow up everyone in his path, the President decides to go with the plan put forth by CIA Analyst Jessica Chambers (Tera Jansen). 

"Oh no!  Hubris!"

Prince Gillette is a big fan of the prince and princess of bubble gum pop songs - dimwitted Blake Bangson (Tucker Garbog) and publicity slut KATJA! (Sulia Altenberg).  Blake and KATJA! put their own on-again, off-again relationship on hold to be drafted into the CIA's plan to distract Prince Gillette so First Daughter Caitlin can be rescued. 

"Play with your Grammy."

All of this may be undermined by Blake's mullet-haired stage dad Joe (Josh Carson) and the General and Prince's various henchmen (also played by Carson).

"Can I have mace?"
"Wait, the spray or the medieval weaponry?"
"Spray?"
"No."
"Medieval weaponry?"
"Hell no."

One Hit Thunder is a witty stew of jabs at politics local and global, gender roles, and celebrity culture, just to name a few of the targets that are peppered with punchlines.  Josh Carson's script is so smart that you don't have to feel bad for being so well-entertained. 

"My family owes an impossible debt."

Carson makes you work for it just enough that you have to stay alert to really enjoy yourself properly.  This isn't mindless comedy spoon-fed to a passive audience.  This is a collaboration between actors and spectators.  And it's a heck of a lot of fun. 

"Thanks, Chubby Vin Diesel."

(Honestly, I've got twice as many quotes to insert here, but I have to post this and move on to the next review sometime.)

Like my Mom, you may want to go back to see One Hit Thunder more than once.  And thankfully Mainly Me keeps producing theater all year round, so you don't have to wait a whole year until Fringe rolls around again to enjoy some more good laughs.  But in the meantime, catch One Hit Thunder while you can.  It'll get you pumped up for still more Fringing in the days ahead.

5 stars, Very Highly Recommended

Next performance is tonight, Wednesday 8/7 at 8:30pm
For more information, visit their Fringe show page

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - The Education of Murrary Sanderson - What's the Point? (No, Really)

Tweet Review - The Education Of Murray Sanderson - 1/2 doz. strong actors trapped in funny but predictable script w/no clear reason 4 being - 3 stars

I'm in the minority here, but The Education of Murray Sanderson felt like filler to me.  Somebody had 45 minutes of Fringe time to fill, and that works out to about two episodes of your standard sit com melded together, a very special episode, if you will.  This is what they came up with.

"I'm clinically incapable of stereotyping.  I have a degree in gender studies."

The reason this show rates three stars rather than two or two and a half is entirely the doing of the production team.  This cast is working their butts off to infuse these characters with a little humanity.  The director, Samantha Harris, is clearly doing the same.  This is also one of the more complex, reality-based sets I've seen in this space and in the Fringe at large this year.  It was necessary.  The need for a door and desks in particular was strongly indicated by the script.  The group that mounted this production gave the script more support than it dared hope for, and more than it likely deserves.  So I have to tip my hat to all of them for trying so damn hard.

"My phone's dead.  It's never dead.  I charge it aggressively."

But honestly, what's the point?  I'm asking that quite literally.  Because Murray doesn't get educated.  And neither do we. 

"How'd you like it if I came into your house and feng-shuied the shit out of your furniture?"

Is the script funny?  Sure, in a one punchline follows the next kind of way.  Is the humor based in three-dimensional human characters and situations?  No.  The humor is based in stereotypes.  Because we don't need to examine in any substantive way why our society and/or educational system is so screwed up.  We need to make fun of white suburban parents one more time.  Because they're such a big easy target.  Just push the button and cue the laugh track.

"I hope they can pixilate my face like on To Catch A Predator."

Humor can be smart.  Humor can be scathing.  Humor can be deeply moving.  Here, it isn't.  The pond is deep but the stones just skip along the surface and keep things light.  We should demand more from our comedy than merely being anesthetized.  Certainly everyone involved in this production deserved more than they got in terms of source material.

"You can say fuck, although I think that would be ironic."

Four parents are trapped in a classroom in some pseudo-No Exit scenario, unable to leave until they have learned their lesson.  What did they need to learn?  Retail worker nebbish Byron (Nate Morse) needed to learn to stand up for himself and just kiss the girl.  Brassy iconoclast Jill (Courtney McLean) needed to learn to give a nebbish like Byron a chance to get in her pants.  Long-suffering suburban housewife Liz (Maureen Tubbs) needed to learn to stop apologizing for her husband's toolish ways and stand up and ask for the sex she deserves. 

"I thought we were going to read to each other tonight."
"I'll be home before your can say Nicholas Sparks."

Worldly janitor Milt (Zach Coulter) didn't need to learn anything really.  He just had to bide his time in the purgatory of the school janitorial staff (because really, what could be a worse fate, huh?) until his replacement in doing penance came along. 

"Would it sound creepy if I didn't have this facial hair?"

Mrs. S (Andrea Klaassen) is the powerful overseer in charge of these people's fates, so no learning necessary there.  She just keeps them waiting for… no good reason, unless it is perhaps to get them to break down psychologically and start turning on each other, somehow leading to a personal epiphany for each.  Perhaps the S stands for… Satan!  OK, probably not.  She's some sort of omniscient entity who particularly enjoys zeroing in on the misdeeds of white upperclass men and somehow putting them in their place.

"I'm never over the line.  I AM THE LINE!"

And Murray (David Kappelhoff, and/or Jason Bindas).  Oh, Murray.  Obsessive compulsive, embodiment of straight white male privilege Murray.  Where to begin?  Never mind, really.  He's an important, belligerent, spastic sort of fellow.  It's clear that Murray's holding on by a very thin thread here.  His raging neuroses are just barely contained under that blustery veneer.  He protects himself by projecting his asshole-ishness out to everyone around him.  It's a douchebaggery forcefield that's enormously effective at sucking up all the air in the room and deflating any real forward motion of the plot.

"He's having a panic attack."
"He was being an asshole."
"That's how his panic attacks look."

These actors are all working so hard to create human beings out of punchlines, I think they deserve some sort of special commendation.  If you crave the entertainment equivalent of fast food, something that fills an empty space but provides no nourishment, then The Education of Murray Sanderson is a way to shut off your brain and just coast for an hour while someone prods your funny bone reflex.  I'll admit to laughing, but there was no joy in it.

"This is moist."
"I'm flustered."

You should write because you need to write.  Because you have something you need to say.  Because there's a character that demands to live and be watched by others.  Because there's a story that will not let you be.  Because there is an injustice or absurdity that needs dismembering with the tools of comedy, drama, music, movement, puppets, something.  You shouldn't write just because you committed to a time slot and your computer is on and the word processing program is open.

There's no reason for the current version of The Education of Murray Sanderson.  In a festival where so many people are pushing themselves and trying to create something new and make people think, it's the kind of time-waster than makes me angry.

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - Elysium Blues - A New Twist On An Old Story

Tweet review - Elysium Blues- worth it 4 great voices/music; still puzzling out the unexpected revision of Orpheus/Euridyce legend - 4.5 stars

Elysium Blues didn't go where I thought it was going to go.  That bothered Mom a little more than it bothered me, but I'm still puzzling it out.  Writer Jessica Huang, director Ricardo Vazquez and composer Eric Mayson took the time-tested legend of Orpheus and Eurydice and turned it into a rock musical about violence against women.  I kept fighting this concept, but it kept winning me over and pulling me back into the story.

"Sing a requiem for what we wish we did not know."

