Fringe Review - The Day The Nineties Died - Callow Youth Productions - 5 stars

The Day The Nineties Died won't be the most popular show at this year's Fringe. But The Day The Nineties Died is the most important show I've seen at this year's Fringe.

"You show me one instance of non-violent revolution, I will bow down and kiss your feet."

The Day The Nineties Died is an incredibly polarizing production. In fact, Mom and I were warned off going to see it, more than once, on the day of the performance. I'm so glad we didn't listen.

"It's a little bit cult-y, but..."

Because The Day The Nineties Died was recommended to us by someone who knows I like new plays. They thought the production was tackling some big issues in new ways, and for that reason alone it was worth seeing. Mom and I happened to run into the person who recommended the show right after seeing it and we said, "Thank you so much for telling us to see that show. We both loved it!"

"10 beers in, typical Wednesday night..."

And The Day The Nineties Died doesn't seem at first glance like an easy show to love. The production is described thusly...

"At the dawn of the 21st century, a group of anarchists plan an attack on an international summit of globalization leaders. But will their idealism give way when confronted with the reality of destruction?"

"If they didn't have commercials, how would I know what I'm supposed to buy?"

It's only now that I sit down to write this review (must post quickly, get the word out, see this show) that I see they billed it in the "comedy" and "satire" categories. The production description of "hair raising yet hilarious" is actually more apt. Because The Day The Nineties Died is funny. Often very funny. But the underpinnings of it are deadly serious.

"If you don't familiarize yourself with the issue, how are you any different than Timothy McVeigh?"

The weird thing is that it's not about the disillusionment of youth that leads to apathy and indifference. It's the kind of disillusionment that leads to action. These characters want to fix things. They've just come to the conclusion that they only way they can do this is with bombs. What's fascinating is that you not only understand them, you kind of agree with them. And that's the point where you start to think, "OK, either they're crazy or I am, or we all are."

"You were one of 'those' girls. What happened?"
"Pot."

The chief strengths of this strange and wonderful script are the youth, humor and intelligence of its writer/directors - Anders Lee and Ben Yela. An older playwright would have gotten the voice of the characters wrong. You listen to the characters speaking and you think, "This isn't somebody guessing about the way young people talk. This is actually the way young people talk." (Edited, yes, none of us are this erudite in real life, but the correct impulse behind the language is there.) This is an extrapolation of all those "what the hell's wrong with the world right now?" discussions you have the luxury of pursuing in college. The next question, "what's it going to take to change things, and how can we do it ourselves?" are taken to their logical extreme here. Perhaps the authors started with "what would it take to convince me that blowing something up was the correct solution?" and backtracked from there. However they arrived at this script, I'm glad they didn't let anyone talk them out of it.

"It's not complicated. It isn't e = m... uh..."
"Triangle!"

I'm also glad they found this cast to help them. These are some fine young actors. They have better control over their voice and manner than some actors I've seen at this year's festival with twice their age and experience. They make the discussion of this anarchists' plot, and the reasons behind it, so easygoing and unforced, it's both amusing and more than a little terrifying.

"You guys have no grasp of fen shui whatsoever."

Martin (Sam Pearson) brings his high school dropout sister Maya (Suzi Gard) back into his life at exactly the wrong time. Sure, Maya needs to escape their abusive parents. But Martin's on the verge of attacking an international summit of the WTO, World Bank, and IMF with his fellow believers Nivea (Chelsie Newhard) and Jack (Jeff Shockley). When Martin first informs Maya of the plan, she recoils, but Martin makes a convincing case (and he's her big brother) so he brings her around. After getting their final instructions from The Specialist (Yela), the group plays host to a couple of college jocks that Maya picked up nearby. Chad (Lee) and Brad (Luther Nelson) are momentarily swayed by the lure of cheap beer and pretty girls, but only one of them has an epiphany that sticks. The next morning the bombs are set and ready to be triggered...

Spoiler alert - then 9/11 happens.

Yeah. They go there.

It's not video footage. Just the soothing voice of Aaron Brown on CNN, after the planes have both hit, as people are still trying to process what is happening. And then the buildings start to fall...

"There are no words..."

This is actually the first use of 9/11 in a play that's ever worked for me. A big part of it is the way the actors sell it. But it's the right choice for a play making this argument. Ballsy as hell, but right.

There are so many places this play could have gone completely off the rails. I just kept sitting there thinking, "please don't screw this up, please don't screw this up, please don't screw this up."

And you know what? They don't.

Right to the very end which is swift, surprising, economical, and perfect.

"These are fantastical times. Buildings are on fire."

There are little things that nagged me like "Why are they leaving the briefcase in the hotel room?" "Why are they coming back instead of just heading out of town and watching the news coverage from hundreds of miles away?" But that's me as an audience member, focused, laser-like, on all the details because part of me wants them to get away with it. And, honestly, that's little stuff that I'm willing to gloss over given that so much of the rest of it works so very, very well. This is hopefully not the last we've seen of this play, and that's what minor cosmetic rewrites are for.

"You've gotta look at this like it's an honor. You're going to be a part of history."

This play could only have been birthed in an incubator like the Fringe, because it needs an audience to grow. And the Fringe makes it so much easier for this play and its audience to find each other.

You want a play that makes you laugh, seduces you, then gives you a little slap on the back of the head?

You want a play that makes plays seem like they're worth a damn?

You should go see The Day The Nineties Died. Augsburg Mainstage. Two more chances - Wednesday 8/10 at 10pm, Saturday, 8/13 at 7pm.

Callow Youth Productions, my ass. We should all be so callow.

The Day The Nineties Died isn't for everyone. But it might be for you. Don't let anyone talk you out of it.

Very Highly Recommended.

Fringe Review - Camelot Is Crumbling - Maximum Verbosity - 5 stars

An earlier version of Camelot Is Crumbling in the 2005 Minnesota Fringe Festival put Maximum Verbosity on my list of theater companies to keep a close eye on. Mom didn't get a chance to see phillip low in action until Descendant of Dragons in the 2007 Fringe, so it was great to be able to finally share Camelot is Crumbling: An Arthurian Nightmare with her in its new version at this year's Fringe. It is, not surprisingly, among the best Fringe shows we've seen this year. Watching phillip dig into the fertile soil of the legends surrounding King Arthur is always a treat because it's material he knows so well, and can bend to create numerous stories for the stage to fit our times.

"I don't suppose there's anything like a civilian any more."

The set-up is simple. Low alternates between playing two characters - King Arthur's "sons." There is the spiritual son, Arthur's bravest knight Sir Lancelot, who ended up betraying him for the love of Arthur's wife Guinevere. And there is Arthur's biological son Mordred, the bastard child who wants to bring down this father's kingdom of Camelot.

"The demons we don't slay in our own time, we pass on to our children."

Lancelot has returned from self-imposed exile to the ruins of Camelot to stop Mordred however he can. If he cannot literally stop Mordred, then Lancelot aims to preserve the history of Arthur's reign (on fragile cassette tapes). Mordred is not just taking over the physical kingdom by force, he's trying to rewrite history, trading one version of reality for another. In the midst of his mission, Lancelot is haunted by the memory of his affair with Guinevere, and of his wife Elaine, and the son Galahad who he didn't meet until the boy was a man on an ill-fated quest for the Holy Grail. Lancelot is also followed by the voice of another noble knight, Gawain (voiced by Charlie Bethel). Gawain was mortally wounded by Lancelot, but with his dying breaths he called Lancelot home to save Arthur and Camelot.

"I saw the cup that held the blood of God, and I felt nothing."

Meanwhile, Mordred is visiting his unseen father King Arthur in... the hospital? hell? The ambiguity is intriguing rather than confusing here. The different options for an audience's interpretation shift as Mordred's verbal tactics shift. For here, wherever here is, Mordred has a captive audience. Arthur is mute. The son can finally speak his piece.

