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naomikritzerSo, the process of Fringe addiction runs something like this.
Year One: There's this thing called the Fringe Festival, and you realize someone you know is in one of the plays. They talk you into seeing it. (Or they tell you OH MY GOD PLEASE DON'T COME TO MY SHOW and you wonder what they're trying to hide and go anyway.)
Year Two: You realize the Fringe Festival is going, and you think, "hey, last year's show wasn't so bad. Maybe I'll check something else out." You find some reviews, note a few plays that everyone seems to think are the best thing ever, and go. They're AWESOME and you think, "maybe next year I'll come earlier."
Year Three: You realize the Fringe is coming up, check out the website, and realize that the people who put on the shows you loved last year have NEW shows in this year's Fringe, and you go see those. You bought a punchcard to save money and have punches left and see some other stuff...
Year Four: You buy an Ultrapass.
Well, except we don't buy an Ultrapass because we have to arrange babysitting to go without the girls so we can't overdo it as much as we'd like. We usually get my parents to babysit, and our fallback sitter is my sister. My mother is a Theater professor, my parents have bought Ultrapasses for the last two years, and my sister is also a Fringe fanatic. However, my parents took the girls Fringing last weekend, we hired Peg's daughters and convinced Karen to babysit twice, plus we took the girls to a bunch of stuff... anyway, we had a good Fringe year.
Mansion of Dust
About two professional dusters in a haunted (or possibly troll-infested) house. Funny; had dancing in it.
Best Little Crack House in Philly or Crack Whore, the Musical
We did NOT take the girls to this one (or Mansion of Dust, though that one would've been okay -- this one, not so much). It had the themes and sensibility of Trainspotting, presented in the style of Oklahoma! and was just about as offensive as you'd hopefully expect from the title. There were people who went who were rather shocked that it was a musical about crack whores; I'm not sure if they got lost and wound up at the wrong venue?
Parry Hotter and the Half-Drunk Twins
A one-man rendition/parody of all seven books. I took Molly to this the first night; it sold out (in fact, it oversold) and I think sold out every show for its entire run. (The guy who put it on should've sprung for a bigger venue. When you put your name in the Fringe Festival hat -- it's not juried, they hand out space by lottery -- you tell them if you want a big venue or a small one. The big ones cost more, but you get a portion of ticket sales so your possible profit is also higher.)
HILARIOUS. Rather inappropriate for kids Molly's age. I told her she wasn't allowed to demand an explanation for the jokes she didn't understand until the play was over, gambling that she'd have forgotten them by the end, and I was right. We did have a conversation in the car on the way home about the f-word, and how it was not one she was allowed to use until she was a lot older; ditto "douchebag." Ed tried to go later in the week and couldn't get in. Each Fringe venue has an "encore" -- the last show of the festival -- which is the show that sold the most seats over the course of the festival. Ed reserved a ticket for the encore in the hope that it would be Parry. (They announced at midnight, and Parry actually TIED with a show called "Sarah, Your Ovaries are Drying Up." They flipped a coin and Parry got it. Yay!)
Red Tureen
We'd gone to the Rarig to see "Two Sugars, Room for Cream," but we hadn't made a reservation and it sold out. The Rarig has multiple stages, though, so we saw Red Tureen instead. It was a musical about the Irish potato famine and it didn't really work. First, it was apparently a two-hour musical that they cut down to an hour to fit into a Fringe slot; as a result, there were things that did not make sense, and some major character developments apparently happened offstage. Second, the music was not particularly interesting and its sensibility didn't really fit the material, which is a funny thing to say given that we both liked the one with the singing crack whores who did a tap dance while talking about burying bodies in the back yard. The thing is, Crack Whore: The Musical embraced the clash; the disconnect between material and form was kind of the point of the show. Red Tureen mostly seemed kind of oblivious to it.
I decided today that part of the problem was that they'd embraced the wrong model. I'd say from the music that their favorite musical in the world is Les Miserables. I quite like Les Miz, but the model they should have picked was Fiddler on the Roof -- which also has a lot of upbeat music, but manages to work in the menace and danger as well.
Also, Red Tureen was set in Ireland, and its setting was key to the plot, and yet it really didn't feel particularly Irish. There was no Irish sound to the music (whereas Fiddler's music has a distinctly Eastern European Jewish Kletzmer sort of sound). It offered Irish stereotypes but no real sense of being in another culture.