The primary reasons I kept getting pulled back in are the amazing vocal chops of the cast, particularly Eurydice (Rachel Austin) and Orpheus (Eric Mayson, the composer who also plays a mean guitar).  All their moments of song are high points for the production, both emotional and artistic.

"I'm sleepwalking and everything I love is dead."

Elysium Blues starts off like a modern retelling of the Orpheus/Eurydice story we know.  Eurydice dies and goes to the Underworld, where she drinks from the waters and forgets her old life.  Orpheus follows Eurydice into the afterlife in order to bring her back.  He uses his music to charm those dwelling in the Underworld so he can reclaim the woman he loves.  In the legend, he almost gets her back to the land of the living, but that doesn't happen here, and for good reason.

"Where roots wither and wells runs dry."

Huang's script is written in rhyme which, let's face it, can get on a person's nerves if it's not done right.  This cast does it right.  They don't belabor the rhyme scene, as bad poetry readers would do, but simply say the lines as normal people would converse.  If the rhyme falls in an obvious place, at the end of what would normally be a stopping point in a sentence, so be it.  Otherwise, they breeze on through and let you appreciate the rhyme scene on your own time.  It's a risky convention that pays off mostly because it so beautifully lends itself to characters segueing into expressing themselves in song.

"There's Hades to pay when there's music in hell."

Persephone (Rebecca Wall) is in charge of this corner of the Underworld, and she rules it with an iron fist.  She keeps the populace doped up on the waters of forgetfulness, and cuts off singing as something forbidden, too prone to prompt a person's memory bank to reboot.  Orpheus defies the musical conventions of the Underworld and enlists the locals - Daphne (Shavunda Horsley), Patch (Devin Hueffed), and Hippolyta (Danika Ragnhild) to be part of his band.  The music allows them to overpower Persephone and tie her to a chair.  Her own memories flooding back keep Persephone docile.

"Those eyes so dark, like holes in his head."

However, Persephone has had the foresight to get Eurydice out of sight before Orpheus arrives, entrusting her to the care of Hipster E (Laura Robards).  It is through music that Eurydice and Orpheus find their way back to one another.  But then things take a turn.

"You don't want to mess with memories."

I can understand the inclination to dig into Greek and Roman mythology and give it a modern feminist twist (I've been guilty of indulging that instinct myself).  Women are constantly getting screwed, both literally and metaphorically, in these ancient tales.  The gods and man are repeatedly shown treating women like sex puppets or property or worse.  The problem here is, Orpheus and Eurydice is not one of the better known examples of this.  Medea, Helen of Troy, Cassandra, Clytemnestra, Iphigenia, the Trojan Women, sure, sign me up, I'm with you.  The list goes on for days.  But Eurydice?

"Everyone rejoices as he pushes them around."

Eurydice died on her wedding day, and Orpheus was so heartbroken that he followed her into the afterlife.  He charmed the rulers of the Underworld with his music and they let him take his bride back with him to the land of the living - on one condition.  Orpheus would not be allowed to see Eurydice following him as they made their way back.  He would have to trust that she was there.  If he looked behind him before their journey was done, Eurydice would be pulled back into the Underworld, and he would never see her again.  Of course, the poor guy lost his nerve just before they reached the other side, and Eurydice was lost to him a second time.

"Final stop on the Hades line.  There's only one way to ride the train."

Some have argued that Eurydice in this story is little more than a cypher, something men bargain over.  Some have argued that if Orpheus really loved Eurydice, he would either have trusted that she was back there without looking, or he would have just killed himself outright in order to be with her in the afterlife.

"You're hard to shake."

This is the first instance I've seen in which the story is rewritten to cast Orpheus as an abusive boyfriend who pushes Eurydice down a flight of stairs to her death, and then follows her into the afterlife in order to keep manhandling her.  This Eurydice is well within her rights to tell Orpheus off, turn the others against him, and ship him back where he came from.  This Eurydice is better off dead than saddled with a violent loser boyfriend.

"You're not my man anymore.  I'm dead."

Which, OK, that's a valid story, but… I can see Jason as the bad guy to Medea. I can see Agamemnon as the bad guy to all the women in his life - wife, lover, daughters, you name it.  Oedipus doesn't do his mom or daughter/sisters any good.  Pick any god or soldier who forced himself on a woman for pleasure or procreation against her will, I'm right there with you in taking the shine off his hero credentials.

"What's the worst that could happen? It can't kill you."

But why kick the stuffing out of Orpheus?  I'm all for giving Eurydice her own power and voice, but does it have to come at Orpheus' expense?

Here, in Elysium Blues, the answer is yes.  It's a credit to the power of the music, and the musicality of the cast, and staging of the director, that the story works for me, and rates this highly, despite my dramaturgical misgivings.  Elysium Blues is an unusual new take on an old story, and one well worth seeing.

4-1/2 stars, Very Highly Recommended

Next performance, tonight, Tuesday, 8/6 at 10pm
See their Fringe show page for more information

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - Fashion Risk - Nudity That's Not Just About Being Sexy

Tweet review - Fashion Risk despite copious nudity is adorable not prurient; a funny celebration of human beings and their bodies - 5 stars

Natalie Rae Wass is a fantastic and funny performer.  Fringe audiences and Minnesota theater audiences in general already knew that.  With her current Fringe hit Fashion Risk, or The Accidental Nudist, she takes fantastic and funny to a whole new level. 

"He was banned from his church for repeatedly pointing out scriptural discrepancies  he genuinely wanted to understand - and also for packing heat."

The great thing about Fashion Risk is Natalie didn't just throw some nudity onstage so she could generate some buzz and make a quick Fringe buck (though both of those things are certainly happening).  A lot of Fringe shows show some skin as a gimmick.  Get a nudity warning and you're sure to titillate a potential audience. 

"I'm a nudist-sympathetic textile."

But Fashion Risk is about celebrating the human body as a part of celebrating human beings.  Our bodies are big part of what makes us who we are.  Bodies aren't just about sex.  They're not something secret or shameful to be tucked safely away behind layers of clothing.  Bodies, of all shapes, sizes and ages, are beautiful things.  So why not put it out there?

"I know some of you are probably thinking about boners right now."
(Trombone player enters eagerly)

Natalie's parents, Nancy and Nathan, are a key part of the mostly nude cast surrounding Natalie as she tells her tale.  Also disrobing for a good cause are Lou Alvarado, Jesse Corder, Kate Hoff, Katie Ross, Rachel Schwartz, Erin Sheppard (also the choreographer), Gurayn Sylte, and Lauren Vork.  The show eases us into the nudity.  At first it's just people strolling by on their way to perhaps play some nude tennis. 

"I love hugs.  They say, 'I'm willing to be close to you, even when you're a mess.'"

As the story continues, people start coming out on stage and setting up camp.  Some are sunning themselves, some are grilling for a picnic, some are playing the accordion or trombone, some are meditating, some are practicing their golf putt, some are beach combing with a metal detector.  By the end, there's a full-on, all nude celebratory dance number.  But along the way, the presence of these people on stage keeps reinforcing Natalie's main point, that it's important to be comfortable in your own skin.

"Every crack in expectation creates possibility."

Natalie does a great job of subverting audience expectations - not just around the subject and presence of nudity in the show.  It's not a cheat.  It's just not what you thought of when you thought, "Fringe show about nudists."  Actually, I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking when I thought, "Fringe show about nudists."  To be honest, if it was almost anyone other than Natalie Rae Wass leading this show, I might have skipped it.  But because of Natalie, I knew it wouldn't be your average Fringe show showing a little skin (or in this case, a lot of skin).  I knew there was a reason Natalie was telling this story, in this way, now.