And what a piece. (no, that's not a euphemism)

Mordred's conversation with Arthur is the section of this version of Camelot is Crumbling: An Arthurian Nightmare that I recognize as the closest kin to the original (and the section of that older Fringe show which riveted my attention most strongly). It rivets me still. And in the new material for Lancelot, with Gawain's voice providing the bridge for transformation back and forth between characters, low has created a fitting companion piece to Mordred's tale, even has he continues fine-tuning Mordred to be even more compelling than before.

"Maybe I don't want to be forgiven."

I had a chance to read this script in development (and marvel at low's capacity for reinvention and rewriting to get his story just right). The thing that gave me pause about the text was, though compelling on the page, it was incredibly dense. Text-heavy plays are not new for low. Language is his stock and trade. New ways of telling old stories are the things that drive him to keep creating and performing.

"Do you know what I'll do with your kingdom when I get it? I'm here to call you to account."

The thing that makes the text work is the other thing which low continues to work on and improve from year to year - his performance style. low himself in real life could not be more different from Lancelot or Mordred. He disappears so completely into these characters that for the space of an hour, I forget that this is a guy I know. The evil of Mordred is ice cream and cake for an actor to play with. Of course low makes that one work like gangbusters (he did before). The harder sell for an audience is embodying the tortured nobility of a character like Lancelot. Here again, low creates a hero who is also complex and all too human. It's a great piece of acting.

(Lancelot's final destructive act in the play is one that Mom and I keep puzzling over. It seems in some ways out of character to what has come before, and in some ways not. It's the only place we wrestle with the production and its intent. But even here, we'd rather have a play that keeps nagging at us than one we quickly and easily forget. Camelot is Crumbling is certainly not easily forgotten.)

Because the acting is so good, the words and the stories resolve themselves. What might in other hands be convoluted and confusing, in Camelot is Crumbling: An Arthurian Nightmare becomes clear and easy to follow. A story and themes that could seem distant from our own time, here find surprising resonance for the world we leave and return to when we cross the theater threshold.

"This is a war of information. He wants to create his own new history."

low and Maximum Verbosity never do the same thing twice. Even when phillip low goes back to an old favorite, he transforms it completely, and makes it better.

Mom asserts that it wouldn't be a proper Fringe without him. And I agree.

Very Highly Recommended

Fringe Review - Sousepaw - Shelby Company - 5 stars

It makes me extremely happy to hear, again and again at this year's Fringe Festival, the refrain of Sousepaw, Sousepaw, Sousepaw.

"I'm like an arrow now. I need a home."

Mom and I just keep running into people, some of whom we know, others we're meeting for the first time in lines waiting to get into shows, who have one thing in common - when we ask them what shows they've seen that they like, they mention Sousepaw, the latest visiting production from Shelby Company out of New York.

"I wish I could line up our days so we could be young and stupid together."

Mom and I got to see Sousepaw for ourselves last night and we heartily concur. We didn't really need the recommendation, however, since we've been fans of Shelby Company for a couple of years now. The Shelby Company are good people and they do quality work. They love our Fringe, and it's nice seeing the Fringe audiences start to love them back in equal measure. In fact, the night we attended, it was a sold-out house.

"Like everything is frozen, just waiting for you to come back. Like you're the star of the book."

The success of Sousepaw: A Baseball Story shouldn't surprise me. After all, it has "A Baseball Story" tacked onto the title, and old-time baseball photos in its marketing campaign. Theater is much more palatable for some folks if it comes liberally mixed with not just sports metaphors, but sports itself as the subject matter.

"I realized how little of my life I'd been using."

Shelby Company's previous outings at our Fringe were a bit more on the fringe themselves - the fantastic, mystical Dan Moyer script Winnemucca (three days in the belly) in 2009 [which, frankly, blew my mind and still does], and the rotating collection of oddball shorts which comprised Uncle Shelby's Traveling Treasure Trunk last year. While Sousepaw is by no means your standard evening at the theater, it comes in a most reassuring package. And now that these folks have got a taste of Shelby Company's fine work, I venture to say they'll be back for whatever happens the next time they come to town.

"Ain't no ghosts, 'cept the ones we carry."

The script, by Jonathan A. Goldberg, concerns a night in a Texas hotel in 1913, when down-on-his-luck baseball player Rube Waddell (James B. Kennedy) steels himself for a big meeting the next morning with a team representative who may give him a job and start him on the road to a comeback career in the major leagues. In order quiet his nervous spirit, and keep himself away from the booze (which torpedoed the first chapter of his big league pitching days), he contemplates a book made of pictures of puppies and kittens he's culled from magazines. He also orders up a little human companionship, in the form of the Reptile Girl (Ariana Venturi) from the local circus.

"We've all got a long stretch of road we don't like walking, but that doesn't mean at one time it wasn't funny."

After a little wrestling in her alligator costume (no, that's not a euphemism), the baseball player and the reptile girl start to really get to know one another as human beings. Rube is convinced that this time things will be different. The Reptile Girl wants to believe that maybe she can unpack her suitcase in this hotel room and leave the circus behind for good. These two both have their demons, and they surface as demons often do. But despite his often brutish outbursts, there's a tenderness and innocence to Rube. And despite scars and bruises both literal and spiritual, the Reptile Girl still believes in the possibility of happy endings, or at least starting over. The audience gets invested in these characters deeply, and longs for them to succeed. Woven among the many heartaches these two must face is a lot of humor, and a heart that continues with a steady beat.

"Everyone was just a grey-eyed stranger knocking at the door, full of promise, pockets full of stars."

Goldberg's script is a beautifully written character study and director Luke Harlan guides the two actors through this story making the most of every intimate moment. It feels like you're watching two people trying to live their lives, not two characters in a play. (The fact that Waddell actually *is* a real person is almost beside the point.) The whole production is so simple, yet mesmerizing.

"It's the height that makes a braver man."

Welcome back, Shelby Company. Thanks for reminding us how it's done. (Good theater always makes me want to do better work myself. It's the kind of welcome inspiration the Fringe regularly provides.)

Very Highly Recommended

Fringe Review - Angelina Jolie Is a Zionist Whore... - Partizan Theater - 4 stars

Mom laughed a lot all the way through Partizan Theater's latest Fringe offering, Angelina Jolie is a Zionist Whore! or, Plan 9 from Baghdad. I also laughed quite a lot. The show has the added benefit of having one of the catchiest titles in the whole festival, which people have great fun saying in casual conversation.

"Where are you headed next?"
"I'm going to see Angeline Jolie."
"I hear she's a Zionist whore."
"Funny, I heard the same thing."

In fact, the two jokes that provide the play with its title set the bar for witty humor that the script consistently holds to throughout. This is a sharp, well-written comedy which Mom likened to classic Abbott & Costello antics, and that is great way to shorthand a description the kind of evening you're in for here. Their publicity blurb also sums it up better than I could...

"Three bungling Iraqi insurgents (Ari Hoptman, Catherine Johnson Justice, Joshua Will) somehow manage to kidnap an American television correspondent (Alex Cole), but quickly learn to their dismay that they might have grabbed exactly the wrong guy."

These insurgents can't even get their improvised explosive device to go off properly, or in a high traffic area. They barely startle a donkey with their ill-timed mayhem. The only reason they manage to nab a hostage is that he walks in looking to use their restroom. Not surprisingly, he manages to outwit them. Their awkward attempts at creating a hostage video which close the show are hobbled by things as simple as the props at their disposal. The most threatening implement they have on hand is a spatula. Even the hood for their hostage is reduced to a hilarious Hello Kitty pillowcase.