On the other hand, the singers were amazing. Local theatrical unknowns tend to have a hard time recruiting a really strong cast when they mount Fringe shows; it's even harder if you have a really large cast. I don't know how these guys pulled it off, but they found an AMAZING set of singers.
The Tragedy of You
Fringe has certain name brands -- people who do shows every year and have an established, loyal audience. Joseph Scrimshaw is probably the headliner brand. (I'll note that if you were great last year but suck ass this year, word will get around fast and people will desert you in droves. One of the fun things about Fringe is the "buzz" factor, chatting with people next to you in line and swapping recommendations about what to see and what to avoid.) I think the first of Scrimshaw's shows that Ed and I saw was "Macbeth's Awesome Scottish Castle Party," a few years ago, which was possibly the single funniest play I have ever seen in my life; I mean, it could have been used as a deadly weapon against the Germans during WWII. I laughed so hard I pulled muscles and had tears streaming down my face, and thinking about the play months later was enough to make me laugh out loud. (Nothing he's done since has quite lived up to that, but it's all been good.)
In The Tragedy of You, he recruited an audience member (by having willing people drop their names into a bucket and drawing one out) and then structured the play around that person. Much of it was pre-scripted, but he would imitate the volunteer when portraying the hero, and would mine their responses for extra humor. For example, he would ask that person "what's something that's very important to you?" The response at another show was "Historic Preservation," so he set the play in "Historic Preservationland" and the encroaching enemy was an army of grubby, sticky children who would mess things up. The day we saw it, the guy said, "Acting," so Scrimshaw made it ActingLand and embraced the opportunity to make fun of the Fringe Festival; the enemy, of course, were theater critics.
Sideways Stories from the Wayside School
We took the girls to this one. This was another play put on by a group we'd liked in previous years, Four Humors Theater. Last year's show, Mortem Capiendum, was worth seeing, but the previous year's, Bards, was probably the best show I've ever seen at Fringe. Sideways Stories is based on a book series by Louis Sachar (best known for the Newberry-winning Holes) and was hilarious, and extremely well done. It had grownups playing children, which doesn't always work (it's hard; amateurs don't usually pull it off well) but was fabulously done, in this case. As a bonus, it had special effects. Fringe special effects are almost always worth seeing. (Not because they're good, mind you, but because they're hilarious. One of the most memorable examples was the fight on top of a moving train that was done in a Fringe show a few years ago, "Illinois Jane and the Pyramid of Peril." Several reviews noted that the fight on the moving train was worth the price of admission all by itself, and they were pretty much right.)
Comedy of Errors
This was outdoors, in the Bedlam theater parking lot. They cut it down to an hour, and yeah, it still worked. It had a really energetic, creative staging, and everyone spoke very clearly. We took the girls and Kiera actually liked it better than Sideways Stories, I think because she liked the way they staged it. They made no effort to cast the twins with actors who looked at all similar; they just put them in identical costumes and expected you to play along.
Squawk
This group put on Shakespeare's Land of the Dead last year, aka SHAKESPEARE WITH ZOMBIES, which was awesome. Squawk was about a U.S. Army officer in a Military Intelligence training program whose roommate is a penguin. I was thinking on the way home about the difference between science fiction and absurdism; in SF, they'd have felt obligated to provide more of an explanation for the penguin. The penguin was played by a puppet, with the puppeteers on stage; it worked really well as a character. The play was absurd, and pretty funny; worth seeing.
Something Witchy
Ed and I saw this tonight. The premise was that one of the girls from the Manson family avoided criminal charges, went on the run, and is now living somewhere in the midwest with a husband and a teenaged daughter. Then one day a man shows up, wanting answers about her former life and threatening her with exposure.
This play didn't get a ton of buzz, but we thought it was really good. The teenaged daughter was particularly perfect -- the dialog was written very well, and she really pulled off the role. The play was creepy and effective and generally pretty awesome.
Bard Fiction
Described in a separate post. This one also got an encore, so if you haven't seen it and want to (and are in the Twin Cities) go to the Fringe Festival website and buy a ticket!
Year One: There's this thing called the Fringe Festival, and you realize someone you know is in one of the plays. They talk you into seeing it. (Or they tell you OH MY GOD PLEASE DON'T COME TO MY SHOW and you wonder what they're trying to hide and go anyway.)
Year Two: You realize the Fringe Festival is going, and you think, "hey, last year's show wasn't so bad. Maybe I'll check something else out." You find some reviews, note a few plays that everyone seems to think are the best thing ever, and go. They're AWESOME and you think, "maybe next year I'll come earlier."