"Dressing is a learned behavior."

Natalie holds the stage and tells her story, largely uninterrupted, for the full length of the show.  Not a stumble, not a gaffe.  Just smooth sailing and her signature comic timing and sensibility.  Natalie does this with such poise and quirky grace that you're liable to forget just how difficult it is to do something like that, much less hold the audience's attention when the stage is full of naked people.  The story of Natalie's upbringing, and the insights she shares into nudist culture, are enormously entertaining as well as informative.

"Humans leak." 
(Audience groans, squirms a bit)
"I don't like it either but it's true."

My mom has been commenting on how interesting the Fringe is this year in offering up all sorts of human bodies on display.  Not just your skinny, perfectly toned actor bodies, but "normal" human beings with bumps and curves and a little extra here and there.  Fashion Risk keeps this trend going, and provides a whole host of additional options to the mix. 

"There is this part where Adam and Eve overthink their way out of a nude utopia."

And really, that's the gift Natalie and Fashion Risk are giving Fringe audiences this year.  Sure, a show with nudity might be selling out every performance anyway, but I think Fashion Risk is selling out not just because of a little skin.  I think Fashion Risk is selling tickets because word is getting out - it's a charming lead performance in a piece that helps everyone be just a little less self-conscious about the space they take up in the world.  And we need a lot more of both.

And any show with a pink gorilla suit is OK by me.

5 stars, Very Highly Recommended

Next show, today, Tuesday 8/6 at 8:30pm (but reserve a ticket in advance, the show has been selling out every performance)
For more information, check out their Fringe show page

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - Fringe Orphans 2 - Random Ideas In Neatly Produced Package

Tweet review - Fringe Orphans 2 - impressively smooth-running grab bag of random deeply strange ideas; great (weird) fun - 4 stars

Though I missed Fringe Orphans the first time around last year, I can't imagine it was any better than this.  Fringe Orphans 2: Orphan Harder is a delightfully weird grab bag of random ideas all thrown together and pulled off by the massive ensemble in really fine form.  Often, assemblages of many different ideas like this can end up being less than the sum of their parts.  With Fringe Orphans 2, it all comes together and everything seems to fit - just as if all these people had planned to get together and do a show, rather than being wrangled from any number of different places by creator and producer Brian Watson-Jones.

"You want to do disgusting?  We can do disgusting."

Not all ideas can stand up to more than five to ten minutes of scrutiny.  Sometimes a one-joke premise is just that.  So where can such promising but stunted mini-Fringe shows go for refuge?  Fringe Orphans!

"Attention must finally be paid to such a clone!"

How about a Beach Blanket Bingo-style re-imagining of Shakespeare's comedy Taming of the Shrew?  Behold phillip low's Taming of a Bikini Shrew.  Ever wonder what would happen if you crossed Star Wars and Arthur Miller? Try Aaron Greer's Death of a Stormtrooper on for size.  Wish the Fringe had its own bitch-slapping reality show? Look no further than Les Kurkendaal's The Return of the Real Housewives of Fringe (two of whom are men in drag, of course).  Concerned that barely contained murderous rage lurks in the heart of those self-actualization seminar gurus?  Then beware Jeremy Brandon and his Be The Dream program, the brainchild of John Middleton.  And don't worry - if arming school teachers with guns sounds like a really bad idea to you, there's the consolation of the existence of Adam Sharp's Teacher Boot Camp.

"We all like to be told nice things, but here's the thing.  It's not true."

Fringe Orphans 2 also offers up some physical performance work as well.  Jena Young's belly dance sequence, Crayola's Revenge, is a running series of bits of belly dancing choreography to original music by Scott Keever, performed by Young between the longer sketches.  Each time her costume is accented with a different color sash.  At the end, she dances the entire sequence all at once, wearing all the colors together.

"The safe word is yes."

Jerry Belich's Etude for Two gives us two red-nosed clowns fighting first over a music stand, and then over a kazoo that provides different results for different players.  One clown gets a full orchestral sound to come out, the other clown just gets a sad kazoo sound.  The escalating battle of the non-bands is quite delightful.

"The Sound - Of Food!"

Also great fun is the series of bits interspersed between the other pieces called The Sound of Food.  Creator Amber Bjork teams up with Theo Langason here.  Amber has a bucket of food and a big spoon.  Theo has a microphone.  He announces, "The Sound of Food!" and then the name of whatever food is in the spotlight.  Theo then holds the mic down by the floor on a plastic garbage bag while Amber scoops the food out of the bucket and plops it down on the plastic so the mic can pick up the noise it makes when it hits.  Potatoes, wet hot dogs, guacamole and chips, cottage cheese, tater tots, eggs (four of them, one at a time), and for the grand finale, a whole pie.  It's just as ridiculous as it sounds and yet no one could stop laughing.

"The Skinny Girl's Guide To Tater Tot Hot Dish"

Best of all, though, was a mime performance by Dean Hatton and Kirsten Stephens called Just Around The Corner.  These two physical comedians are such pros, it's a joy to watch them in motion.  It was just the two of them and two enormous white rectangles.  They play out the individual days of two separate people, with the rectangles representing the bed they sleep in, the kitchen table, the subway, the walls of their office cubicle.  They release and switch off rectangles between each other in a graceful dance that ends with the two people finally meeting, and deciding whether they want human interaction after all or not.  It's sly societal commentary masquerading as a bit of whimsy.

"Being a teacher gives you the right to shoot someone."

The line-up is a little different each night (we didn't get the charades sketch or Tim Mooney's Electric Eye the day we went).  You can check the line-up on the Fringe site for the specific list of artists you'd be seeing when you go.  But I do suggest you go.  With no emcee or obvious framework to hold it together, Fringe Orphans 2 nonetheless moves swiftly and smoothly from one oddity to the next, keeping better pace than many a Fringe show with far fewer moving parts.  Congrats to Brian Watson-Jones and his crew for a well-executed bit of Fringe logistics.

4 stars, Highly Recommended

Next performance, Monday 8/5 (tonight) at 5:30pm
See their Fringe show page for more information

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - Bidgood to BidGREAT - Bid-great Indeed

Tweet review - Bidgood To BidGREAT indeed. Laura Bidgood goes solo and owns the stage with her stories like we knew she would - 4 stars

It's hard to find new things to say about how much I enjoy Laura Bidgood telling me stories.  I've liked her since I first saw her in Two Queers And A Chubby back in Fringe 2006.  I said then that "she is brilliant and gorgeous and funny without ceasing" and that assessment holds true, lo, these seven years later.  Until now, she always had her trusty sidekick Curt Lund next to her onstage during Fringe season.  This year, since Curt's getting himself an MBA, Laura has crafted a solo show all her own, Bidgood to BidGREAT: Bumps and Blunders On The Boulevard To Brilliance.  Not that there was any doubt, but an hour of Laura is just as entertaining as a half-hour of Laura.

"I've never been good at instigating fights but I'm very good at supporting them."

The basic structure of a Curt and Laura show was - Introductory patter by the two of them, then alternating stories from each one of them, several times in turn, with either a closing story by one of them, or closing patter with the two of them.  Simple and effective.  Here, it's just Laura.  The introduction here was briefer, basically providing context for the uninitiated and fans alike - "Why am I up here on stage all by myself?"  She assured us that she and Curt had not broken up, and thus, ladies looking for a gay would need to look elsewhere, for Curt is still hers.