My only bit of cognitive dissonance here is that I went in expecting a satire, comedy with more of a serrated edge to it. Not sure why. Maybe it was the pedigree of all the artists involved (which is considerable). Maybe it was the location in which the comedy was set. But I was expecting a touch more menace. At no point did I fear for anyone's safety. The stakes were low and remained so. This is not the fault of the play or the performers. This play was produced for exactly what it was, to elicit exactly the effect (raucous laughter without a hint of discomfort) that it received from the crowd.

It seems that I just have a hard time in general laughing at anything in this particular context. (Even though I laughed a lot at this Fringe show.) Again, my problem. Maybe the only way we get through the mess we made in the Middle East over the past decade is to laugh at it. Plus, Angelina Jolie is a Zionist Whore! or, Plan 9 from Baghdad isn't really about Iraqi insurgents and the unwelcome invasion of their country by the United States of America. It's the Three Stooges with a different face. And that's a good thing for a Fringe comedy to be. A good way to unwind after a long day of Fringing.

Highly Recommended

Fringe Review - Disney Dethroned - Tom Reed - 5 stars

In the course of just four years of performing in Fringe shows, Tom Reed has gone from "the tall guy in that improv group" to "have you seen Tom Reed's show yet? you have to see Tom Reed's show, you're not really Fringing if you haven't seen Tom Reed's show."

(Heck, I didn't even get around to reviewing Bite Me Twilight last year because, well, it was Bite Me Twilight. He was packing his venue all the way to the cheap seats. He was seriously in contention for the encore slot for the second year running. He didn't need one more five star review from me telling him or anyone else how much fun (and smart) his show was. It already loomed large on everyone's Fringe radar. I tried to focus instead on reviewing a lot of the shows living in his show's shadow who could use a little attention.)

Like Kevin Kling, or Joseph Scrimshaw, or Joshua Scrimshaw, or Mike Fotis, it would be easy for Fringe audiences to start to take Tom Reed for granted. These five names now feel like they've always been there and always will be there and you don't even need to worry about it. Their shows are always so reliably great and enormously entertaining that I think we run the risk of forgetting how damn hard it is to be as good as they are. Consistently, unrelentingly good.

And funny. Which is probably the hardest thing to be good at as an entertainer. Telling jokes, experimenting with jokes, fine-tuning jokes. Finding new ways to make audiences laugh that require them to actually keep their brains turned on, that don't just involve the lowest common denominator of swearing and sex and bodily functions. To not just tell jokes but create characters, personas, a whole different world. To experiment with different forms, structures and music.

For everything we see as an audience, there's twice to three times as much (or more) that these performers have found wanting and thrown out before it ever reached the stage. They're operating at a high level of quality not because it comes easily to them, but because they work hard and they've learned by doing. Which is the thing that makes the Fringe (our Fringe in particular) so great. It's a launching pad. It's a gateway to creating theater during the other 11 months of the year. I'd be willing to bet there's someone wandering around the Fringe crowds right now, audibly wondering who "the next Tom Reed" is going to be. Just like they wondered about "the next Kling," "the next Scrimshaw," "the next Fotis." But here's the thing, folks. It's a great gift that we've got two Scrimshaws, a Fotis, and a Reed, right here in front of us. Go to their shows, yes. But don't go blindly. Don't take them for granted. They've become a tradition for a reason. Stop, for just a second, and consider just how good you have it. Then continue laughing.

(None of the above-referenced gentlemen put me up to that digression. I type all this because I found myself taking all this for granted. Then I stopped to realize, "I can't do any of the stuff these guys are doing. Thank God we've got them around to do it. That stuff's hard work. And boy, do I need a laugh.")

"She always looked really white."

But hey, how's Tom Reed's new Fringe show, Disney Dethroned or Snowcahontas and the Tangled Frogbeast, you ask?

Three guesses and the first two don't count.

"Dads are dead, and moms are mean...
Just be cute and find a boy."

Just as in years past, I was glad I had Mom in tow, since she's the Harry Potter/Twilight/Disney princess films expert in the family. Though my general familiarity with the Disney animated fairy tales was enough to keep me quite entertained, Mom was able to confirm that Tom had it down to the finer details as well. She enjoyed the show on a whole different level than I did.

"That's the most beautiful corpse I've ever seen."

One man. 10 Princesses. Happily Never After.

"Food from a stranger. That sounds delicious."

Tom amusingly conflates all the Disney princess names into one or two conglomerations, then uses the shorthand of simply calling his heroine Princess Disney. When Prince Charming throws Princess Disney over for his new love, Pixar, Princess Disney goes out on the town and sets off on a musical journey filled with the wrong kind of men, and various supernatural sidekicks and adversaries.

"What's with everyone kissing me to solve problems? I'm not the freakin' Blarney Stone."



"Whoa there, Scrimshaw."

Reed turns every convention of the Disney princess films on its head, then picks it up and shakes it just to make sure all possible laughs pop out. He also makes satirical hay of the troubling stereotypes and bad role models and racial issues tucked inside these films, with some real world politics thrown in for good measure. He doesn't belabor any of these good points. He lets the audience laugh about them and then think, "Hey... wait a minute... that *is* pretty screwed up..." He doesn't spoil the films for anyone. He just wants to make sure you're paying attention to the absurdities when you look at the same story from a different angle.

"The only way to be a hero is to pretend to be a man."

Reed and keyboardist Michael Erickson collaborated on the music (with inspiration from Disney's late musical fairy godfather, Howard Ashman, God rest his soul), Tom provided the lyrics. The whole thing is just so effortlessly clever, they make it look easy. Only Tom's carefully timed water breaks between story chapters, and using a towel to wipe the sweat not just from his brow but his whole head, give away how much effort he's putting into the telling of his story.

"She's talking to a clock. She's crazy. I'm into that."

Mom and I grabbed seats in the back row of the house, with me kidding, "Well, it's Disney princess films, it's not like he's going to take off his shirt or anything."

Wrong. Twice. Thanks, Tom. (And you're clearly getting far more out of your membership at the YWCA than I am. Well done, sir.)

"Maybe I'm just into hot, controlling guys."

Great voice, great laughs, great fun.

Thanks for slowly turning yourself into a Fringe institution, Tom. I look forward to whatever's next.

Very Highly Recommended.

Fringe Review - I Love You (We're F*#ked) - 55BC - 5 stars

"We're seeing the good-looking one first, right?"

"Mom, this is the Fringe, nearly all the guys are good-looking. You're going to have to narrow it down."

"The one with the sandwich board outside of HUGE Theater on the night of the Out of Towners Showcase. The one with the pretty blue eyes."

"Kevin J. Thornton. I Love You (We're F*#ked). Yes, Mom. That's the first show on our schedule today."

Part stand-up. Part storytelling. Part singer-songwriter concert. All parts, entertaining.

"Good morning," Kevin said at 1:00pm. "This is really early for me. I'm not normally conscious until at least noon. Is the f**king bar open?! (yes) That is so wrong... well, unless there are gays in the audience, in which case they all just came from brunch so we are ready for that sh*t."



Tank top. Tattoos. Stubble.

The guy knows how to work a crowd. And flirt with a crowd.

He'll elicit a sentimental "aaawwww" but immediately undercut it with a wicked joke.

The singing and guitar playing are extremely seductive (and often funny as well).

Really, I've gone on at length about just seeing him in preview. Kevin J. Thornton is kind of my kryptonite this year. (There's always one.) We have a lot of the same pop culture milestones in common, so that's not helping ("A reference not for everyone, just a sad few.")

The word "brazen" floats to the front of my mind. So do the words "morbid" and "mischievous." ("I like to rewrite all my memories so I have something poignant to say.")