Year Three: You realize the Fringe is coming up, check out the website, and realize that the people who put on the shows you loved last year have NEW shows in this year's Fringe, and you go see those. You bought a punchcard to save money and have punches left and see some other stuff...
Year Four: You buy an Ultrapass.
Well, except we don't buy an Ultrapass because we have to arrange babysitting to go without the girls so we can't overdo it as much as we'd like. We usually get my parents to babysit, and our fallback sitter is my sister. My mother is a Theater professor, my parents have bought Ultrapasses for the last two years, and my sister is also a Fringe fanatic. However, my parents took the girls Fringing last weekend, we hired Peg's daughters and convinced Karen to babysit twice, plus we took the girls to a bunch of stuff... anyway, we had a good Fringe year.
Mansion of Dust
About two professional dusters in a haunted (or possibly troll-infested) house. Funny; had dancing in it.
Best Little Crack House in Philly or Crack Whore, the Musical
We did NOT take the girls to this one (or Mansion of Dust, though that one would've been okay -- this one, not so much). It had the themes and sensibility of Trainspotting, presented in the style of Oklahoma! and was just about as offensive as you'd hopefully expect from the title. There were people who went who were rather shocked that it was a musical about crack whores; I'm not sure if they got lost and wound up at the wrong venue?
Parry Hotter and the Half-Drunk Twins
A one-man rendition/parody of all seven books. I took Molly to this the first night; it sold out (in fact, it oversold) and I think sold out every show for its entire run. (The guy who put it on should've sprung for a bigger venue. When you put your name in the Fringe Festival hat -- it's not juried, they hand out space by lottery -- you tell them if you want a big venue or a small one. The big ones cost more, but you get a portion of ticket sales so your possible profit is also higher.)
HILARIOUS. Rather inappropriate for kids Molly's age. I told her she wasn't allowed to demand an explanation for the jokes she didn't understand until the play was over, gambling that she'd have forgotten them by the end, and I was right. We did have a conversation in the car on the way home about the f-word, and how it was not one she was allowed to use until she was a lot older; ditto "douchebag." Ed tried to go later in the week and couldn't get in. Each Fringe venue has an "encore" -- the last show of the festival -- which is the show that sold the most seats over the course of the festival. Ed reserved a ticket for the encore in the hope that it would be Parry. (They announced at midnight, and Parry actually TIED with a show called "Sarah, Your Ovaries are Drying Up." They flipped a coin and Parry got it. Yay!)
Red Tureen
We'd gone to the Rarig to see "Two Sugars, Room for Cream," but we hadn't made a reservation and it sold out. The Rarig has multiple stages, though, so we saw Red Tureen instead. It was a musical about the Irish potato famine and it didn't really work. First, it was apparently a two-hour musical that they cut down to an hour to fit into a Fringe slot; as a result, there were things that did not make sense, and some major character developments apparently happened offstage. Second, the music was not particularly interesting and its sensibility didn't really fit the material, which is a funny thing to say given that we both liked the one with the singing crack whores who did a tap dance while talking about burying bodies in the back yard. The thing is, Crack Whore: The Musical embraced the clash; the disconnect between material and form was kind of the point of the show. Red Tureen mostly seemed kind of oblivious to it.
I decided today that part of the problem was that they'd embraced the wrong model. I'd say from the music that their favorite musical in the world is Les Miserables. I quite like Les Miz, but the model they should have picked was Fiddler on the Roof -- which also has a lot of upbeat music, but manages to work in the menace and danger as well.
Also, Red Tureen was set in Ireland, and its setting was key to the plot, and yet it really didn't feel particularly Irish. There was no Irish sound to the music (whereas Fiddler's music has a distinctly Eastern European Jewish Kletzmer sort of sound). It offered Irish stereotypes but no real sense of being in another culture.
On the other hand, the singers were amazing. Local theatrical unknowns tend to have a hard time recruiting a really strong cast when they mount Fringe shows; it's even harder if you have a really large cast. I don't know how these guys pulled it off, but they found an AMAZING set of singers.
