Our 20 Fringe writers are reporting in daily with fresh reviews.
What did they like? Watch this page for their reviews (the links will appear below as soon
as they post) along with their picks: ? not seen yet, 1 – 5 ratings with 5 = ‘Best of Fest’)
Fringe Musical Scene Stealers, Part 1
Fringe Musical Scene Stealers, Part 2
The 2009 Capital Fringe shows
2 Shorts in Black and White: Count Dracula’s Café
2 shows: “Disorder” / “Plant Psychic”
Bare Breasted Women Sword Fighting
Billy the Kid: First Exhumation
Captain Squishy’s Yee Haw Jamboree! (the musical)
Catherine Gropper’s Miss Crandall’s Classes
Cirque Du’ Sapan: A Showcase of South Asian Arts (No review. Our sincere apologies.)
Concord, Virginia: A Southern Town in Stories
Dancing to Ancient Rhythms (No review. Our sincere apologies.)
Deconstructing the Myth of the Booty
Dizzy Miss Lizzie’s Roadside Revue- The Saints
Dorks on the Loose: Facey Facey Face Face
Freakshow
Good Enough for Government Work
Goodbye Love, Goodbye Joy, Hello Travis McElroy
Immoral Combat, a satire on the news business
Leave A Tone After The Message!!!
Life in Death: an Opera Electronica
Lila: The Love Story of Radha and Krishna
Pebble-and-Cart Cycle: one-line tragedies
Pepe! The Mail Order Monkey Musical
Please Listen; A Musical Chaos
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead
Self-Service (No review. Our sincere apologies.)
The Attack of The Big Angry Booty
The Bea & The Bug, Writing Stories, Wowser Bowser!
The Comic Roach: A Roadhouse Picture Show
The Elephant Man – The Musical
The Escapades of Farty Johnson
The Fall of the House of Usher
The Honest-to-God True Story of the Atheist
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
The Lost Ones by Samuel Beckett
The Quick Brown Fox Jumped Over the Lazy Dogs
The Real Adventures of Tom Mix
The Teacher’s Lounge or One Child Left Behind
The Terrorism of Everyday Life
Thou Shalt Not Kill: A Collection of One Acts
Two Girls (No review. Our sincere apologies.)
There doesn’t seem to be a way to leave a comment about a show until the official reviewers have spoken. Seems a bit limiting.
Hi, BobG
Click on the link on the page, which will tke you to the review.
At the end of the review is the comments section.
Just like on this page.
Lorraine –
Reread BobG’s comment. He wants to post a comment on a show that has NOT been “officially” reviewed yet. There are many shows with no reviews that some of us have seen and could comment on. At present, there is no live link for a show not containing a DCTS review.
Hmmmmm….
Sorry about that Bob.
For now, put your comments on this page.
Will think about a better solution for next week.
Be sure to see Uncorseted, the most polished and funny show at the 2009 Capital Fringe Festival. The play is a love story, a ribald romp of cross dressing and hidden identities and a rumination on what if means to live life unconstrained by societal conventions. The show, playing in one of the better Fringe venues, runs 30 minutes: like an orgasm its short and just as mind altering.
Come see Blues and Ballads – part of Cabaret Carousel by the In Series! My cheeks literally hurt from smiling so much during the show. It was definitely a foot-tapping finger-snapping great time! They sang lots of songs that you’re familiar with and just make you feel good. Can’t wait to see the other two cabarets – Bossa, Bolero, Tango! and Berlin and Broadway. But Blues and Ballads is definitely a show that is NOT to be missed!
Two Girls opens at The Bedroom this weekend–just in time for Mandela’s birthday (TODAY)! Two Girls, one black, one Jewish, come of age in the twilight of apartheid. We follow their incredible friendship and journey towards adulthood and wind up … where else? In Washington, D.C. Don’t miss this astounding and timely one woman show! Showtimes are tonight, 7/18, at 9pm and tomorrow, 7/19 at 7pm.