Kevin J. Thornton is that guy at the party who always has the good story. OK, sometimes maybe he overshares, but it's always at his own expense and not that of others. And he'll make a joke out of it to defuse whatever discomfort might have arisen from the subject matter. He says the things you'd never have the nerve to say but wish you did. He does the things you haven't done (or at least not in a while), but the kind of things you still wish you had the strength and resilience to bounce back from. I don't think he's afraid of anything but being boring.

He'll let you see the strings. He'll stray into new material but tells you so, so that you won't let him off the hook when he tries to back away from it. ("We're past the point of no return on this bit at this point, aren't we?")

He'll regale you with random tales of gore he's encountered ("Blood Stories!").

He'll talk about his days in a Christian rock band during youth group church lockdowns ("Don't have sex. Think about Jesus. -- Can't sleep. I've had a boner for six hours. Thanks, Jesus").

He's willing to fight to keep politics and sexuality separate ("My sexuality is not the same as your alcoholism. I know. I'm both. They're different.").

He'll play with the strangeness of language. ("If we use food metaphors for sex, why can't we start using sex metaphors when referring to food? 'You gonna fuck that sandwich?'")

He'll tease the audience ("I just heard 'what's a rim job?' (sing-song voice) Straight people over here.")

And he'll tease the audience ("Which one of you is gonna f**k me tonight?" We're Minnesotan, no immediate response. Then a woman in the front row raises her hand. Kevin considers this...)

The songs are alternately funny and cynical and romantic. (And available online, and yes, I'll be downloading later.)

This review is about as random as Kevin's show but far less coherent and entertaining. Apologies. With luck, though, it will convince you to go see his naughty little Fringe show, for that is my purpose. I Love You (We're F*#ked) is like having Kevin J. Thornton's undivided attention focused on you for an hour (you just have to share it with 50 other people). Hey, if those blue eyes wander over my way once or twice during the course of the show, I'll consider that worth the price of admission. Mom will also say to any who will listen that Kevin is attractive to both the men and the ladies alike. Back of the line, Mom. I saw him first.

Very Highly Recommended

Fringe Review - Robot Lincoln: The Revengeance (The Musical) - 4 stars

Robot Lincoln: The Revengeance (The Musical) has provided me with what I think is my favorite line of the 2011 Minnesota Fringe Festival.

There is a robot rumble between two groups of robot presidents, some siding with Robot Lincoln, some with John Wilkes Booth (just go with me here for a minute), and Robot George Washington steps forward and says,

"I cannot tell a lie. I'm gonna fucking kill you!"

Every time I think about it, I can't stop laughing.

I've said it before, I'll say it again: This play is so deeply, deeply wrong, on so many levels, I can't help myself. I am in love.

"Your days of reciting badly written iambic pentameter are over!"

So John Wilkes Booth (Jason Garton, in ruffled shirt, cheesy fake mustache and sneakers) interrupts the opening sock puppet chorus in praise of President Lincoln to shoot a sock puppet Lincoln in the head. (No, really.)

"That's why I picked you. That, and you weren't fully decomposed yet."

Uncle Sam(antha) (Libby Slater, in full Uncle Sam regalia, including blue and white chaser Christmas lights in place of long flowing hair) revives Lincoln as Robot Lincoln (Adam Sahli, with red LED eye) in order keep John Wilkes Booth from creating the internet (a worldwide network of misinformation and porn).

"I'm gonna go. I've got a costume change."

Robot Lincoln gets his robot butt kicked by Booth's own army of robot presidents - Robot Andrew Jackson (Dustin Jackson, also writer/producer), Robot FDR (Katherine Rapacz, in a tank instead of a wheelchair, though he still can't do steps), and Robot Hilary Clinton (McKenzie Jones - yes, I guess this means she's president in the future).

"The only thing you have to fear is - my 250 millimeter cannons aimed at your face!"

Uncle Sam sends Robot Lincoln back into the fray with his own army of robot president sidekicks - Robot George Washington (Tom Bennet), Robot JFK (Ryan Thorsen), and Robot Thomas Jefferson (Jess Dougherty).

"Thomas Jefferson, literally the father of the modern day street pimp."

But before they get too involved in their own little war, Robot Gengis Khan (David Wasylik) appears to pose an even bigger threat, which all the robot presidents must band together to fight, especially since Khan kidnapped Mary Todd Lincoln (also Slater), all with the help of Benedict Arnold (Taylor Johnson), who, in a running gag, everyone is repeatedly shocked to find has betrayed them again.

"Kaaaaahhhn!!!"

Yes, it's that bizarre. That plot synopsis has either convinced you you simply must see it, or you must run far, far away in the opposite direction. But don't run. This is how much off-the-chart weird fun Robot Lincoln is: it is a musical, and yet, God bless 'em, none of the cast could carry a tune if you gave them a bucket. And It. Doesn't. Even. Matter. Everyone involved is so ferociously devoted to this oddball premise, and the script is so relentlessly weird and laugh out loud funny, you can't help being swept up in the lunacy with them. In fact, the act of them straining to do a traditional musical theater piece despite an unforgiving backing track of music (which finds them perpetually off the beat) and their own vocal limitations just makes you love them and this goofy Fringe show even more.

"He took your bitch!"

The script, by Jackson and writer/director/co-producer Travis Berg and composer/musical director Robb Krueger, is full of jokes in South Park-level poor taste and yet, just like South Park, I could not restrain myself from laughing, probably howling, much of the time. There was a point at which I thought Mom might hit me if I didn't pipe down.

"Your cliche lines mean nothing to me."

A big heap of praise must go to costume designer Hannah DesMarais, whose work here is spectacularly cheesy and perfect for Fringe. The robot presidents all get liberal helpings of "metal" in their outfits, whether it be constructed of duct tape, tin foil, pie platters, license plates, or cardboard rolls spray-painted gray and gold. There's also a lot of bright red, white and blue going on, of course. The costumes really make the show here. DesMarais is so inventive with such meager resources, it makes you ponder what she might do with a real budget.

"Everybody conga!"

When Robot Lincoln and John Wilkes Booth sang their love song to open the Out of Towners Showcase on Wednesday night, emcee and Fringe Executive Director Robin Gillette took the stage afterward to say, "You know, it's been a long day, but after five minutes of that, I'm reminded I have the best job in the world. Thank you, Robot Lincoln." (No, that's not an official Fringe endorsement. Mine will have to do.)

Thank you, Robot Lincoln, indeed.

Highly Recommended.

Fringe 2011 - 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 2011 would be...

Painting Portraits - Watkins Theater - 8/7/2011
Twin Cities Daily Planet version
Single White Fringe Geek version

Fringe Review - Our Freaking Kids Show - Mainly Me Productions - 5 stars

Is it possible for a Fringe show to be *too* funny? If so, then Our Freaking Kids Show is perhaps the guiltiest of this crime at the Fringe this year. And it is a crime I am most glad that they choose to repeatedly commit (their voluminous audiences would seem to agree with me). Man, do I want to hate Josh Carson (writer/director/producer/actor - the Me of Mainly Me Productions) for being so talented. And just as soon as I stop laughing I probably will.

"Improv! Give me location."
"Hitler!"
"That's not a location!"

The first thing that struck me while waiting in line and then taking my seat in the audience, though, was, "Why the heck is everybody bringing their kids to this show?!" Have they not seen the trailer...?



Yes there are kids in the cast but... OK, the more I think about it, there isn't any swearing, there isn't any sex, there isn't any violence or gore. Sure, the humor seems adult to me, but the artists involved do tag the thing for ages 7 and up, so... I'm being an overprotective non-parent, underestimating the sophistication of younger audience members. My apologies. If I think it's this funny, why should I deny anyone the chance to see it and have fun, right?

"The only way I know to make a girl stop crying is to propose. And that didn't work out so well the last time."



