Fringe By Numbers: The End

And so it goes... the 2008 Minnesota Fringe Festival is behind us and it was good.  I wrapped the thing up seeing three shows, which were all chosen due to various obligations.  I'm not going to do full reviews of these.  But here in this entry I'll mention a couple of things about each, as well as give them the standard treatment of a rating and a Ten Word Summary.  Thereafter, it'll be time to share some final thoughts and say goodbye.

"Secrets of the Little Yellow Diary" was one of Christopher O. Kidder's favorite shows this year. Be sure to check out our Fringe in Photos slideshow gallery for pictures from this and other shows, afterparties and more. Image by B FRESH Photography.

Day 11 - 5:30 p.m. Time Slot

My first show of the day was Secrets of the Little Yellow Diary.  I'm really glad this show had a final Sunday performance.  Patty Nieman's play was all that I would've hoped.  She is talented, fun to watch, and tells a tale of what it is to be 12-going-on-13 remarkably well (probably because it was written by a 12-going-on-13 year-old).  The songs were superb.  The arrangements were el-neato.  And for reasons that I'm not completely sure of, I started to cry when she pulled out her green dress-clad Scarlett O'Hara doll.  The show is simple and innocent and wonderful.  It's a reminder that though four-letter words reign supreme at the Fringe by sheer overwhelming volume, a good script will win out over vulgarity any day.

Rating: d20 = One Of The Best

Ten Word Summary: Twelve year-old Patty loves boys and theater.  It's Superb!

Day 11 - 7:00 p.m. Time Slot

The second show of the day was (lifeseed) by Nic Hager.  The cast (and the writers for that matter) were primarily from the U of M's BA program.  I went to see this to support Kate Gunther who starred in my company's 2006 Fringe offering.  This play had some beautiful images in it, but generally it proves another of my theories.  For whatever reason, students at the university level latch on to former theatrical movements as if they are new ideas and latch-on hard.  It seems that at the U of M, someone forgot to tell the students that absurdism wasn't terribly successful commercially, and there's a reason that it is no longer considered cutting-edge.  Please, folks, try to find what is new rather than rehash this style over and over.  It's taught as history for a reason.  This play was a mess.  While the ladies in it are skilled, and the imagery (as mentioned before) was quite beautiful in brief glimpses, the overall presentation was a cluster of disjointed, disconnected and meaningless drivel.

Rating: d6 = Has Some Merit

Ten Word Summary:  Dreams and leaves and blood and picnics left me uninterested.

Day 11 - Encore Slot

I look forward to the encore slots every year because it allows me to catch one show that I've heard great buzz on that I didn't get a chance to see due to the dice rolling.  I did try to make it to Nosdrahcir Sisters, but they sold out just before I got up to the ticket table.  Instead I got to see Musical: the Musical!  This play didn't live up to the hype for me.  There were solid performances turned in.  The direction, choreography and the air of spoofiness (that's a new word... it's mine!) were all good.  But, the script itself was predictable and easy.  Meaning:  I was ashamed of the audience laughing at some of the jokes.  They were ones that you could see coming miles away, and they weren't that funny to begin with.  I got the feeling that people had been told that they should enjoy this show and so they did so because of peer pressure.  The best thing I can say about this show is that it will clearly keep one of my favorite small theatres well funded for a while.  You should go out of your way to see plays by Urban Samurai any other time.  Producer Aaron Christopher is terrific, and director Mattew Greseth ranks highly on my list of directors whose work I'll go out of my way to see.  Their last show, American Apathy, was far better that this Fringe offering.

Rating:  d8 = Not Bad, Not Great

Ten Word Summary:  Muppets Take Manhattan did same spoof better 25 years ago.

Some closing thoughts...  There is a lot of hype surrounding the Fringe Festival.  It is now headed into its 16th year.  A lot has changed since I produced my first Fringe show back in 2000.  Back then Dean J. Seal was still in charge of the festival.  The internet wasn't a factor in promotion, the venues included a number of theatres that don't even exist any more, the festival hadn't yet reached its immense media presence and gargantuan size, and the cast of Audish was just learning to read!  In my time on the staff of the Fringe, as a reviewer of the Fringe, and an artist in the Fringe, I have come to love the changes that arrive each year and with each new Executive Director.  There is a perception that because the media presence is huge, that the organization must be, too.  It really isn't.  The small group of people who pull this thing off each year are an amazing assemblage of folks. 

I'm already looking forward to next year's festival.  I'm also looking forward to the sleep that I'll fit in between now and then.  The frenzy of Fringe is welcome once a year, but not that it is done... oh, sweet respite!

Finally, here's the links to my compiled lists of ...ratings ... and ... Ten Word Summaries!

Until next year!