I join others who want to be able to post comments on specific plays as soon as they seen them, while they’re still fresh in their mind. I thought (or so the young man who handed out the flyers told us they were trying to do) that this website would offer more-or-less instant reviews of each offering, useful in determining whether to spend the hard-earned on going to see a show. I don’t know how many people will check here, in this comments section, to get that information.
And I do need to caution the play-going public about 2 shows I just saw:
A real stinker-oo is the “Pebble-and-Cart Cycle: one-line tragedies,” brought from New York City by the Terra Incognita Theater. The actors couldn’t be heard over the fans attempting to blow some fresh air around, and when they could they revealed a dismally sophomoric and not terribly deep series of obscure ruminations a la performance art, delivered a bit like junior high-schoolers.
The other, “The Foley Artist” (Zero Hour Theatre, Bel Air, MD) was a straightforward comedy that was simply not all that “uproarious” (to use the term in the blurb) and whose acting rose all the way to the talented high school level.
I know it’s a drag to give bad reviews to any productions in the Fringe Festival. This is all supposed to be so much fun, and why am I raining on everyone’s parade? But, well, if we don’t offer some thoughtful criticism, how’s the festival ever going to improve? And I know DC, lousy as it is with good theatre, can do better!
Come see Missing Pages — it’s the COOL thing to do. We now have 2 air conditioners and several fans for your comfort and enjoyment. We opened on Thursday to a full house and the show closed with a long standing ovation. Despite the heat the audience was entralled with our gripping tale as the mystery of what father and son really did during their wars unfolded.
Please let me know why my comment was pulled from this thread. I spent a lot of time on it just to have it disappear. Thanks.
[editor] Hi, Gene -
For some reason, your original comment ended up in our spam filter where I found it and just approved it.
Thank you, Editor! And I see Tim has now reviewed “The Foley Artist” and so I have written a longer comment on that show under Tim’s review.
Missing Pages. Best thing going. DO NOT MISS THIS PLAY. Top notch writing, acting, directing. Got a standing ovation from nearly the entire audience. The whole cast was good. Lynn-Jane Foreman was excellent, and Robert Leembruggen as the old man with Alzheimer’s gave the acting performance of the fringe. Or the whole city. Best performance we have seen this year.
Pebble and Cart Cycles: one-line tragedies:
Too experimental for me. I left at the intermission, as did most of the rest of the people who didn’t leave before intermission. The opening bit was an incomprehensible bit of I-don’t-know-what performed in SLOW MOTION. That’s what drove the first group of people to leave. It got slightly better thereafter, but not good enough to keep me there. My best guess is that this play was part of some theatre clinical trial designed to see what an audience would put up with before leaving. On that scale, the show was a success. Otherwise, it get a very generous 1 star from me.
Wow, Missing Pages is one of the best plays I’ve seen in years — do not miss it. I was completely captivated by this poignant and suspenseful new drama from playwright Susan Roth. The play presents a vivid portrayal of how the horrors of war continue to haunt veterans and their families long after war has ended. There are strong performances from the entire case, with Robert Leembrugen’s performance as a paranoid, Alzheimers-afflicted World War II counterintelligence agent a particular standout. As a new generation of Iraq war veterans return to civilian life, this play is particularly relevant and timely.
Anybody leaning on reviewers who were assigned certain shows and are not handing in their reviews in a timely manner? Lacking that, talk to your IT people and see if you can’t get them to create a page for each play and let folks comment on them without the official review being posted. I recommend this especially for next year. It’s obvious there’s a hunger out there for some kind of report on each offering, and we vox populi can fill in for a tardy reviewer. Try the Amazon.com review model.
I’m with you Gene. I have limited time and I’m trying to decide whether to see Elephant Man: The Musical, Jack The Ticket Ripper or Diamond Dead…Only one review is up for them…
I heard Diamond Dead was awesome and that their Saturday night audience wanted an encore. What could be bad about a zombie rock musical? I plan on seeing them Wednesday night and and am also anxiously anticipating their review.