The jokes fly fast and furious as a group of frustrated theater artists - Carson, Greg Eiden, Andy Kraft & Kendra Ryan - get tired of playing to audience numbers in the single digits, for negative returns on their investment and decide to sell out and create their own work of children's theater. Of course this idea goes horribly awry as they run afoul of leggy, gorgeous interns (Sara Lahti), over-invested stage mothers (Rita Tredal Black), the local children's theater guru Uncle Lonnie (Dan Hetzel) and his devoted sidekick Twink (Rachael Davies). Not to mention the fresh hell of working with (gasp) child actors - the overly enthusiastic Lexi (Lexi Johnson), the commercial actor juggernaut Tucker (Tucker Garborg), and the irresistible moppet Sophie (Sophia Feller).

"I'm impossibly hot and it's like it doesn't even matter. We're people, too!"

Carson and Kraft (who also helped conceive the story) are characters who are barely more than children themselves and end up in competitive performance situations with their child co-stars that put their fragile adult egos at stake. Carson and Kraft also continue goading the relentless Uncle Lonnie into ever more desperate acts of sabotage. The fact that their script, by Kendra, changes almost hourly probably doesn't help. Nor does it aid their cause that Greg the director on the project needs to be regularly medicated with special "European water" (vodka replacing water in those ever-present plastic bottles) to keep him from turning into a raving dictator on stage.

"Theater is magic!"
"Oh honey, dating is going to be so hard for you."

That the adult and younger actors are equally game to look foolish is a huge plus here. That the younger actors not only hold their own on the comedy front, but meet their adult sparring partners line for line with the pace never flagging, is something for which they all deserve special credit. It's a big part of what makes the whole affair so funny from top to bottom.

"Kids are house arrest. They're poison to your social life. They're like dogs, only you go to jail if they die."

The script is wickedly funny, and one of those shows that you almost have to go back to a second time to catch all the jokes. There are just too many of them, flying past your head at lightning speed in rapid succession, for anyone to process them all in one sitting. It's the kind of show where I'm furiously scribbling down one punch line, only to have a half dozen others zip right by me. No human fingers can keep up. There are relationship and theater jokes that anyone can appreciate, and then there are several different levels of still more theater jokes that different crowds will appreciate to different degrees. It's a hoot, and a totally accessible one, no matter what kind of theater geek you are, or aren't. And I defy anyone not to end up grinning like an idiot during the big, goofy dance number at the end (or for that matter the big, goofy dance number in the middle).

"I am not going back to the temp agency. I will slit my wrists and make it look like a paper cut, I swear."

As Mom said on our way out of the theater at then end of the show, Our Freaking Kids Show is just fun, start to finish.

(And Josh, I hate you. Just as soon as I stop laughing.)

Very Highly Recommended.

Fringe Review - Painting Portraits - Watkins Theater - 3 stars

One of the reasons I put Painting Portraits from Watkins Theater on my Top 20 list this year is it's the kind of show I like to see most at the Fringe - a new play in development. The challenge with Painting Portraits in its current state is that it feels like an idea that's big enough for a two-act play, but it must content itself for the moment with squeezing into a Fringe-sized package. Too much play, rather than too little, is a great problem to have, but as any Fringer who's had to cut their show down to size can tell you, it's a painful problem to have, too. But it's not a painful problem for the audience. It just leaves us wanting more - and that's another good problem to have.

Anthony (Mike Matson) and Tom (Andrew Watkins, also playwright and producer) are two painters who are struggling with the fact that though they still have the desire to paint, their paintings never come out the way they want. Anthony can only paint things exactly as they are, and he wants to be abstract and free, finding the beauty and truth underneath the details of life. Tom is the abstract painter Anthony wishes he could be, yet Tom longs for the photographic reality of Anthony's paintings. Two guys discounting their own gifts, wishing they could see the world and process it differently. Tom runs his own gallery, or rather owns a gallery which his long-suffering buddy Arthur (Daniel Duren) runs for him. The gallery shows Anthony's work, and does good business selling his paintings, as well as Tom's. Tom and Anthony meet, and their mutual admiration society leads to a plan. They'll each keep painting, but turn the paintings over to each other to sign instead. They switch creative identities. This doesn't sit well with either Arthur, or Anthony's sister Clara (Hannah Halvorson), each of whom would love to be able to paint in the way that Tom and Anthony are taking for granted.

If you've read this blog much at all, you know that "art about art" or "art about artists" is among my least favorite genres. The worst of it, and there's a lot, is a lot of lazy, self-indulgent, navel-gazing most of the time. But there are times when the writer gets it right. Watkins is one of those writers. Because he's approaching the artists as human beings first, and artists second. He realizes he's trying to create human beings on stage here, with distinct personalities, and not just mouthpieces for the playwright that spout off about the importance of art (blah, blah, blah) as if it's a substitute for character. Tom and Anthony, and their relationships to each other, as well as their relationships to Arthur and Clara, are the meat of the play. Art is just an excuse to get them together and see what happens.

What we get in Painting Portraits is an intriguing set up, and the beginnings of the exploration of how that set-up plays out. There's tons of potential here and the only real frustration is we don't get a chance to see more of it. The relationship between Anthony and Tom in particular is most interesting, because there's something going on under the surface here. It's not just two artists admiring each other's work. Anthony's intense connection to Tom, and Tom's willingness to play along with it, and challenge Anthony to take it further, is more than a new friendship brewing. It's not quite homoerotic, but it's in the same neighborhood. The same could be said for Arthur's devotion to Tom and his painting and his gallery.

Anthony's sister Clara is also just a little too invested in her brother's career to be normal. The intensity of Clara's revulsion in reaction to Anthony's plan to let someone else sign off on his work while he takes someone else's work as his own speaks more to her desire for - an artistic life of her own? any life other than her own? trying to build a different family with her brother than the one she got stuck with and he abandoned? Again, we can't know in the story's current state because it doesn't have the time to take us to that next level. But the foundation is there, and you get the feeling that you could dig for quite a while before you find the bottom of it.

Also, the play is worrying around the edges of the larger idea of art as a function of identity. Art is a reflection of the way you see and process the world around you. If you want to see the world differently, to present it to other people in a different way, and you're unable to, what does that say about you? What does it say about the work? Can you really just hand off your art? Do you hand off your identity in the process? Can you learn to see the world differently just by spending time with someone who processes reality in a different way than you do? How much is the idea of connecting with an audience about the way you define yourself? How much is the idea of connecting with an audience about actual human connection, even love?

The launching platform that the Fringe provides is invaluable for developing new work like this. The constraints of the Fringe process, which are necessary, can make the presentation of new ideas challenging sometimes. The style of the writing (the deliberate repetition in the text especially) can sometimes not get the best viewing if it doesn't have the full room it needs to breathe. A different outlet, different actors, different director, would all produce a different result. Not better or worse necessarily, just a different angle, a different way of looking at the same picture on the wall in a different context. But the Fringe is a great place to get started and I'm happy to see them all wrestling with the concept in whatever way they're able.

These are the things that Painting Portraits gets spinning in my mind. And why I'm glad Andrew Watkins is writing, and he can gather actors and a director like Sylvia Bay around him to help get the words out there in front of a crowd.

I just want more. (Which, again, is a great problem to have.)

Recommended.

Fringe Review - Luke Comes To Life - Charakter Ministry of the Arts - 5 stars

I used to think there might be some people who just aren't going to be the audience for Luke Comes To Life. But before seeing it myself I ran into two very different people who had nothing but praise for it who I would not have expected to be in its fan base, or even interested in crossing the threshold. So I think, in what may be a first, I'm actually underestimating the Fringe audience base. I apologize to both you and Luke Comes To Life, because I really think the two of you should get together. I also shouldn't make the mistake of apologizing *for* either Fringe audiences or Luke Comes To Life, because there are no excuses to be made. Just introductions.

