Fringe Festival Reviews: Part II
Image credit: Joey Ford
Recommended by the Editor
Minnesota Fringe FestivalMinnesota: Finally Famous stereotypes and personifies the cities we live in
By Morgan Halaska
Minneapolis is giving other cities that fancy themselves the gayest or the hippest or the most bicycle friendly a solid run for their money. And I bring up other cities because Daniel Ducharme, Mercedes Plendl, Robert Korsmo and Troy Osswald portray the cities of New York City, Minneapolis, Portland and San Francisco (with no coinciding show program, it’s tricky to tell who is precisely what). The show is ripped from the cyber headlines—a likely reason for its popularity. Which is not surprising in the least; people love to celebrate their city’s superiority. But because of that, the show would never succeed anywhere else (good thing it landed a venue in Uptown). Clever and cute but combatively amateur and two-dimensional, the production is good for a laugh or two but not much more.
Bryant Lake Bowl
Monday, 8/8 10 p.m.
Wednesday, 8/10 8:30p.m.
Friday, 8/12, 4 p.m.
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Both bawdy and heartbreaking, I Love You (We’re Fucked) celebrates the vagaries of romance
By Will Wlizlo
I Love You (We’re Fucked) is a hilariously honest one-man show by Kevin J. Thornton, a comic and musician from Los Angeles via Nashville and southern Indiana. Thornton riffs on the vagaries of love with sassy stand-up and down-and-out bluegrass in what amounts to a vignette of awkward amorous encounters and break-up stories. Thornton’s anecdotes touch on religion and politics, gay life, tragedy, denial, promiscuity and pop culture. But it’s not meant to be too heavy—all of these topics are sprinkled with penis jokes.
Magic is a recurring theme throughout the show. Thornton, an engaging storyteller, describes the first tingles of attraction, the unmapped possibility of new relationships and the blindsiding randomness of breakups as something approaching sorcery. Love, when it’s pure and hopeful, is white magic. Love, when it’s bitter and rotten, is black magic.
Thornton interrupts the fun for a series of “Blood Stories.” He recounts a car crash he witnessed as a youngster, a decapitation on a Greyhound bus in Canada and a frightening sexual experience all in (for lack of a better phrase) gory detail. Although they seem out of place, the Blood Stories reinforce the theme of I Love You: that life throws brutal, inexplicable jabs all the time—and you’ll never see them coming.
Most of all, I Love You (We’re Fucked) brings an old Alfred, Lord Tennyson quote to mind: “I hold it true, whate'er befall; / I feel it when I sorrow most; / 'Tis better to have loved and lost / Than never to have loved at all. “
HUGE Improv Theater
Monday, 8/8 8:30 p.m.
Friday, 8/12 8:30 p.m.
Saturday, 8/13 2:30 p.m.
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Your Responsibility for Sex Failure: Scandalizing the 1960s one sketch at a time
By Becki Iverson
Anyone familiar with women’s magazines knows that the advice columns, particularly those focused on health, are some of their most entertaining features.
After finding some hysterical doctor’s advice in a few “long forgotten pulpy women’s magazines from the 1960s,” Mary Certain collaborated with pal Heather Meyer to put together Your Responsibility for Sex Failure, showing at the Minneapolis Theater Garage.
The loose plot revolves around a doctor’s treatment of several female patients’ questions about sex, his bad relationship with his wife and his mixed feelings for his nurse. The cast as a whole is excellent, particularly co-creator Heather Meyer and Fringe newcomer Debra Berger.
The play runs like a shortened Mad Men episode, complete with ‘commercials’ of real magazine advertisements in between scenes. The ticket price is worth it just to see the audience’s reaction to an advertisement for ‘Evening Foam.’ (Go ahead and guess what it is.)
Making the best of otherwise cringe-worthy moments, Your Responsibility for Sex Failure kicks off with a bang, and the old columns that provide the basis for the script are not only rib ticklers but truly thought provoking. The show’s essence is probably best summed up in a quote by the doctor, who quips that “being a woman today is no longer a disability, but a challenge.”
Your Responsibility for Sex Failure runs into trouble when the plot takes over the vignettes and a ridiculous scenario provides the catalyst for the end. Despite this quibble, there is a lot of good material here, and with more time to develop a longer script this could easily become the sexualized counterpart to Church Basement Ladies.
Minneapolis Theater Garage
Wednesday, 8/10 10 p.m.
Friday, 8/12 7 p.m.
Saturday, 8/13 8:30 p.m.
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The Beasts is a dystopian comedy complete with weird puppets
By Morgan Halaska
Ben Egerman is, it would seem, a jack of all trades. Besides some onstage logistical assistance from a masked man, Egerman creates two communities (one human, the other not) with nothing more than minor costume changes and cardboard visual aids. The relationship between man and animal is explored deeply and originally when a sheltered, post-apocalyptic society must decide collectively whether or not to open their doors to the outside world where they will be made vulnerable to “the beasts.” These so-called beasts are similarly confronted with the enigma of the human race. The character transformation Egerman makes in each monologue encompasses everything from political and dark to droll and quirky; The Beasts is a satisfying Fringe treat.
Augsburg Studio
Wednesday, 8/10 7 p.m.
Thursday, 8/11 10 p.m.
Sunday, 8/14 1 p.m.
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