I actually saw Diamond Dead on Saturday. It was the first fringe show that I’ve ever scene, and it was seriously amazing. We applauded for a few minutes when it ended, and I don’t think that it would have stopped if the cast hadn’t come back out! We didn’t get an encore due to time constraints, but we all got more than our money’s worth out of the performance. I’m surprised that there isn’t a review up yet, but from what I saw it deserved a 5!
Diamond Dead wants to THANK YOU Washington, DC, for voting us 2008 Best Musical Pick of the Capital Fringe, and for giving us the best send-off to NYC Fringe at CapFringe 09 we could ever ask for!
On your marks…
Get set…
Email DrDiabolicus@landlesstheatrecompany.org by 3:30 PM TODAY and receive FREE TICKETS to Diamond Dead at 6:00 PM today (7/2). As many as you want, in fact. We have a limited number, so first come first serve! You will receive a confirmation by 4:30 if you made it in under the wire!
The only catch… you must come prepared to rock (and sacrifice your soul).
Is The Sin Show more hype than art? Is that the reason you guys haven’t even bothered to review it?
[editor] Tim saw it last night. Look for the review tonight.
I was surpised not to see a review of the “Comic Roach: A Roadhouse Picture Show” at the Warehouse Theatre. My husband and and I went last night (7-23) and when it was over he said, “I wish it wouldn’t end!”
They use old time movies, with a small, speak-easy type orchestra playing and a blond “floozy” singer. Very funny and great music too!
Loretta Neumann
It’s a shame DC Theatre didn’t review Pirates of Penzance. I’m not a Gilbert & Sullivan fan, in fact this was my first G & S show. I enjoyed the excellent job the G &S Youth Company did with this work. Some of the cast had excellent voices and hopefully we will see more of them in future years. Ok maybe it was the youth of the cast but this show seemed to much like a high school production. And being done in a Church basement with cardboard sets was deja vu to my life in the midwest. With that said I would go to see more works by this young and talented group.
Dancing to Ancient Rhythms wasn’t reviewed yet. I went to the show this afternoon and enjoyed it. The dancing was excellent. I wish the one page program gave more background about the dances and the dancers. Since you didn’t rate this show I would give it a 4. The costumes deserve a 5. Great job, I’m happy I attended this show.
It’s also a shame that DC Theatre Scene wasn’t able to get a review up of Two Girls up before the Capital Fringe Festival ended. It was a great piece.
If you are in New York, go see it at the Midtown International Theater Festival, July 27 & 31, or August 2.
http://www.facebook.com/home.p.....amp;ref=ts
Are you intending to include all Fringe productions in your voting poll? I notice at least one missing…
Just counted. Only 44 shows out of 122 eligible for voting? Are you only including the shows graded a 5 by your critics (plus a few you didn’t review)? You leave out many shows (including mine, “Bad Hamlet”) that were sellouts, well-reviewed by other critics, and/or won Audience Voting Awards. Regardless of your criterion for inclusion, opinion is subjective, so it seems unfair not to include *all* shows. Why not let the voters decide?
Hi
I am trying to figure out how to read these reviews. When I click on the title all I get is photo.
techno challenged, pls help!
Hi, Tara -
We can’t seem to recreate the situation you describe.
Clicking on the title of show will lead you to the review.
Clicking on the rating, will lead you to a photo of a number.
I’m having the same problem as Tara for the home free review. It’s a bad link.
home free is fixed. Click away.
Jessica,
I took a chance on trying to see “Two Girls” although I saw no review. Unfortunately, I was not permitted entry since I was a few minutes late. Some Fringe venues were allowing latecomers, others were not. At least maybe DC Theatre Scene came by this omission honestly. Have you seen the strange blog at the DCist website about the “Immoral Combat” review? Do busy critics resort to this cutting-corners dishonesty when they are under a lot of pressure to submit reviews?
fairtrade –
You are right in guessing that our reviewer arrived a few minutes late, due to train delays. That theatre did have a strict policy about late admissions due – they said – to the fact that since the show was staged in the round it would be too disruptive to the actors and audience. We had hoped to review every show, but, even though everyone was very diligent, there were 4 we weren’t able to cover. Still, 118 isn’t bad.