The Tragedy of You
Fringe has certain name brands -- people who do shows every year and have an established, loyal audience. Joseph Scrimshaw is probably the headliner brand. (I'll note that if you were great last year but suck ass this year, word will get around fast and people will desert you in droves. One of the fun things about Fringe is the "buzz" factor, chatting with people next to you in line and swapping recommendations about what to see and what to avoid.) I think the first of Scrimshaw's shows that Ed and I saw was "Macbeth's Awesome Scottish Castle Party," a few years ago, which was possibly the single funniest play I have ever seen in my life; I mean, it could have been used as a deadly weapon against the Germans during WWII. I laughed so hard I pulled muscles and had tears streaming down my face, and thinking about the play months later was enough to make me laugh out loud. (Nothing he's done since has quite lived up to that, but it's all been good.)
In The Tragedy of You, he recruited an audience member (by having willing people drop their names into a bucket and drawing one out) and then structured the play around that person. Much of it was pre-scripted, but he would imitate the volunteer when portraying the hero, and would mine their responses for extra humor. For example, he would ask that person "what's something that's very important to you?" The response at another show was "Historic Preservation," so he set the play in "Historic Preservationland" and the encroaching enemy was an army of grubby, sticky children who would mess things up. The day we saw it, the guy said, "Acting," so Scrimshaw made it ActingLand and embraced the opportunity to make fun of the Fringe Festival; the enemy, of course, were theater critics.
Sideways Stories from the Wayside School
We took the girls to this one. This was another play put on by a group we'd liked in previous years, Four Humors Theater. Last year's show, Mortem Capiendum, was worth seeing, but the previous year's, Bards, was probably the best show I've ever seen at Fringe. Sideways Stories is based on a book series by Louis Sachar (best known for the Newberry-winning Holes) and was hilarious, and extremely well done. It had grownups playing children, which doesn't always work (it's hard; amateurs don't usually pull it off well) but was fabulously done, in this case. As a bonus, it had special effects. Fringe special effects are almost always worth seeing. (Not because they're good, mind you, but because they're hilarious. One of the most memorable examples was the fight on top of a moving train that was done in a Fringe show a few years ago, "Illinois Jane and the Pyramid of Peril." Several reviews noted that the fight on the moving train was worth the price of admission all by itself, and they were pretty much right.)
Comedy of Errors
This was outdoors, in the Bedlam theater parking lot. They cut it down to an hour, and yeah, it still worked. It had a really energetic, creative staging, and everyone spoke very clearly. We took the girls and Kiera actually liked it better than Sideways Stories, I think because she liked the way they staged it. They made no effort to cast the twins with actors who looked at all similar; they just put them in identical costumes and expected you to play along.
Squawk
This group put on Shakespeare's Land of the Dead last year, aka SHAKESPEARE WITH ZOMBIES, which was awesome. Squawk was about a U.S. Army officer in a Military Intelligence training program whose roommate is a penguin. I was thinking on the way home about the difference between science fiction and absurdism; in SF, they'd have felt obligated to provide more of an explanation for the penguin. The penguin was played by a puppet, with the puppeteers on stage; it worked really well as a character. The play was absurd, and pretty funny; worth seeing.
Something Witchy
Ed and I saw this tonight. The premise was that one of the girls from the Manson family avoided criminal charges, went on the run, and is now living somewhere in the midwest with a husband and a teenaged daughter. Then one day a man shows up, wanting answers about her former life and threatening her with exposure.
This play didn't get a ton of buzz, but we thought it was really good. The teenaged daughter was particularly perfect -- the dialog was written very well, and she really pulled off the role. The play was creepy and effective and generally pretty awesome.
Bard Fiction
Described in a separate post. This one also got an encore, so if you haven't seen it and want to (and are in the Twin Cities) go to the Fringe Festival website and buy a ticket!
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Date: 2009-08-09 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-09 03:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-09 10:44 pm (UTC)We do not, however, have mild winters. Our winters really suck.
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Date: 2009-08-10 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-10 04:17 am (UTC)I like your point that it is much more like Fiddler on the Roof. When it was first rehearsing and I had not read the script my first thoughts were "Oh, so this is an Irish Fiddler on the Roof type of story." When the scenes are not seen in sequence, they did not seem as disconnected. I'd like to see how the whole thing works and whether it would work better that way and not seem as fragmented.
I wish I could have seen more Fringe shows this year.
(Hi, I attended the Advice for Young Writer's panel at Wiscon. I am a friend of your fellow panelist,
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Date: 2009-08-10 05:06 pm (UTC)I watched the production of Crackwhores that had an ASL interpreter. I kept trying to catch what crackwhore was in ASL, but I never quite did. Nonetheless, the interpreter was clearly enjoying the show - she had a huge grin on her face throughout.