"I love the French horn more than I will ever love you!"

Laura offered up a variety of stories, taking us from her childhood up to the present day, though this is hardly an autobiographical one person show in any traditional sense.  We hear of Laura as a young girl, perhaps more fearful of things than she should be.  We learn about how Laura's twin sister helped her stand her ground against their rather territorial terror of a next door neighbor girl.  Laura details the ups and downs of her brushes with musical instruments, and how she wanted to throw over the violin for the French Horn.  A mandatory "fun" outing orchestrated by the boss at one of her day jobs results in an afternoon of inept curling sportsmanship.  Overly enthusiastic friends predict and impending marriage proposal for her, making a couple's weekend away with her boyfriend a tad more awkward than it needs to be.  Late for work, Laura's hastily assembled outfit includes a difficult pair of sagging tights that cause her journey downtown to be more eventful than planned.

"My luscious booty, or as I like to call it, The Point of No Return."

Laura Bidgood's tales are refreshingly free of neuroses.  If there's a potentially embarrassing situation, public or private, Laura just rolls with it.  She refuses to let anything drag her down.  She compares herself to no one else's ideals of what a woman should act or look like.  Laura is her own standard of measure.  It's a refreshing way to go through life, but few of us do it.  So it makes it that much more enjoyable to immerse yourself in an hour of what it's like to go through life like Laura Bidgood does.  There is absurdity, there is humor.  There are no real villains, just the challenge of getting over yourself.

"Kidnappers, hiding in her closet with a bag of candy.  Or worse, kidnappers without a bag of candy."

It's always struck me as odd that the stories which Laura tells, collectively, don't add up to more.  It feels as if they should.  Right now, they're comic snapshots in a photo album.  They may be grouped together in some general way, but there isn't a larger narrative that ties them together.  I'm not saying there needs to be in order for the stories to be enjoyable.  One can partake of the stories like individual candies from a larger box, samples of the inner workings of Laura's comedic mind and the way it shapes the events of life into amusing anecdotes.  One of the hardest things to do in life sometimes is to keep going, and maintain your sense of humor while you're about it.  Laura has that skill down.

"Obviously he's going to propose to me in the hot tub."

And now that Laura also has the ability to craft and deliver her own solo show, maybe that "big picture" photo collage is just around the corner.  Laura Bidgood never fails to entertain me.  Part of me still can't help but wonder if one of these days she's also just going to blow my mind.  She's just that kind of woman.  She always has been.  While I'm waiting and wondering, I'm more than happy to just have the pleasure of her company, taking an hour and spinning some stories.  BidGREAT comes of all shapes and sizes - this Fringe show is just one of her many examples.

4 Stars, Highly Recommended

Next performance, TODAY, Saturday 8/3 at 5:30pm
Visit her Fringe show page for more information

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - A Certain Age - A Certain Audience Is Gonna Love This One

Tweet review - Mom could not stop talking about A Certain Age, I liked it but she LOVED it, recommends it to all - 4 stars

I enjoyed A Certain Age but Mom was transported by it.  She was making audible noises of affirmation to the action and things being said on stage throughout.  As the applause began at the curtain call, she said, "Delightful!"  She talked to the director, the writer and any of the actors who passed in the lobby to tell them just how much she enjoyed it.  She doesn't do that with every show.  She even admitting to tearing up in several places.  "I didn't just relate to those women.  I was those women at different points in my life."

"Zoomba virgin!"

A Certain Age had the largest house of any Fringe show we saw yesterday, and that was at 5:30 on a Thursday night.  People turned out for this thing - more specifically, women of a certain age turned out for this thing.  And if the number of audience reviews already on the Fringe website less than a day later are any indication, word of mouth is moving fast on this one.  Though everyone can certainly appreciate the humor in this show, women in particular are its target audience.  I often write about how important it is that people be able to see themselves reflected onstage in the stories being told.  Certain segments of the audience for A Certain Age are clearly responding strongly to it because these stories don't get told or seen by them nearly enough.  Lucky is the Fringe show that taps into a previously unrealized audience need.  A Certain Age may be that lucky.

"All right.  I'm here.  Bring on the inner peace!"

A Certain Age is written by Jennifer Cockerill with music by Andrew Cooke, directed by Elena Giannetti.  The two actresses in the ensemble - Teri Parker-Brown and Shelli Place - do all the talking here.  The third member of the ensemble - Richard Weber - is largely silent.  He assists with a lot of the scene and costume changes, and is the object of more than a little objectification, but hey, it's the ladies' turn in this Fringe outing, so have at it. (Watch for the ass grab and wink at the end of the curtain call.)

"Do you have to answer everything with a question?"
"Does that bother you?"
"YES!"

The script is a series of vignettes related by subject matter more than plot or character.  Parker-Brown and Place portray a series of women who find themselves arriving at middle age wondering how the heck they got there, what the heck they're doing, and what the heck happens next?  Personally, the end of the show would have packed more punch for me if they'd found a way to link this assortment of stories together with some sort of through line or ongoing characters.  As it was, I felt like I had to start and stop repeatedly, reinvesting myself in new people each time the scene changed, rather than having some kind of cumulative emotional or intellectual experience.

"Whatever, Gumby."

Mom, too, was at first disappointed that she didn't have someone to follow through the show, but that feeling quickly passed for her.  The actresses themselves were both enormously winning personalities onstage, so Mom followed them, and felt rewarded for it. 

"Wanna jazz up your coffee?"

For instance, Mom saw herself in the comedic yoga class sequence at not one, but two points in her life.  In the scene, one harried woman treats us to her inner monologue via voiceover piped in over the sound system.  She finds it impossible to clear her mind, and the jumble of thoughts in there is hilarious.  Mom remembers thinking about all the things she had to do after class as well, rather than focusing on being present in the class and doing something for herself.  She had that kind of wandering mind when my brother and I were kids and she was raising us alone after the divorce.  She also had that split focus in recent years, just barely able to still a little time at the gym as she cared for her own aging mother.

"Now I get excited for parent/teacher conferences because I get a chance to dress up."

The various scenes showed women confused, women competing, women supporting each other, women wondering who exactly they were doing all these things for (like working out), women deciding to focus on the half of life still ahead of them, rather than the half of life they just left behind. 

"No one held a gun to my head and said, 'No, you may not have a life.'"

Is some of the dialogue a little on the nose?  Yeah, but the audience really didn't care.  They were happy to spend time with these women.  They were happy these things were being said out loud.  They were happy these things were being set to music and sung about.  It's easy for everyone to like A Certain Age.  But some people (my Mom included) are going to absolutely love it.

4 stars, Highly Recommended

Next performance, Sunday 8/4 at 8:30pm
Check out their Fringe show page for more information

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - The Concept of Anxiety - Dazzling Wordplay, Mind-bending Stories

Tweet review - Damn, phillip low, Elizabeth Byrd. Mind boggled, mind blown, but delightfully so - The Concept of Anxiety - 5 stars

A lot of Maximum Verbosity Fringe shows have been low tech affairs - phillip low, a music stand, and a glass of liquor is pretty much all you need.  low is a master at spinning words - both composing them on the page and then rattling them out of his mouth in rapid-fire fashion.  Those basic elements are on hand again here in The Concept of Anxiety, but he's turned the whole thing up a notch.  More than a notch really, more like seven or eight notches.  This show is slicker and leaner than your average Fringe show.  It positively hums - high energy on a tight leash.  It's a bullet aimed at the dark corners of your brain.