Fringe, meet Luke Comes To Life. It's a mighty fine piece of theater, with boundless energy and a lot of heart.

Luke Comes To Life, meet the Minnesota Fringe Festival audience. It's large and unwieldy and pulled in more than a dozen different directions at any given hour of the performance day, but if you keep saying hello and mingling, it will find you. (It sometimes takes more than one visit to get their attention, but it's worth it.)

There's much to admire about Wesley Brainard's work in Luke Comes To Life but the thing that Mom and I hail him the most for is his refusal to give less than his best. The afternoon we went to see Luke Comes To Life, Brainard had seven people in the audience.

7

In a house that seats 199.

In the round.

Any actor looking on that meager turnout might be forgiven for entertaining a moment of despair, and then dialing their performance back, if only a little.

Brainard saw seven people who came to see his show, and he went full out so they'd get the same show they'd have seen if we'd packed the place wall to wall. It was something to watch.

It was also something to watch because this is a story with a high degree of difficulty. Do it wrong, it might feel like a deadly dull Sunday school lesson, or relentless proselytizing. It's neither of those things. It's just a good story, well told.

Luke Comes to Life (Minnesota Fringe) Trailer from Wesley Brainard on Vimeo.

Though Brainard is a student of the legendary mime Marcel Marceau, Luke Comes To Life isn't a mime show. Brainard uses his physical talents to enrich the story, but there are no imaginary staircases or invisible walls or ropes to pull. No mime face. Just a man who, because of his training, can create dozens of characters instantly, without skipping a beat in his narrative. And a man who can make the most of a silence, where actions really can speak louder than words.

Because you can oversell this story. People do it all the time. It's the Gospel of Luke. From the New Testament of the Bible. About the life of Jesus, who whether you believe in Him or not, you have to admit he's had a bit of an impact on human history for good or ill.

Probably the smartest thing Brainard does is he doesn't pretend to be Jesus. That was the thing I was most afraid of going into this show. The fuzzy line where actors (or preachers for that matter) start equating themselves with Jesus, that's where we start to get into dangerous, self-indulgent territory. Brainard always stays on the right side of that fuzzy line. He's not Jesus, he's Luke, telling a story about Jesus. In the context of that, he takes on the character of Jesus and countless others, but he never loses sight of the fact that he's the storyteller, not the central character of the story.

We begin at the end, with Luke putting the finishing touches on the end of his gospel, tweaking words, testing phrases, then he loops back to the beginning. Which is a brilliant gambit because then we, as the audience, know where the story is headed. We can relax. We know what we're in for, and now it's just a matter of getting there. When those words reappear, in context, at the end of the show, they are that much richer, and a signal to us that we're reaching the end of the journey.

(Naturally, there isn't time in a Fringe slot for the entire story of Luke, but remarkably it doesn't feel like anything is left out. You feel like you get the whole story, all the "high points," enough to truly understand all the characters. And the recurring themes of fathers and sons, parents and children, those lost and recovered, dead and reborn, gain more resonance for the way in which they're arranged here. It's a well-crafted adaptation.)

The thing I admired the most about Brainard's performance, apart from his level of commitment, regardless of audience size, was its humanity. Jesus is, of course, a larger than life figure. Following a religious figure through his ministry to his betrayal by one of his own followers to his death by crucifixion and then resurrection it can be easy to lose sight of the simple human moments. The things that doubtless drew people to follow the man in the first place, and kept them loyal. His physicality as a performer is key in such moments.

A key example: The religious leaders of the time, the Pharisees, were questioning Jesus' choice to dine with tax collectors and sinners. (It always amuses me how tax collectors get their own category in the undesirables.) This confrontation provides Jesus with an opportunity to reach out to the Pharisees in parable. (Jesus was a storyteller, after all.) The one lost lamb, the one lost coin, the prodigal son. Tales in which a person, rather than be content with a loss, seeks it out, deems it just as important as those which didn't stray, and rejoices when it is restored to them.

Brainard has spread his arms wide as Jesus, a sinner under each arm. He steps away from them to tell these stories to the Pharisees. At the end, his Pharisee character rejects the story, and the storyteller, gets up out of his seat and leaves. Brainard then becomes Jesus, watching the man go. The man he has lost and still hopes to recover. He has failed. He returns to the sinners, spreads his arms wide and draws them back close to his side. But just for a moment, he keeps looking off in the direction of the person he just lost. The sadness in his eyes says more than words ever could.

If you want to see good storytelling, see Luke Comes To Life.

Very Highly Recommended.

Fringe Review - FLESH - Present State Movement - 5 stars

Damn.

Just... damn.

How do some people get the human body to *do* things like that? It boggles the mind.

As Mom is fond of saying, "I have trouble just walking across the room sometimes. These dancers, what they can do, they're amazing."

If this is what Tamara Ober and her talented dancer/choreographer friends can pull together as a last minute Fringe show with just three weeks' notice, it's almost not fair to anyone else imagining what they could do if they actually had time to plan.

Let's just get this one out of the way... FLESH is also truth in advertising. Flesh in all caps indeed. There is more taut, finely muscled flesh on display here than I've seen in a while (though this probably just means I don't see enough dance the rest of the year). Oddly enough, for me anyway, it wasn't a prurient experience. The human figure here is just beautiful to watch. Sure, you could sexualize it, quite easily. But watching these bodies move in space is more mesmerizing and hypnotic than anything else. They create stunning pictures that somehow transcend simple desire. Don't ask me how. Just watch for yourself and see if I'm wrong.

FLESH is five solo dance pieces performed by award-winning members of the Zenon Dance Company and the James Sewell Ballet.

Ober herself leads off with "One" (choreographed by Marta Ladjanszki). At first you're not even sure what you're watching. The lights come up slowly, and the human figure is contorted in a most unusual fashion. Tamara Ober's feet are bare and she's wearing ballet shoes on her hands instead, which is the first thing to throw off the eye. Turns out she's balancing on one foot and one hand, head down, with the second arm wrapped around her supporting leg. Her free leg is high in the air and for the first part of the dance the leg acts as an elongated neck, and the foot as the pivoting curious head of a beast, looking around at the audience. She holds this position for... holy crap, it just doesn't seem possible. Then she slowly unfolds and does the rest of the dance upright. Sometimes she artfully uses a ballet slipper clad hand to obscure her breasts, sometimes she doesn't bother. The whole routine is gorgeous.

Fascinating to me was the way many of these pieces played with our senses by using stretches of pitch darkness, and silence, or the sounds of a human body in motion rather than music. I'd notice myself almost holding my breath, for fear of breaking the spell. It was a great, unusual use of a kind of tension between audience and performer that I don't often experience.

A good example would be the next choreographer/performer Leslie O'Neill, who began her dance "These Years" hidden in a large claw-footed tub. She pounded on the sides of it in a slow, insistent rhythm until she herself slowly began to emerge into view. Her long hair obscured her face, cascaded over the side of the tub at one point. She scrubbed the tub vigorously, then laid back, legs spread impossibly wide. Slowly she seemed to me to be securing ribbons in her hair, but Mom really knew what we were watching. O'Neill was putting on a a slinky sequined dress hidden down in that tub. O'Neill started the dance with her upper body exposed but now when she stood to full height in front of a mirror by the tub, she was dressed for a formal night out. It was a great reveal, a nice simple bit of theater magic.

Choreographer/performer Laura Selle Virtucio, dressed in black, used the full width of the stage between two harsh white lights she would click on and off and redirect to cast her shadows in different directions for a piece entitled "Her Kind." She spent a period of time undulating on the floor then rose again to her full height, her movements - large or small - always vigorous and determined. The sound was an interesting blend of music and what seemed like animal sounds. At times, she even seemed to be using sign language. It was fascinating to watch her fill the space with different kinds of meaning.

