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naomikritzerWe went to the Fringe again on Friday night, and saw Illinois Jane and the Pyramid of Peril. It was a spoof of Indiana Jones. Probably the best part was the fight on top of a moving train, which is even more impressive when you realize that a Fringe show generally uses a bare-bones set.
(There are some interesting exceptions to that statement. For example, there is a show in the Fringe this year that is set in a boat floating on the ocean, which is being performed at an actual swimming pool, in an actual boat, floating on actual water. Fringe slots are assigned by lottery, but a group that wants to put on a show also has the option of finding their own venue, in which case they can automatically be part of the Fringe. Apparently some businesses have contacted the Fringe to ask if they can persuade someone to put on a show at their location, as they think it would be good publicity.)
Molly and Kiera both really enjoyed it. Molly said she liked it even more than Cinderella.
I posted a review of Cinderella on the Fringe Festival web site, and noted that both my kids (one two, one five) had enjoyed it. Some snarky person pooh-poohed this review, insisting that their six-year-old couldn't summarize the plot, and therefore a two-year-old definitely wouldn't understand it. So just to be clear, when I say that Kiera enjoyed it, I mean that she sat and watched it with obvious interest, not that I think she followed the plot. I think it's too bad that the snarky reviewer apparently thinks that theater is wasted on those who can't follow the plot. We also read Molly the newspaper when she was a pre-verbal infant; she seemed to appreciate that, too.
For those who'd like to know how they managed a fight on a moving train in a low-budget stage production, I've included that under a cut.
They had a very short set of flats at the front of the stage that looked like the top of a train. They also had a set of four scenery flats in the back which were painted with scenery from Egypt -- palm trees, desert, distant pyramids, etc. Each of these background flats was being held by a member of the stage crew. When the fight started, they started playing a tape with the chugga chugga chugga sound of a steam train moving. The actors, on top of the "train," swayed like they'd just had a train start up under them. And the people with the background flats started moving to the left. The one at the far left stepped back, ran around behind the others, and popped up again on the far right, as the other scenery-carriers moved to the left. Then the next one to reach the left edge ran around the back and popped up again on the far right. (By "left" and "right" I mean my own left and right.)
This worked surprisingly well to suggest motion. But mostly it was really, really funny -- a send-up of the action movie "fight from a moving vehicle" scene and a joke about doing special effects on zero budget, rolled into one.
It also had an evil mime. Who was hysterically funny. Molly had asked last week what a mime was (she had overheard a conversation about the Fringe) and it was convenient to be able to point and say "see? THAT is a mime."
On the way home, I asked Molly what her favorite thing was that she did today. (In addition to the play, we went to the local park with some friends, she swam in the wading pool and played on the playground. Then we got to ride the bus and the train. Then we played on another playground, this one a half block from Mixed Blood Theater. Then we had dinner in a restaurant.) She initially said the play, then thought about it and said no, her FAVORITE thing today was finding a yo-yo and getting to learn how to use it. (I found a yo-yo lying on the ground on the boulevard by my house as we were walking to the bus stop. Molly had recently asked what a yo-yo was, thanks to a Boxcar Children book that featured a mystery that revolved around a yo-yo.)
For our post-theater dinner we went to Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant on Cedar Avenue. I have to admit, one of the things I really liked about this restaurant was that it had chicken fingers and fish & chips on the appetizer menu. Molly and Kiera are incredibly open-minded eaters but they won't eat spicy things, and almost all African foods we've tried have been too spicy for them. I like Ethiopian food a lot, so it was nice to get to eat it, and have something for the girls to eat, too.
We bought baklava for dessert and went back over to the playground near the Cedar-Riverside light rail station. This is right next to an enormous, extremely visually distinctive high-rise apartment building (it has these multicolored panels built into the sides). These days, this building is overwhelmingly lived in by immigrants from Somalia and Ethiopia. When we got back to the playground, there were probably 200 kids playing there -- all of them (except for ours) Somali. Groups of mothers were supervising; I think Ed was the only adult male at the playground, though we'd passed through a throng of men as we returned from Cedar. Ten minutes later, the playground abruptly cleared out; there were maybe twenty or thirty kids left. The sun was just setting; Ed and I speculated that one of the buildings nearby was in use as a mosque, and everyone had gathered for communal Friday prayers.
Incidentally, the baklava available at the hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean Deli on Cedar Ave is $1 per generously-cut triangle and it's good. We had Holy Land Deli's baklava last week, and we both liked this baklava better.
