Baron Dave Romm (barondave) wrote,
2011-08-06 07:48:00

2011 Fringe Festival Day 2: Ready… THRUST!

Continued from Day 1: An inauspicious beginning.

Leftover from Day 1: The Fringe has changed their policy, and media people such as myself can't write reviews on the web site.

I think this is a mistake for two reasons: First, my actual media credentials are from my radio reports which are not reviews. The reviews are part of my continuing coverage, so I have press credentials, but what I do for the Fringe contains multitudes.

Second, and more important: Too many shows "game the system", and have their friends write glowing reviews. You can usually tell these by how early they appear, and by the fact that the reviewer will have only written one or two reviews for the whole Fringe. I think the Fringe needs to weight reviews by Trusted Reviewer, in much the same way they have Fringe Tracks recommendations before the Fringe. I've written as many or more reviews for their site than anyone, and other media people have gone to many Fringes over the years. I feel that the Fringe is doing a disservice to their community by not including trusted and knowledgeable reviewers.

So there.

I'm a little discouraged. But the Fringe is too much fun, so I'll just keep posting here and in other places. I'll alter my Minnesota Fringe Festival archive accordingly.

Freed from the constraints of the Fringe web site'd format, I'm just going to combine all comments in one.


When you see a lot of Fringe shows, you don't so much "go to the Fringe" as "choreograph your day". Carole and I did today really well: Four shows in the same venue, the Rarig Thrust. Since I seem to be coming down with a bit of a cold, I was very happy not to have to go in and out of buildings.

The Smothers Brothers Grimm

xxx

Too geeky for this geek

You'd think I'd be their target audience: A geek who loves bending old stories, someone who has seen entirely too much Laurel & Hardy, Smothers Brothers, Bob Newhart and The Princess Bride. But no.

Smothers Brothers Grimm was fun, and the music was good. But it wasn't clever. It kept feeling like an information dump more than an alternate retelling. Maybe I'm just being a curmudgeon, or maybe I've written too many of these types of things. Partly, they didn't get the comedians quite right.

On the other hand, much of it worked. The overall structure -- a kid being read bedtime stories on the evening before his grandfather's funeral -- is a good way to hang these stories.

So: Recommended, but you have to be in the right mood.

Brain Fighters

xxx 1/2 which I'll round up to xxxx even through I don't have to

Two Magicians… make that Three Magicians

The English folk song Two Magicians is about a Questioning Battle of transformation. Like False Knight on the Road or the battle in The Sword In The Stone, Brain Fighters is a series of battles of transformations. This time, it's using Brain Power, not magic.

And it's all done by three people in jump suits, with no costume changes or much in the way of scenery. Three very capable actors take on dozens of charade-mimicry in front of a witty script.

Recommended for all Joe Scrimshaw fans, and for those who want to be swept into a different world for a while.

Robot Lincoln: The Revengeance (The Musical)

xxx… no… xxxx… no… xxx 1/2... oh okay xxxx

Amateurish, brilliant, brave and fringy

Robot Lincoln is one of the best High School musicals about a post-apocalyptic battle for the heart and soul of America I've ever seen. Carole and I sat next to David R, who didn't like it as much as I did, and I can't really disagree with his assessment: "laden with flaws".

Still, the level of production was evident almost right away (hey, look at the title) and I set my sights at their level. The script is ambitious; overly ambitious perhaps, but I give huge credit for trying and mostly succeeding. These guys are brave and fearless.

The actors aren't quite up to the roles, but they try. The costumes are fun. The singing is often quite good, though not all of them project well. The Thrust stage is used well.

Robot Lincoln is the most fringy show of the seven so far. It's difficult to imaging seeing the show anywhere else but at the Fringe. Once I had set my expectations to the amateurish level, I had a great time.

So I'm going to stick with the four kitty rating, but can't give it a high recommendation. Unless you like silly High School musicals. Which I do, sometimes.

Macbeth: The Video Game Remix

xxxx 1/2

Techno-geekery

Okay, Macbeth: tVGR was funnier than it had any right to be. Most of the jokes come at the expense of virtual role playing games; not really one of my online activities but I laughed anyway. The Macbeth jokes got different laughs than the gaming laughs; clearly, both audiences were served.

Unlike The Smothers Brothers Grimm geekery, M: tVGR was clever and superbly acted.

A good end to the evening.

Plans for today are likely to change. I'm still feeling less than 100% and Carole had a very full day on Friday and needs to catch up. I had scheduled five slots (out of seven possible) and we may pare that down to four or even three.