In "Dressage" (choreographed by Judith Howard), dancer Nic Lincoln emerged slowly from a pile of blankets and fur to the sound of horses. It quickly became clear that he, too, was a horse. Then two imposing high heeled shoes appeared, as did Lincoln's costume - basically just a pair of fishnet stockings. OK, I begin to think, we're headed toward female impersonator territory. Nope. The music was there, the accessories were there, but those shoes were hooves. And every one of Lincoln's movements was that of a horse. In fact there were moments when you'd get a sudden picture in your mind, not of a human being, but of a horse, that's how evocative this movement was of its subject. Some people were inexplicably laughing at different points of this dance, which I could not figure out. Nervous laughter? Nothing he was doing seemed funny, or laughable. You're seeing a man's butt, honey, get over it. And that strut? You only wish you could pull off that strut. I'm not laughing at Nic Lincoln. That shit is gorgeous, and he could kick my ass.

Finally, choreographer/performer Amy Behm-Thomson's "secondaries" found her emerging in silence onto the stage in a long, flowing off-white lacy gown, cradling an enormous white bird/angel's (?) wing. After a while she gently placed it on the stage and then proceeded to sweep through the brightly lit space, accompanied only by the constant rush of the sound of wind. Sometimes she'd stand very still, moving her head slightly. Sometimes she'd be spreading her arms as if they were wings. Sometimes I actually though she might levitate.

Writing about dance is kind of ridiculous. It needs to be experienced. These five dancers did things I will never be able to adequately put into words. You really have to go see it for yourself. (And I obviously need to start seeing more of the work that Zenon and Sewell do year round because these dancers are amazing.) If there's a better dance show at the Fringe than FLESH, let me know about it because I want to go see that, too. But I'd be mighty surprised if such a show exists, because FLESH seems like an awfully hard show to top.

Fringe Review - Domino's Pizza Saved My Life - Dylan Fresco - 5 stars

Dylan Fresco is one of the smart people. He's a person who had the good sense to talk to the people who knew his family history before their memories started to fade. In Domino's Pizza Saved My Life, Fresco paints a vivid portrait of his grandfather, a man who came over from the old world to the new world, and as it turns out, just in the nick of time.

"People often wonder why I speak Russian..."

It isn't until almost halfway through the show that Dylan confesses that he never met his grandfather. The old man died when Dylan was still in utero. Which makes the telling of his grandfather's story that much more remarkable. What it also means is that Dylan comes from a family of storytellers, since his father provided Dylan with much of the information from which to reconstruct his grandfather's life.

"He only knew three words: Yes, Please, and Thank You."

I've often wondered about Dylan's unusual eyebrows and this production solves the mystery - for one of his jobs, he's a hospital clown. Though there is no clowning in this show, Domino's Pizza Saved My Life uses a lot of clown tricks, telling its tale with a great deal of humor, expansive physicality, and music. This is no dry travelogue or historical reenactment. There is a lot of warmth and laughter and humanity, all served up with an ever-present whimsical twinkle in his eye. The show wisely begins in the same fashion as his Fringe-For-All preview, with him singing and translating a Russian love song at the same time...



Humor and music are always great ways to pull an audience in, and Fresco's skill with song and guitar are just as nimble as his comic timing. (After hearing some people struggle just to carry a tune in other Fringe venues, it was most enjoyable to just kick back and have someone effortlessly sing me a song or two.)

"But that's another story..."

Though the tale of Dylan's grandfather is amusing and engaging, Domino's Pizza Saved My Life is mostly about Dylan himself. Everyone's life has some peculiar story embedded in it somewhere and Dylan's is no different. As a teenager, he went away to a summer camp that brought American and Soviet children together to help promote understanding and world peace. As the only boy interested in signing up for theater, he ended up as part of a singing group from the camp that toured up and down the east coast. And just as they were wrapping up the summer camp tour, the military tried to take over the Soviet Union. For a while, there was nowhere for his new Soviet friends to fly home safely.

"We were throwing down a lot of gas over there. You might want to take this other route..."

Years later, Dylan finds himself, along with a friend, in the middle of a different type of musical concert, all tied up in the protests surrounding the Republican National Convention of 2008 in St. Paul. The lesson of his teenage years returned - that you don't always have to know the lyrics, so long as you sing with enthusiasm with those around you. Dylan didn't intend to get swept up in the marches or the protests. In fact he nearly managed to escape when his friend insisted on a detour for some pizza. This seemed like a good idea, until the front window blew out and tear gas started pouring in.

"Little groups of police at the end of the street. Dressed in full riot gear. Just waiting."

Dylan's grandfather made the journey from the Soviet Union to America many years before, not to visit like those kids at summer camp but to make a new home. Since the extended family left the Soviet Union but not all of them left Europe, the shadow of the Holocaust fell on this family, as it did on many. (You didn't honestly think we were going to get through a family history of Jews in Europe without being sideswiped by the Holocaust, did you? No family's that lucky.) With such charged material, Fresco knows to exercise restraint. Less is more. Oddly enough, I think he might have even gotten away with still less. Right now he definitely knows how to fill a silence with story and jokes and song. Allowing a moment, especially one like this, to breathe, with no additional commentary needed, that's a trickier balance to strike. And probably a harder thing for any storyteller to trust. Wielding silence the same way he wields words, that's very likely the next step in his development. Sometimes you don't need to work as hard as you think you do to tie things up in a bow for the audience at the end. Sometimes the story speaks for itself.

"Are you press?"
"No, man. I'm a hospital clown."

I'm finding it very hard to write about this show in a coherent fashion because it does tend to leap back and forth and in time, with well-chosen song breaks to help aid certain transitions. It's easy, and enjoyable, to follow, just hard to reconstruct afterward. But then, that's why he's telling the story, not me. Domino's Pizza Saved My Life is how you do a one person show right.

Minnesota Fringe Festival Review - SCOTUS - Serious Hedgehog Arts - 4-1/2 stars

I've already mentioned that I had a really good feeling about SCOTUS! (Supreme Court of the United States!) in a couple of other places in this blog. Having seen the show now I can happily report that the show matched my expectations.

"It's a plot twist!"

Writer/Producer Brandi Brown was a delightful spokeswoman for her play, and that play is just as funny as she is in person. And just as smart. So smart, in fact, I'm a little intimidated, but that's a good thing. So often comedic political theater is dumbed down and overly simplified and, frankly, boring. It doesn't ask anything of me, so it doesn't get anything from me, nor I from it. SCOTUS! is a better breed of political comedy.

"The only reason the Founding Fathers put the right to bear arms second is that we needed free speech in order to demand that we be given guns!"

Chief Justice Smith (Danielle Siver) has received her exalted post at the head of the nation's highest court largely due to her experience with internet law, and her youth (guaranteeing that she won't be vacating her post by dying anytime soon). Her clerk (Jeannie Lander) is also her best friend and confidante. Her co-workers are a very mixed bag. Justice Winchester (Heather Stone) constantly refers to the intent of the Founding Fathers in ever more ridiculous fashion, though she's no unthinking dummy. Underestimate her at your peril. The central battle of wills in the play is between Smith and Winchester. Justice Frankwell (Peter Ooley) is a constitutional scholar who really just wants to break in to showbiz. Justice Hansen (Analiese Miller) is a fitness enthusiast and sports nut who struggles to juggle those passions with her career in law. Law often loses. The other justices have had to recuse themselves because of the nature of first case on Smith's docket (clever way to limit cast size there, Fringers!)

"It's a government shutdown, but don't worry. Everyone's still getting paid, it's just that nothing's getting done."