"I'm sorry."
"For what?"
"I don't know, just on general principle, I guess."

For starters, the simple set is a bit more deliberately dressed - a human skull, a chess clock, a copy of Gray's Anatomy (the textbook, not a DVD box set of the TV show, though wouldn't that be an odd pairing?), a pitcher of water, a bottle of Jameson, a book on Black Holes & Time Warps.

"Every day in medical school, you learn a new way to die."

Also, phillip's not alone this year.  His, until now, largely unseen partner in crime Elizabeth Byrd is front and center, making this solo show more of a duet.  The two are great foils for one another.  Elizabeth sings us an opening number full of wordplay around the old-fashioned notion of bile and the humors of the body.

"My deep and dark secretions, I want them to be known."

Then suddenly phillip appears backlit in the rear of the house launching into his opening monologue and working the audience from the center aisle as he makes his way toward the stage.  The subject is mortality and the flexible notions of time and space, with a generous helping of meditation on those in the medical profession, since phillip is a child from a family of doctors himself.

"They say that Jack the Ripper was a doctor.  What I don't understand is why every doctor isn't Jack the Ripper."

low's regular stage persona Penner makes an appearance in a dream/mirage sequence but the bulk of the performance is given up to two alternating multi-part stories that are mesmerizing puzzles full of evocative and disturbing images and turns of phrase at the same time that they are stories with a fascinating beginning, middle and end.  It's low's voice in the text but having two different human voices playing off one another in the telling of the tales makes for some fun and mind-boggling effects.

"His bladder was backed up so far it felt like his back teeth were floating."

One story is about a boy who wants to see the whole world but the frailness of his body prevents him.  The boy's father develops what seems like an unrelated obsession to complete a massive dragon statue in the field behind their home.  When the boy climbs inside the dragon statue, the obsessions that run through the family intertwine together.

"A staircase spiraling up and up into darkness."

Suicides attempts both successful and failed, parallel universes colliding, a married couple caught in the middle of being both old and young, living and dead, as time attempts to zip itself back together.  It starts as a series of riveting images which end up being part of a much larger and complex tapestry that is real kick to have fed into your brain by Byrd and low.  Even the seemingly simple sound work of Aaron Manthei and David Vogel adds all kinds of beguiling (and amusing) layers of confusion and revelation to the mix.

"How can we say we live in a moral universe and every other universe is immoral?"

Sometimes Maximum Verbosity is loose and goofy and that's a large part of its charm.  But The Concept of Anxiety, entertaining as it is, is sharp as a razor.  I marvel at how this thing was put together.  Though it's early days yet, I'd be very surprised if you see better wordsmithing than The Concept of Anxiety at this year's festival.

"Am I dying?"
"Do you really have to ask?"

You can also find phillip's work on display in not one, not two, not three, but FOUR other Fringe shows this year - he wrote Launcelot and Guenerver for Six Elements Theater over at the Music Box, he wrote and directed a piece that's in Fringe Orphans 2 at TRP, he's acting in Hardcover's The Diamond Lens at Music Box, and he just picked up a performance next Thursday with Stop Talking yet again at the Music Box.  I don't know if there are "all phillip low" packages, but a punch card would do you.  As for The Concept of Anxiety

5 stars, Very Highly Recommended

Next performance, Saturday 8/3 at 2:30pm
Check out their Fringe page for more information

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Review - The Unknown Matters - A Little Gem of a Play

Tweet review - I love it when a musical refuses to give us an unrealistic happy ending, but still gives us hope - 4.5 stars

An actor walks up to you in the lobby before the show and asks if you want to participate in a little pre-show survey.  One question: in three words or less, what are you waiting for? (other than the show to start)

What are you waiting for?

That's a damn good question.  And The Unknown Matters is a damn good show.

"What we lose and what we choose to leave behind."

Peter (Mark Sweeney, also the author and producer) and Sarah (Katie Bradley) are scientists with personal obsessions thwarted by a lack of funding. They combine forces along with Sarah's brother Eddie (Izzy Waid) who helps them get a crowdsourcing campaign going so they can jumpstart the two quests again. 

"85 percent of the matter of the universe is unknown.  We call this hypothetical mass 'dark matter.' Capturing it is my life's work."

Peter is out to capture the elusive dark matter.  Sarah is hacking into the Kepler Telescope to ferret out proof of a planet circling a distance star which might just be able to support life.  Their lab is an underground bunker, and their days are spent waiting patiently for proof to cross their line of sight.  They allow themselves snacks, and the games that go with them, at regular intervals, and also will break out a ukelele and burst into song. 

"When I first read about the Kepler space telescope, I lost my sh*t."

Peter's health takes an unexpected turn as the dark matter and distant planet continue to remain elusive.  Notions of mortality and how a life is spent, not wasted, abound.

What are you waiting for?

"I was waiting for a planet."
"And I was waiting for proof."

The Unknown Matters is a little gem of a play.  Sweeney's script and songs are just as notable for the things they don't say as the things they do.  This is a production that's not afraid of silence.  It trusts the audience to be able to fill in the blanks.  It doesn't hold your hand or spell things out, but it brings you along all the same.  We get to know the characters, we care about what they care about, we want them to succeed.  Watching the subtle way the characters go from being colleagues to being friends, never making a big deal about it, is lovely.  They take on each other's quests as their own and it just makes us like them more, and root for them. 

"I don't know a thing about love or spirituality but I can talk your ear off about dark matter."

There's a moment when the way someone reappears made me think they might be a ghost and I thought, "oh no!"  My relief that they were safe and sound made me realize how much I'd come to enjoy these characters' company and invest in them emotionally in such a short time.

"Tonight, I record the light!"

I'm torn, because part of me wants more of this story.  It's satisfying as it is, and I didn't feel cheated in any way, but still I found myself wanting more.  Always a good thing.  Never overstay your welcome.  Also, I wonder if watching these scientists not quite reach their goal only works in short form.  Would the audience become too frustrated at having their desires thwarted, not getting a "big" ending with a major triumph, if they invested more than an hour of their time?  It's hard to know.  Right now, that suspense works.  And if anyone could make it work in an expanded format, it would be Sweeney.  The current version of The Unknown Matters proves that.

"But the question is still there, right?  You need to keep looking."

Scientists work and wait for years.  They go down countless blind alleys and run into numerous dead ends.  Sometimes another person has to finish their work.  Sometimes the work is never finished.  But because it's about understanding the universe we live in, because it's about bettering the human condition, the scientists keep asking questions, and keep exploring.  That's a hard thing to dramatize.  But The Unknown Matters nails it.

"We are the explorers.  Stay curious!"

And it's a friggin' musical.  (I know it's kind of insulting of me to insinuate that a musical can't tackle thorny or intellectual subject matter, but I've seen musicals aim for a lot less and miss.  The fact that this one aims so high, and hits the target dead on, that's really impressive.)

"It's just a matter of time."

I worry for shows like this because they never shout "You have to come see me!"  The Unknown Matters is a quiet, intimate, funny, melancholy, lovely little show that could easily get lost in the shuffle of the Fringe noise machine (and I say that with love for the Fringe noise machine, of which I am a part).  But The Unknown Matters… matters.  You should see it.

4.5 stars, Very Highly Recommended

Next performance, Saturday 8/3 at 10pm. 
Check out their Fringe show page for more.