Continued in Day 3: Unexpected pleasures, old friends stumble.
Tags: fringe festival
  • Post a new comment

    Error

    switch
    default userpic

    Your reply will be screened

    Help
  • 10 comments

joshuwain

August 6 2011, 14:39:11 UTC 1 year ago

I will say, this, though: Robot Lincoln -seen through your eyes- is a better production than I gave it credit for being. I really appreciated talking to you and witnessing your glee -your sheer joy- at seeing those young performers really tackle such a big show. I was really glad you were there: you heightened my enjoyment quite a bit! :)

I hope I didn't give you my cold. It's been lingering for a week, now.

Hellendrung

August 6 2011, 15:42:42 UTC 1 year ago

Trusted Reviewers

I couldn't agree with you more about giving a core group of reviewers "trusted" status. Because it is impossible to see every show at the Fringe, it would unfair to weigh the votes for these trusted reviewers (because everyone will see, say, Scrimshaw's show, but not everyone will get to see some of the less talked about shows at smaller venues), but maybe they are italicized or in bold print so that folks know the Fringe, as an organization, trusts their opinions and they're not friends and family bustin' out 5 kitties for a crap show. I look forward to reading more of your reviews!

barondave

August 6 2011, 15:57:52 UTC 1 year ago Edited:  August 6 2011, 18:16:22 UTC

Re: Trusted Reviewers

An excellent example of what's lost is Mother Tongues. Carole and I were two of three (maybe four, counting a cast member's husband) to see the show on Thursday. It currently has no reviews, when it should have at least had mine.

calimac

August 6 2011, 16:49:07 UTC 1 year ago

The only reason I can think of for prohibiting media people from contributing to an otherwise open web site is some sort of concern over conflict of interest. Which really doesn't make any sense, for several reasons.

I find it difficult not to see the title "Robot Lincoln" as "Robert Lincoln" since Robert was a well-known figure in his own right.

dreamshark

August 6 2011, 17:00:54 UTC 1 year ago

Banning reviews from the most constant Fringe viewers is insane. As you say, the main thing that is NOT working about the online review system is that it is too easy to game the system and inflate. Banning the most trusted reviewers makes it that much worse. I glanced at the list of early reviews for Thursday shows and see that most of them are rated 4.5-5, which means that most of them are meaningless.

Where can I register my annoyance at this change?

barondave

August 6 2011, 18:16:05 UTC 1 year ago

Thanks.

I'm not sure who, if any one person, is in charge of this. I talk to Matthew Foster, Communications Director, who handled the media. A nice guy and a hard worker, who was around the Rarig yesterday doing Everything. The Fringe has a Contact Us page, though I'm not sure who reads it, or when. They usually have some sort of survey, maybe you could mention it there.

purplesquirrel

August 7 2011, 07:22:41 UTC 1 year ago

Where does it say that media people can't write reviews on the site? The rule says "so don't post reviews that appear in the press" which is not the same as "don't post reviews." I've got a press pass this year and have written several reviews already, all of which have been posted.

barondave

August 7 2011, 12:03:27 UTC 1 year ago

You might mention this to Matthew. My reviews from Thursday were up briefly, then taken down, and that was the reason given.

And then my posted reviews, ostensibly "news", are not linked to in the News section. I'm feeling a little like a wallflower here.

purplesquirrel

August 8 2011, 05:06:57 UTC 1 year ago

I'm not involved with the Fringe anymore, so I have no standing to address anything.

In your online reviews, did you mention your KFAI connection? If so, maybe resubmit them with that removed.

dreamshark

August 8 2011, 16:08:16 UTC 1 year ago

My reactions to the Scrimshaw brothers' shows was somewhat different. I thought the Brothers Grimm one was brilliant - one of the two best shows of the Fringe so far. I think it's a mistake to focus mainly on the fairy tale retellings, as most of the reviewers did. Sure, the description of the show focused on that, but they write those descriptions long before the Fringe starts and it's not uncommon for the final product to turn out quite different from the original concept. That's what seems to have happened here. The show I saw was a funny, poignant, well-acted play about how different people deal with loss and how loving families work out their differences. The fractured fairy tales were just little Easter eggs that illustrated some of the themes in a comical way, not the main focus of the show. I'm not sure why the framing device ran away with the play - possible when they realized what an amazing performer they had in young Andrew Moy. But I think it was a much better play for that.

As for Joe Scrimshaw - IMHO, he was just phoning it in. "Brain Fighters" was enjoyable because watching Joe and his buddies clowning around is always funny, but there wasn't any more to it than that. Lazy. I gave it 3 kitties, the lowest I've ever rated a Scrimshaw show. Not a total waste of time, but these guys can do better.