The case - Wisconsin, in a bid to lure the high tech jobs of the aerospace industry, has decided to repeal the law of gravity. Smith wants to know how drunk the legislature was when they passed this law. The recused judges also want in on that aerospace money, so they have to sit this one out. Providing running commentary, convenient backstory and other assorted exposition is the two person Greek chorus of Katie Berkus (Kate Urquhart) and Gregory Johnson (Greg Beltz), two velvety voices behind the news at National Elitist Radio (N.E.R. - Where we're a little better... than you.) The banter and mutual disdain of the two radio jockeys is an amusing counterpoint to the already amusing doings in court.

"Gravity. What's next, friction? It's a slippery slope."

Also hovering over the proceedings is the decision of whether or not to open the Supreme Court to cameras for the first time in its history. Smith is for transparency, Frankwell sees a link to the big time, Winchester knows the Founding Fathers would have none of it, Hansen doesn't seem to care much one way or the other.

"You can't do it all. You only think you can."

The play isn't so much a play as it is an extended comedy sketch. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It is a very funny and successful comedy sketch, and it doesn't stretch its premise past the breaking point. Brown has a lot of points to make and barbs to launch at her satirical targets and she does it with great skill. Matthew Glover directs the whole thing with a light touch that keeps things moving right along. The cast all seem to be enjoying the heck out of their roles, particularly Heather Stone as the formidable Justice Winchester. Her character is not easily outmaneuvered but when cornered, and she explodes, her titanic meltdown is a doozy.

It's probably not fair to ask for a lot of character development here. That was the only thing I was missing. The characters all only go so deep. This is largely an intellectual exercise, rather than an emotional one. The consequences are cerebral rather than personal. While it doesn't hit you in the gut or the heart, SCOTUS! sure does hit you in the funny bone, while also giving your brain a workout. That makes it a damn fine Fringe show.

Fringe Review - Red Hamlet - Red Theatre - 5 stars

Red Theatre worked hard for every one of the five stars in this review. My defenses were way up on this one. I was afraid I'd end up having to write a review in which I'd need to struggle to avoid using the word "pretentious" because, well, honestly, this...

"We take a wrecking ball to the fourth wall replace it with a mirror, blurring the lines between performer and audience, fact and fiction. It's bold, funny and poetic. It's Hamlet with a new heart and mind."

and this...

Trailer for Red Hamlet from Aaron Sawyer on Vimeo.

I was seeing Red Hamlet for the wrong reason - because it happened to be in a venue I was going to see another show in, and staying put to see this show seemed safer than trying to hoof it somewhere else. And the first night, I just can't bring myself to skip a slot on the schedule on the very first night of Fringe.

"I think I just saw a ghost. And I don't believe in ghosts."

But as much as I was already suffering from Shakespeare overload and, more specifically, Hamlet fatigue, part of my brain rebelled against the very concept of the production. Because I had utterly misinterpreted the concept of the production. In the back of my mind I was thinking, "If you're going to do Hamlet, then do Hamlet. If you want to do something else, then don't pretend you're doing Hamlet, ride on Shakespeare's back only partway and then hop off. It's annoying."

"...private, puking, iambic poetry..."

But they're not doing Shakespeare's Hamlet. One of the beauties of Red Hamlet is that you need to know exactly nothing about Shakespeare's version and it still works as a tremendously entertaining, and ballsy, piece of theater. (If you happen to know even a smidgen or more of Hamlet, well then there are copious little bonuses scattered throughout this one for you, the best of which is that you can tally up all the many ways that this is completely unlike any normal Hamlet you've ever seen. I was.)

"The scenery is not yet dry."
"Then you won't need to drink as much after chewing it."

Also, if you're familiar with Abbott & Costello's classic "Who's On First?" comedy routine, or the words of Yoda from "The Empire Strikes Back," or the ominous greeting of Inigo Montoya from "The Princess Bride" - there will be pleasant goofy surprises for you as well. But Red Hamlet is its own beast. Producer/Director/Writer Aaron Sawyer and his merry band of travelers sure know how to put on a show.

"I would say goodbye, but you are already gone."

They assembled and dismantled Robbie Jones' set in record time - a full stage with functioning red curtain, steps with secret compartments, and a rug that unfurls to give the illusion of a black and white checkerboard parquet floor. Half the actors pull double and triple duty performing multiple characters, making the ensemble of nine often seem larger than it is. The other intriguing thing is that this group out of Nebraska somehow managed to fully integrate three of our own local Twin Cities actors (Stacey Poirier, Randall J. Funk, and David Lind) into their ensemble as if they'd always been playing Gertrude, Claudius and Polonius (respectively) for Red Theatre. No easy trick there, and I only stopped to think about it after I'd seen the show. That's how well they all play together.

"Repeat motion. A dance. Desperate. Destructive."

In this version of the story, Prince Hamlet (Gage Wallace) is still grieving for his dead father (represented much of the time here by a vase with a single flower in it). Far from being sad that Hamlet's father is gone, however, Queen Gertrude and new King Claudius both feel like they should be congratulated for ridding their kingdom of a tyrant. Hamlet still loves the young Ophelia (Kara Davidson), though her father Polonius and brother Laertes (Steve Hartman) keep interrupting at the most inopportune moments. Hamlet's school buddies Rosencrantz (Aaron Ellis) and Guildenstern (Jeremy Short) still drop by to play the board game "World Conquest: Elizabethan Edition." Meanwhile, the vengeful Fortinbras (Colin Ferguson) draws ever closer to the preoccupied kingdom of Denmark. Hamlet doesn't want to start killing people, but once he gets the confirmation he feels he needs of Claudius' guilt, bodies start falling.

"Dear Courage, Please write back soon."

If you know how Hamlet ends, you still don't know how Red Hamlet ends. Where's Hamlet's closest friend and confidante Horatio, you ask? Replaced by Ophelia, to a large extent. The expanded role of Ophelia, and the centrality of the problematic romance between Ophelia and Hamlet amidst the palace intrigue, is a major strength of this production. Because they are writing a new script, not slavishly devoted to its source, no one gets a skimpy role full of wholes for which they have to make up excuses and paper over. There's no archaic phraseology the actors or audience need to struggle to understand. Nope, everyone's a well-rounded human being with their own agenda, speaking perfectly understandable, yet still poetic, modern English, and the plots and subplots all dovetail quite nicely into a package lasting less than an hour. Oh, and a sense of humor. Everyone has a sense of humor. Huge bonus there.

"I think now I could be king."

The script's way with language is often stunning. The cast's finely timed interactions in word and deed bounce between being achingly human and highly stylized with nary a hiccup. This thing is a real kick to watch.

But we are not just passive spectators. Audience interaction, always fraught with danger, is nimbly handled, mostly because the cast really is treating the members of the audience as another acting partner. Spectators in chairs aren't treated as props. The actors make eye contact, they assess. They don't hold back, but neither do they abuse their position of power. And I say this even though they tossed a glass full of water at my mother and me. Then Hamlet and one of the troupe of actors visiting the palace (Jeremy Short again), climbed up into the audience and perched on chairs right in front of my mother, making her the focal point of another exchange. Mom, ever a game Fringer, engaged by making faces. Knowing they had a willing accomplice, they focused all their attention on her and didn't spare me a glance. But you could see it in Short's eyes, right before he tossed the water at Hamlet's instruction, he was gauging just how far to toss it, so it would splash us, just not in the face. (Good arm, by the way.)

Red Theatre's Red Hamlet took everything I was convinced I didn't like about Fringe shows and turned it on its head and made me love it. After seeing this, I really wish they were local. Since they aren't, get your butt over to the Minneapolis Theatre Garage and see Red Hamlet while you still can. It's great stuff, you don't want to miss it.