Minnesota Fringe Festival - Bidgood to BidGREAT: Bumps and Blunders on the Boulevard to Brilliance - What Happened?! Productions - Laura goes solo

There are three good options in the Loring area for shows for the last slot (10pm, Thursday 8/1) on opening night of Fringe as we make our way back home for the night.

We could stop off at the Theater Garage and see my friend Nick James in the cast of Consequences of Kissing Dragons.

The mischievous Fringe-goer in me almost convinced mom to try out Professor Hotrail and the Time-Traveling Meth Lab at the Music Box because, well, c'mon, there's a puppet, a time-traveling meth lab, and Jesus all in the same show.  That's like a Fringe triple play.  (Fun Fringe Fact: when I typed "meth" into the search engine on the Fringe website, 12 shows came up.)

But we decided to stick a little closer to home at the Women's Club and catch the opening night of our perennial Fringe favorite Laura Bidgood (going solo this year) with Bidgood to BidGREAT: Bumps and Blunders on the Boulevard to Brilliance.

Where's her other half Curt Lund?  She addresses that (amusingly, of course) in her Fringe-For-All preview video (hint: school).



I got to see Laura do a variation on the scared little girl story at both Fringe-For-All and Tim Uren's Ghoulish Delights Fringe preview showcase.  I know the Fringe-For-All has time limits for a super good reason (we artists do go on if someone doesn't stop us), but I missed the loosey-goosey atmosphere at Ghoulish Delights.  The story actually didn't last that much longer, and Laura, as always, knows how to work a crowd, so it was fun to watch her work her spoken word/storytelling magic.  It's why mom and I are looking forward to her show, and why it's a perfect way to cap off our first day of Fringing.

Minnesota Fringe Festival - The Concept of Anxiety - Maximum Verbosity - 1 of 4 options for your phillip andrew bennett low fix this year

One of mom's Fringe buddies we always have to see in action each year is phillip low, and this year it's super easy: he's acting in two shows and he wrote three.  There's a little overlap, so he only has a total of four with his stamp on them, but that seems like plenty. 

The Concept of Anxiety at HUGE is the Maximum Verbosity offering for the year - which means it's phillip performing his own material, which seems like the full "low combo pack," so we opted for seeing that first, since it was happening opening night and we're at HUGE for the first part of the night anyway.  The stars aligned.  Here's their video trailer...



phillip's not going solo this time.  He has his partner in crime Elizabeth Byrd performing with him this year.  I saw them do a preview bit at Tim Uren's Ghoulish Delights Fringe preview evening and it was just the kind of word-playing neurotic fun I anticipated.  phillip's mind is always running a mile or so ahead of mine, but it keeps my brain limber to have a show I need to work a little to keep up with, even while I'm giggling at the jokes.  Macabre jokes, but jokes all the same.  And anyone that can somehow meld together the Da Da art movement with the shark theme from the movie Jaws is always OK in my book. 

His other shows are as follows - he wrote and directed a scene for Fringe Orphans 2: Electric Boogaloo, he's acting in The Diamond Lens for Hardcover Theater, and he wrote Launcelot and Guenever for Six Elements Theater.  Phew.

Minnesota Fringe Festival - The Unknown Matters - Broken Boot Theater - Who doesn't like a good sci-fi musical?

What's not to like about "Two physicists race to solve the mysteries of our time, but end up waiting around and eating snacks. A musical about dark matter, exoplanets and a grapefruit."

The Unknown Matters is labeled as Musical Theater with tags for physical theater/clowning, sci-fi/mystery/horror, and (speaking of horror) audience participation (just kidding, screw the fourth wall, bring it on).

Honestly, my pal Mark Sweeney is the brains behind this one, so I was sold on that alone.  He's got Katie Bradley and Izzy Waid involved as well, and I've liked a lot of things I've seen them in as well over the years, in and out of the Fringe.

Plus, their preview at the second Fringe For All this year was utterly charming (and ballsy).  Seriously, to walk out on stage with a ukelele and just stand there and sing a quirky little ballad for three minutes, completely out of context, and trust that it's gonna sell people, that takes guts.  And the lyrics intrigued me -
"We are not lost, we are not found" 
"Write this all down and hope that it stays/Someone's going to read this one of these days" 
"Time isn't after us, time isn't over us"  

Check out the video for yourself.



Mom and I saw Mark's Robo-Homa! in the Fringe a  couple of years back, and even though this musical doesn't promise robots singing show tunes, I'm still sure we'll have a good time. 7pm, HUGE Theater, Thursday, August 1

Minnesota Fringe Festival - A Certain Age -Theatre du Bon Chien - Coming At A Show Sideways

Opening night of Fringe, Thursday, August 1st, 5:30pm...

First slot in the Fringe is hard, particularly for a new play.  The fact that A Certain Age has music helps but since it's labeled a comedy and not a musical people could miss that selling point.  I have to admit I don't know either of the two ladies at the center of this play or even the playwright.  Neither mom nor I is even technically a middle-aged woman, so the subject matter of the evening is not the draw.

What brings me (and mom) to this one is the director, Elena Giannetti.  Elena as an actor was part of one of the early public readings of my very first script to get produced here in Minneapolis (we won't go into how long ago that was - I was not yet a middle-aged woman then).

Elena and her husband (also part of that early reading) have always been loyal supporters of my work, and in return I go and see as many of Elena's plays as I can.  She's recently branched out into directing, and from the way she describes the process on this project, it seems like it's been a great collaborative process and they're very proud of the end result.

So, a series of vignettes with original songs thrown in, and I see just now on perusing their show page, they've drafted another talented fellow I do know - Richard Weber, who was part of the ensemble for the latest Project 515 tour I scripted.  Yet another reason to feel we're in good hands here.

I had to look up Bon Chien of course, because I'm a philistine.  It's French for "good dog." Take that how you will.

And as luck would have it, this show is at HUGE Theater in Uptown and the next two shows at HUGE are also ones mom and I would very much like to see, so we get to stay put.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2013 - First Rule: Don't Kill Mom

Though she may not look it or act it, my mom is 75 years old.  She is also a hardcore Fringer who wants to get the most out of her UltraPass.  And her son (that'd be me) has a show of his own in the Fringe this year.  All of which makes mom's annual Fringe pilgrimage out to visit me in the Minnesota just a bit more logistically tricky than it was last year.

As much as I'd like to think that I can just drag mom around behind me wherever I go, I vividly remember a time a few years back when we were hoofing it from the Rarig Center over to one of the stages at Augsburg and I was more than a little afraid that she might keel over on me.  So, if mom wants to get in her usual 30 shows in six days and still remain standing, I need to get creative in plotting out how we get around, or rather how to see a bunch of good shows without moving around all that much.  Thankfully, it looks like there's a ton of good Fringe shows this year (as usual), so we've got options.

My play, How To Date A Werewolf (or, Lonesome, Wild and Blue), has three shows crammed into opening weekend of the Fringe (Friday at 10pm, Saturday and Sunday both at 4pm).  We're at TRP (Theater in the Round Players), so that's going to tie us down to the West Bank hub of theaters for much of those three days.  I'm helping with load in and load out.  While that's not entirely necessary, since the show's simple, I like to have an extra set of hands at the ready, in case they're needed.  And if it makes settling in easier, so the actors have some more time to get into character (perhaps even relax), so much the better.

Besides, mom wants to see the show as much as she can, and so do I, and there's no late seating, even for us on my own show, so there you are.

