Minnesota Fringe – Day 1 Round Up

It is Fringe season and my nerdy, theater-loving heart is already full. As the first day wraps, I find myself grateful for productions that come in at a tight 45 (let’s just say that I’m biking from place to place and might have been over-confident in my ability to tackle a 25 minute bike ride plus bike locking and unlocking between shows) and am now frantically rearranging my show schedule so I can cool it on the ride times. Biking is fun, but nervously checking my watch toward the end of a show and calculating how fast I’ll have to pedal is…less fun.

My first day’s sampling of shows included a lo-fi Christmas mystery; a highly produced, drag infused homage to a 1962 film; and two one-person shows that, in spite of their many differences, served as such a good reminder that you never know what hilarious, thought-provoking life experiences the people around you might be sitting on.

I am looking forward to more in the next ten days and I am already feeling stuffed and happy.

Secrets Under the Christmas Tree – a DeeDee Wallaby Mystery (Open Eye Theatre)

Secrets Under the Christmas Tree is a fun, quippy play that serves up a quaint Christmas in August aesthetic alongside a healthy dose of drama. Come for the many Christmas sweaters, the Charlie Brown tree, and the maroon mini dress. Stay for the intrigue – DeeDee Wallaby has four mysteries to solve and less than an hour to do it.

I attended the first performance and there were some palpable first-night jitters, but our audience had a great time and I’m confident that the pacing and punchiness of Secrets Under the Christmas Tree will tighten up throughout the run. The cast was fun – Abigail Blue (Jody) and Faith Christine (Serena) make a sweet couple and Emma Johnson (DeeDee) and Dylan Ward (Bernard) both have great comedic timing and command of the stage.

I do have two small criticisms with the writing of the play. The first criticism is partially tied up in a spoiler, but I think I can safely say that the plot twist around the lesbians felt a little male gaze-y. The second criticism is more straightforward: the kind of comedy that delivers passe misogynistic jokes as laugh lines and points out the misogyny as a tag is outdated. There was a palpable uncertainty in the audience on if they should laugh at the sexist joke, wait for the tag, or just not laugh at either.

I recommend Secrets Under the Christmas Tree – a DeeDee Wallaby Mystery for people who like whodunnits, Christmas, and the Adventures of Tintin.

Looking for Justice (in all the wrong places) (Bryant Lake Bowl)

Looking for Justice is a one-woman, autobiographical show about narrator Amy Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer elucidates the formative moments in her understanding of her sexuality (sometimes helped and sometimes hindered by her peers), what drew her to a career first as a lawyer and then as a judge, and finishes the show with a remembrance of a young woman and a young man whose complicated story of justice has haunted her for fifty years.

Oppenheimer has put together a nuanced, thought-provoking show about the grayscale nature of justice, the institutions that form our ideologies, and her life as a woman, lesbian, lawyer, judge, mom, and human just trying to do the right thing. She alternates between directly addressing the audience and recreating scenes from her life, in which she plays every character. Although I sometimes wished she had a sharper distinction between characters, her storytelling is effective and feels like a cozy, fireside chat.

I recommend Looking for Justice (in all the wrong places) to anyone who is interested in justice, history, and a conversational theater experience.

DIVINE / GYPSY (Barbara Barker Center for Dance)

DIVINE / GYPSY poses a very serious artistic question: What if beloved drag performer Divine and John Waters had taken on the classic 1962 musical comedy Gypsy? What if Rose Hovick had been a drag mother instead of a biological one? The answer to those questions is campy, colorful, and over-the-top.

The writing in DIVINE / GYPSY is sharp, funny, and self-aware. (There is also a twist ending for anyone who is familiar with the musical.) The overall drag aesthetic and seamlessly incorporated drag performances make me long for a new genre of drag musical theater. Every actor’s performance made it clear that they were having just as much fun as the audience.

Hailey Woolverton (Mama Rose) is a powerhouse. Her face acting is on point, her comedic timing is second to none, and her drag performances were bold and delightful. Cam Crawford (Louise / Gypsy) was also a delight. He embodied the progression of awkward girl to fully possessed young woman perfectly and probably gave the performance of the night with a risqué drag performance that included two cans of beer and a blow-up swimming pool.

I recommend DIVINE / GYPSY to anyone who loves drag, John Waters, and anything over the top.

Material Boy Living in a Madonna World (Strike Theater)

Material Boy Living in a Madonna World is a one man show by Jason Schommer that fills an entire hour with Schommer’s love of and near brushes with pop music idol Madonna. Schommer tells his stories at the breakneck pace of an enthusiastic superfan and includes a hilarious PowerPoint presentation that features photos of himself, Madonna, and at least one pie chart. Schommer is charming, enthusiastic, and great at adding the occasional ad-lib into his meticulously written show.

Although part of my delight with this production might be that I attended a 10 PM show and we were all feeling a little giddy, I am also comfortable saying that this is a show that will have you laughing from start to finish and might just have you talking like a podcast at 2x speed and tuning into your favorite Madonna tracks when you leave the theater.

I recommend this show for anyone who likes Madonna, PowerPoint presentations, and people who like listening to other people monologue about the things they love most.