The 2009 Cincinnati Fringe Festival wrapped up on June 6 with approximately 200 people jammed into Know Theatre's bar space, the Underground. It was a festive finale to the sixth annual event's successful 12-day run. Two days before the Fringe was over, the festival’s ticket goal was met; final attendance was approximately 6,600, spurred by a 140 percent increase in pass sales over 2008.   

This 55-minute, group-created "show" is all very earnest. It's intense and painfully angst-driven. But it's pop-psych drivel that Dr. Phil would be ashamed to spout.  

I didn't expect to say this, but the primary reason to see jan street dance theatre's 'Bibliography of Love' isn't the dancing but the spoken word. Three men and two women present innumerable vignettes on the topics of love, gender and relationships, blending a few present-day scenarios into their historical love letter and poetry recitations.  

Three agile, committed performers defy convention, if not always gravity, in this self-described "multi-media, aerial art masterpiece," done in an "avant garde style" — in other words, no clear story, an off-putting score of atonal Electronica, random (but strangely mesmerizing) projected video and a colorful costuming scheme pitched somewhere between circus and sadomasochism.  

To showcase its intern company, Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati has annually contributed a show to the Fringe that features these young performers in scenes by established playwrights or self-written pieces on a particular theme. This year, with a talented set of interns (five 23-year-old women plus a director) they undertook a more coherent piece of theater that has truly paid off.  

Perhaps the most striking thing about this performance is the juxtaposition of the two lives, gay men born 20 years apart. The two men don't interact, but they trade off speaking time, and their experiences comment on each other. The resulting synergy makes the whole greater than the sum of the parts.  

Go prepared to laugh with little letup. A single actor/athlete uses well-honed skills to both re-tell and lampoon Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 film, 'The Seven Samurai,' in which good prevails over evil but at great cost to both losers and winners.  

You might have seen similar artworks while strolling around Summerfair this weekend: a creative idea, an appealing palette, an artful frame. But an unfinished composition. In 'Painted,' six talented and likeable performers (most CCM students or recent grads) color one another, literally, with the experiences of a lifetime.  

There's just not a lot of opportunity to see one-person shows over the course of our local theatrical season, save for the Fringe. So while it's initially easy to walk away from 'No Stranger Than Home' and wish for something more dramatically interesting, more produced, there is something about the stripped down, uber-low budget presentation that hits home.  

Let's get it out of the way right now: 'The Success Show' succeeds. But then, staging a send-up of a business motivational seminar offers a wealth of material to choose from, and writer/director Michael Comstock does an 80/20 job of making it pay off.