That also means that Thursday, Monday and Tuesday when she's also here, we are free to roam over to Uptown or Downtown or Loring instead.  Loring is kind of perfect because that's where I live.  So we could literally just walk to the Women's Club or Red Eye or the Music Box and not have to worry about driving about or parking.

First up, opening night, this Thursday, August 1st…

$10,000 Matching Grant for Marriage Equality Tour

A marriage equality theater piece I’m working on currently has a matching grant offer from the Pohlad Foundation.  They’ll match any individual gift up to $500, up to a total of $10,000.  It’s in conjunction with a fundraising performance that happens on Monday, April 22 at 6:30pm (6:30-7:30pm is mingling time, 7:30 is a performance of the current touring production).  Even in you’re unable to attend the performance (and I realize it's very last minute I'm posting this), you can still take advantage of the matching grant.

Here’s the facebook event listing

Here’s where you officially sign up to attend the event if you like

Here’s the link where you can take advantage of the matching grant

Here’s information on the Project 515 tour

Those of you who follow this blog, or my writing in general, know that I’ve been hip deep in the whole marriage equality messaging for a couple of years now.  My marriage comedy But Not For Love hit the stage last October thanks to Workhouse Theatre Company and The Flower Shop Project (originally commissioned by Allegheny College back in 2006, it got picked up again in 2011 out in Los Angeles before landing here in Minnesota).  But I’ve also been working with the group Project 515 to help spread the word in a slightly different theatrical way. 

Flower Shop linked me up with Project 515 originally in 2010 when they brought me in as one of the contributors to a cabaret-style production around the marriage equality issue, which also included song and dance as well as the scripts of other writers.  Project 515 gets its name from the 515 laws in Minnesota which treat same-sex couples and their families differently from heterosexual couples who are able to be legally married.

After the Flower Shop production, Project 515 decided they wanted to take a similar idea on tour around the state of Minnesota in the ramp-up to the big vote on the marriage amendment in November 2012.  They asked me to write scenes that would illustrate some of the ways in which the current laws discriminate against same-sex couples and their families, as well as put the Minnesota fight in the larger context of the gay civil rights movement.

We did a dry-run to several Twin Cities area college campuses in the fall of 2011.  Then a few months later we did a rewrite and took the tour out to Greater Minnesota in the spring of 2012, hoping to spread the word about Voting No on the marriage amendment. 

Now that the November election is behind us, and they’re now debating marriage equality legislation at the State Capitol leading up to another big vote, the first leg of the 2013 tour is out around the state, this time urging people to contact their legislators and let them know how they feel on the issue.

Once that vote happens, one way or the other, the aim of the tour will change yet again.

This fundraiser is to help fund the future of the tour, and keep the conversation going.

Since every gift counts twice as much with the Pohlad Foundation match, I figured it couldn’t hurt to put the word out.

If you feel so inclined, and this sounds like something you’d like to support, by all means click on over and do so.

While I’m looking forward to the day we don’t need tours to help foster better understanding between people, we unfortunately aren’t there yet.  The tour actors in all the iterations of this project have been working tirelessly to spread the message.  This grant is a way we can turn ten bucks into twenty, fifteen into thirty, twenty into forty, and so on.  So if this is the kind of story you want to help tell, pitch in as you’re able.  Thanks!

Review - Rabbit Hole - Theatre in the Round Players - 5 stars

A dog runs into the street.  A child runs after the dog.  A car swerves to avoid the dog and ends up hitting the child by accident instead, killing them.

How do you deal with that - if you're the child's mother, or father, or aunt, or grandmother?  Or the person driving the car?

Some people tell jokes.  Some people write.  Some try to relate it to their own experience.  Some reach out to others.  Some shut other people out.  Everyone finds a way to blame themselves while at the same time reassuring everyone else trying to take the blame that the accident is nobody's fault.  Ultimately you have to hold onto something or you go crazy.

That's Rabbit Hole, David Lindsay-Abaire's Pulitzer Prize-winning drama (with a big dose of unexpected laughter), currently running as Theatre In The Round Players' 500th production.  I'm always pleasantly surprised by Rabbit Hole.  Even on nights when I wonder whether I'll be in the mood for a tale like this, I've always forgotten just enough from the last time I saw it to find myself getting drawn in all over again.  The humor and the humanity and the open-ended question of "what happens next?" grab me every time.

"All those good-looking people falling out of the sky like that."

It's eight months after the accident and parents Becca (Elena Giannetti) and Howie (Ron Ravensborg) are trying their best to adjust to life without their young son Danny.  The dog has been shipped off to live with Becca's peculiar mother Nat (Linda Sue Anderson), not your normal kindly grandmother figure by a long shot.  The dog's getting fat, and not in a good way, which is working Howie's last nerve.  Meanwhile, Becca's flighty sister Izzy (Rachel Finch) has discovered she's pregnant, between jobs, and the prospective father is a musician.  And Jason (Kenny Martin II), the young man behind the wheel of the car that hit Danny, keeps trying to contact the family, first by mail, and then by showing up on their doorstep.

"Maybe he eats too much because he feels punished.  That's what I do."

Performances are everything with a production of Rabbit Hole and director David Coral has gotten five great ones out of this cast.  A production can go too wacky or go too dark.  It's hard to walk that fine line that's a mix of the two, particularly when the script offers up some characters that lean hard one way (Becca and Howie and Jason, dramatic) and some that lean hard in the opposite direction (Izzy and Nat, more toward the comedic end of the scale).  Here we've got the right mix of actors, all holding hands and walking that fine line together.

"Quick and clean like a band-aid, otherwise we'll never get through it."

It's the little things that get you in Rabbit Hole, and this production of Rabbit Hole in particular.  Little choices about character, like the way Becca always rinses things in the sink before she puts them in the dishwasher but Howie puts everything right in the machine.  For Becca, if everything is done just so, life won't slip off the rails any more than it already has.  For Howie, there are more important things in life than spotless household precision.  It's never spoken about, but seeing it happen over and over again still worms its way into your brain.

Little moments of sound in Inna Skogerboe's design - like the noise of a buzzer on a the dryer offstage, signaling the clothes are done.  The way it's positioned, the way it's muffled, the truth of the sound makes the rest of house out in the dark offstage seem more real.  I almost thought I'd imagined it, until Becca left to get the load of clothes. 

"Only people who don't have kids give gifts like this."

Little things about the environment on stage designed by Peter W. Mitchell - like the way Danny's childhood bedroom has a floor that's a starry sky, and the way the indigo blue of the night sky leaks into the normal floor of the rest of the house.  Also, how the configuration of the space requires half the audience to walk through Danny's bedroom to get to their seats.  It gave me the willies immediately.  By intermission, everyone was in on the significance, many of them walking gingerly past the bed to get refreshments.

Little bursts of light like the tiny pool of illumination at the end, the finishing touch on A. Camille Holthaus' design, forcing us to watch two characters take hands - tentatively, uncertainly, hopefully.  It takes until the final seconds, but we get the happy ending for which none of us dared hope.

"No one knows me there.  I'm normal."

Little things that end up being huge, like the fact that there are no traditional scene shifts.  A scene ends, but characters remain and continue with their day as music plays and lights transform the space.  The things that need to change from one scene to the next happen almost completely in full view of the audience.  So we don't get a chance to check out of the story.  These characters are always present with us.  They remove a child's drawings from the refrigerator door and pack them away in a plastic bag.  We can't take our eyes off of them because we don't have any idea what they're going to do next, where the story is heading.  The new scene emerges from the remnants of the old.   It's not rushed or forced.  The story has no desire to hide from us.  It wants us to keep watching.  The cumulative effect of that is quite powerful.

