I hope you’ve been reading CityBeat’s online commentaries about Cincy Fringe shows. Our writing team has covered every opening and occasionally cited productions especially worth seeing. As of Sunday, nine Critic’s Picks have been awarded. Two of them have closed — God of Obsidian and Mind Mechanics — to head off for other festivals. But seven continue to run.
Place/Setting, assembled by the local performance art group Pones Inc., takes on the polarizing topic of immigration by using three actors, nine dancers, four choreographers and a documentary video featuring 14 immigrants living in Cincinnati. The venue (1201 Main St.) is ringed with long tables and set with plates, bowls and utensils made by local ceramicists. Divided into three segments — like courses of a meal — the show reinforces the universality of the human experience by exploring immigrants’ fears regarding arrival in an unfamiliar place, moves on to meal preparation as a common thread between cultures and concludes with food being shared between performers and audience members. In my review I wrote, “We hear a clear message: ‘You make the United States better.’ America is the sum total of all who come here.” You can still see it 6:30 p.m. Friday or 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
Paul Strickland’s monologues are Cincy Fringe must-see events. Ed Cohen wrote that Balls of Yarns “felt like a modernist Our Town seen from one man’s perspective.” The “weird-larious one-man musical adventure” features Strickland “singing duets with a squeaky door (in harmony, no less)” and using inventive storytelling and Folk-style music. If tickets are still available, it’s onstage 9 p.m. Friday and 6:30 p.m. Saturday.
Sue Cohen enjoyed another fine storyteller, Bil Lepp’s Totally Untrue Stories, full of “well-written, side-splitting ruminations about growing up in 1980s rural West Virginia in the town of Half Dollar.” As a five-time winner of the West Virginia Liars’ Contest, Cohen wrote, “He might be a liar, but Bil Lepp is the real deal.” Catch him 8:30 p.m. Friday or 4 p.m. Saturday.
Ed Cohen called The Great Invention, featuring Jess Bryant and Peter Seifarth (Panda Head Theatre from North Carolina) “a complete, exhilarating joy.” Speaking “fluent gibberish,” they collaborate to convert random trash and a grocery cart into an invention of transportation. “There’s a surprisingly complex story along the way, involving their actual journey (and) their relationship.” Travel with them 7 p.m. Friday or 9 p.m. Saturday.
Describing Jim Hopkins’ one-man show White Privilege, writer Nicholas Korn said, “You might not think you want to listen to a huge shirtless white guy with a big belly, big beard and big shock of wild white hair talk about race for a full 50 minutes — but trust me, you do.” There are chances left at 7 p.m. Thursday and 6:30 p.m. Friday to see “the whitest man in America” (who happens to be a veteran performer at Cincinnati Shakespeare Company) underscore “a great deal of embarrassment in how our country stumbles and sins when it comes to people of color.”
Bart Bishop suggests that theater “can utilize its setting like no other medium.” Home, he wrote, “is basically a horror movie, and yet what makes it truly stand apart from the standard thriller or slasher (film) is the fourth-dimensional aspect that the stage allows.” Cincinnati playwright Ben Dudley’s script is meant “to mess with the audience,” telling a story about Rachel, a blocked writer who’s apartment-sitting after a home invasion. With a lot of paranoia and angst, the show offers surprising depth for “a simple one-room murder mystery.” Catch it 6:30 p.m. Wednesday or 8:30 p.m. Saturday.
In Sean Peters’ review of Spy in the House of Men, a solo performance by transgender artist Penny Sterling, he wrote, “Sterling’s talent is in subverting expectations while garnering a lot of serious laughs. It’s a heartfelt, comedic confessional. Sterling’s ability to guide the audience through her life’s story is profoundly sophisticated.” Despite the show’s heavy subject matter, there’s “much joy in Sterling’s performance.” Last chance: 2:45 p.m. Saturday.
Some of these might be presented once more on Sunday if they earn “Pick of the Fringe” recognition. Check cincyfringe.com for details.
CONTACT RICK PENDER: rpender@citybeat.com
This article appears in Jun 7-14, 2017.