(There are some interesting exceptions to that statement. For example, there is a show in the Fringe this year that is set in a boat floating on the ocean, which is being performed at an actual swimming pool, in an actual boat, floating on actual water. Fringe slots are assigned by lottery, but a group that wants to put on a show also has the option of finding their own venue, in which case they can automatically be part of the Fringe. Apparently some businesses have contacted the Fringe to ask if they can persuade someone to put on a show at their location, as they think it would be good publicity.)
Molly and Kiera both really enjoyed it. Molly said she liked it even more than Cinderella.
I posted a review of Cinderella on the Fringe Festival web site, and noted that both my kids (one two, one five) had enjoyed it. Some snarky person pooh-poohed this review, insisting that their six-year-old couldn't summarize the plot, and therefore a two-year-old definitely wouldn't understand it. So just to be clear, when I say that Kiera enjoyed it, I mean that she sat and watched it with obvious interest, not that I think she followed the plot. I think it's too bad that the snarky reviewer apparently thinks that theater is wasted on those who can't follow the plot. We also read Molly the newspaper when she was a pre-verbal infant; she seemed to appreciate that, too.
For those who'd like to know how they managed a fight on a moving train in a low-budget stage production, I've included that under a cut.
They had a very short set of flats at the front of the stage that looked like the top of a train. They also had a set of four scenery flats in the back which were painted with scenery from Egypt -- palm trees, desert, distant pyramids, etc. Each of these background flats was being held by a member of the stage crew. When the fight started, they started playing a tape with the chugga chugga chugga sound of a steam train moving. The actors, on top of the "train," swayed like they'd just had a train start up under them. And the people with the background flats started moving to the left. The one at the far left stepped back, ran around behind the others, and popped up again on the far right, as the other scenery-carriers moved to the left. Then the next one to reach the left edge ran around the back and popped up again on the far right. (By "left" and "right" I mean my own left and right.)
This worked surprisingly well to suggest motion. But mostly it was really, really funny -- a send-up of the action movie "fight from a moving vehicle" scene and a joke about doing special effects on zero budget, rolled into one.
It also had an evil mime. Who was hysterically funny. Molly had asked last week what a mime was (she had overheard a conversation about the Fringe) and it was convenient to be able to point and say "see? THAT is a mime."
On the way home, I asked Molly what her favorite thing was that she did today. (In addition to the play, we went to the local park with some friends, she swam in the wading pool and played on the playground. Then we got to ride the bus and the train. Then we played on another playground, this one a half block from Mixed Blood Theater. Then we had dinner in a restaurant.) She initially said the play, then thought about it and said no, her FAVORITE thing today was finding a yo-yo and getting to learn how to use it. (I found a yo-yo lying on the ground on the boulevard by my house as we were walking to the bus stop. Molly had recently asked what a yo-yo was, thanks to a Boxcar Children book that featured a mystery that revolved around a yo-yo.)
For our post-theater dinner we went to Red Sea, an Ethiopian restaurant on Cedar Avenue. I have to admit, one of the things I really liked about this restaurant was that it had chicken fingers and fish & chips on the appetizer menu. Molly and Kiera are incredibly open-minded eaters but they won't eat spicy things, and almost all African foods we've tried have been too spicy for them. I like Ethiopian food a lot, so it was nice to get to eat it, and have something for the girls to eat, too.
We bought baklava for dessert and went back over to the playground near the Cedar-Riverside light rail station. This is right next to an enormous, extremely visually distinctive high-rise apartment building (it has these multicolored panels built into the sides). These days, this building is overwhelmingly lived in by immigrants from Somalia and Ethiopia. When we got back to the playground, there were probably 200 kids playing there -- all of them (except for ours) Somali. Groups of mothers were supervising; I think Ed was the only adult male at the playground, though we'd passed through a throng of men as we returned from Cedar. Ten minutes later, the playground abruptly cleared out; there were maybe twenty or thirty kids left. The sun was just setting; Ed and I speculated that one of the buildings nearby was in use as a mosque, and everyone had gathered for communal Friday prayers.
Incidentally, the baklava available at the hole-in-the-wall Mediterranean Deli on Cedar Ave is $1 per generously-cut triangle and it's good. We had Holy Land Deli's baklava last week, and we both liked this baklava better.
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-13 10:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-13 10:56 pm (UTC)