"Even the most unlikely events have to take place somewhere."

Elena Gianetti and Ron Ravensborg are extremely compelling as two parents grieving in very different ways.  Ravensborg's Howie is a man trying to hold it together but unable to completely master his emotions.  Frustration at being unable to reach his wife at the same time the last vestiges of his son feel like they're slipping away means that Howie will often blurt out exactly what he's thinking.  This may, of course, be the last thing anyone wants to hear.  In contrast, Gianetti's Becca has shut down.  The only way to not let the grief destroy her is to clamp down on emotion altogether.  Where Howie attends grieving parent support groups, Becca simply doesn't want to talk about it to anyone, and often that includes her husband.  Becca may be the center around which the rest of the play turns, but she's not an easy character to cuddle up to.  But there's a big heart breaking underneath the surface.  Just when you're about to forget that, Gianetti lets the mask fall, just for a moment, as in a scene with her mother while they clean out Danny's bedroom.  She isn't unfeeling.   She feels too much.  The question of the play is if this couple - one of whom has to find comfort outside the home, the other of whom can't seem to find comfort anywhere - can salvage what's left of their family and move forward together.  Because of Gianetti and Ravensborg, the audience is very invested in the answer to this question.

"You have to stop erasing him.  You have to stop."

Rachel Finch as Izzy and Linda Sue Anderson as Nat provide much-needed comic relief from the very start of the play until almost the very end.  And as with all good clowns, because they give us relief by allowing us to laugh, in the moments when Izzy and Nat get serious, you know something significant is happening.  Finch's Izzy seems as bewildered as anyone when she finds herself becoming the voice of common sense in the play.  And though Anderson's Nat is constantly blundering her way through conversations, she does it because a good mother never quits trying.  And even a broken clock is right twice a day.

"At some point, it becomes bearable.  You can get out from under and carry it around in your pocket, like a brick.  It's what you have instead of your son, so you can't let go of it."

Just like the character of Jason, Kenny Martin II is also a senior in high school, making the young man's dilemma seem that much more real.  Jason keeps coming back to Becca and Howie not because he expects to be forgiven.  He couldn't accept forgiveness any more than he could ask for it.  Nor is he looking for punishment.  He's reaching out to them because they're the only other people who understand what he's lived through.  They can hardly speak of it, but just being in the presence of people who know, people who were there, makes every conversation, no matter how awkward, an enormous relief - even a blessing.  It will be intriguing to watch this new actor grow up on stage in the years ahead.

"Don't pretend he isn't there!"

Rabbit Hole is a wonderful play.  It's very simple.  It doesn't shout or run around.  It's got an oddball sense of humor sometimes, but that just seems to bring it closer to the truth.  It's about the small steps that people take to find their way back to each other after they've been lost.  Theatre In The Round is doing a great job bringing this story to life.

Very Highly Recommended

Fringe 2012 - Random Moments in Blogging Life

Here's some handy links to a grab bag of random postings around the edges of my blogging life at Fringe time...

Fringe Invitation - Want To Tag Along With Mom For Free? - 8/4/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Fringe - Backdoor Blog - 8/4/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Fringe 2012 - 4 Star reviews - Excellent

Here's a bunch of handy links to all the 4 star reviews of shows in this year's Fringe. 4 stars - Excellent, Class of 2012 would be...

Evil Dicks - Mumble Mumble Productions - 8/6/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

The Love Show - ORL Productions - 8/6/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Fringe 2012 - 3 Star Reviews - Good Job

Here's a bunch of handy links to all the 3 star reviews of shows in this year's Fringe. 3 stars - Good Job, Class of 2012 would be...

Christopher Street - The Musical - Silver Slipper Productions - 8/7/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Serif Punglasses - Raven Timberlake - 8/7/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Fringe 2012 - 4-1/2 Star Reviews - Damn Near Perfect

Here's a bunch of handy links to all the 4-1/2 star reviews of shows in this year's Fringe. 4-1/2 stars - Damn Near Perfect, Class of 2012 would be...

Nightmare Without Pants - Joking Envelope - 8/11/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Fringe 2012 - 5 Star Reviews - Life-Altering Experience

Here's a bunch of handy links to all the 5 star reviews of shows in this year's Fringe. 5 stars - Life-Altering Experience, Class of 2012 would be...

An Agony of Fools - Ben San Del - 8/7/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Ash Land - Transatlantic Love Affair - 8/4/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

The Gay Banditos - Mechanical Division - 8/4/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Happy Hour - Sara Stevenson Scrimshaw - 8/11/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Rip - Dovetail Theatre Company - 8/5/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Sin Eater - Present State Movement - 8/5/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Their Century - Lucky Break Productions - 8/10/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

TROY! The Musical - Burnt Nightingale Productions - 8/6/2012
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Interregnum 2012-2013 - Blog of the Time Between - But Not For Love

The theater community really stepped up in helping to the defeat the marriage amendment on the Minnesota ballot in the November 2012 election. The Flower Shop Project and Workhouse Theatre joining forces to co-produce my play about gay marriage, "But Not For Love," the month before the election was but a small part, but a contribution to the dialogue around the issue that we were happy and proud to make...

10/17/12 - Minnesota Marriage Amendment: Voting no is the least we can do
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/5/12 - Is your theater not gay enough? Theater for a month before Election Day
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Interregnum 2012-2013 - Blog of the Time Between - The Short List

Even if I can't get to show myself, I sometimes give a little shout out to help other know it's out there, so maybe they can go in my stead...

11/20/12 - Suggest Secret Ingredients for the Smackdown
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/25/12 - Two Times 8 For A Good Cause
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/25/12 - Days To Come (or, Theater I'm Bummed I'm Missing, part 3)
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/19/12 - Want to get some of the politics out of your theater...?
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/16/12 - Indefinite Articles - Debate Night Entertainment, one night only (tonight, 10/16/12)
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/16/12 - Beatnik Giselle - Oct 19-21 only (or, Theater I'm Bummed I'm Missing, part 2)
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/16/12 - Engaged (or, Theater I'm Bummed I'm Missing, part 1)
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

Interregnum 2012-2013 - Blog of the Time Between - Reviews

The Twin Cities Daily Planet has given me my own little byline page, and has me reviewing shows outside the confines of the blog, too, these days. Like anyone in the Twin Cities, I still miss more theater than I end up seeing. But here's the write-ups on the things I managed to catch since last Fringe...

11/17/12 - zAmya Theater Project - There's No Place Like Home - Theater about homelessness finds a home at St. Stephen's Human Services - 3-1/2 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

11/11/12 - Theatre Coup d'Etat - Romeo and Juliet - Being Two Girls In Love Is The Least of Their Problems - 3 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

11/10/12 - blank slate theatre - Spring Awakening - Extreme Intimacy - 5 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

11/6/12 - Workhaus Collective - Kill Me Don't Go - Four Great Performances and a Great Idea Trying To Get Out - 2-1/2 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

11/6/12 - Jungle Theater - In The Next Room (or The Vibrator Play) - So Much Fun To Watch, You'll Resent The Intermission - 5 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/14/12 - Mixed Blood Theater - Next To Normal - All Kinds of Reasons You Should Go, and Not A Single Reason You Shouldn't - 4 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version

10/1/12 - Theatre Unbound - The Good Fight - Theatre Unbound's Jujitsu Suffragettes Fight "The Good Fight" - 5 stars
Twin Cities Daily Planet version