Tailing the Fringe: more plays to catch
By Rob Avila
Here are a few plays especially worth checking out at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, but premiering too late for review: For more, see "Knuckballin'."
Exit Sign: A Rock Opera
SF musician and songwriter Carrie Baum’s autobiographical flight, glimpsed over the weekend, has some sentimental aspects but is frequently inspired, tuneful, heartfelt, and good fun. Showcasing a solid band headed up by Baum and her Gibson SG, two charming backup singers, and good acting-singing performances in the lead roles of a cool couch-potato father (a winningly down-to-earth Steffanos X) and his queer daughter (a sure and impressive Jamie Ben-Azay) on a TV-mandated mission to find “It” before an untimely death makes for one of life’s inevitable detours.
The Evelyn Reese Show
If Amy Sedaris were from Toronto, the town might not be big enough for her and Susan Fischer, whose character, the irrepressible Evelyn Reese, is a pitch-perfect social monster of hilariously garish proportions. At the same time, the skillful Fischer keeps her character solidly grounded in the most realistic idiosyncrasies; it’s hyperbolic but never anything but believable. And that’s what’s so terrifying.
It Is What It Is
This is a new multimedia drama about death, family dysfunction, and texting by Diane Karagienakos (Come Fly with Me Nude, SF Fringe 2004), which means it should be pretty funny, too. Directed by Kathryn Wood. Haven’t seen it yet, but the concept and the talent make me want to.
On Second Thought
Ditto the above. Haven’t seen Canadian Paul Hutcheson’s widely heralded solo silliness yet, and wasn’t necessarily planning to, but am now going on reconsideration of the title.
i Scan
Ditto the above ditto. Peggy Powell’s new play is helmed by SF actor, improv guy, playwright, director Dan Wilson, creator most recently of the hot and frothy “Sweetie” Tanya: The Demon Barista of Valencia Street. Wilson was smiling so widely about it at the Exit Café that I tend to think he’s swallowed a mouse.
To Kill For
Staged in the nave of Grace Cathedral, directed by the Bay Area’s Joy Carlin, and including some of the finest dramatic talent SF sports, this playlet easily qualifies as a must-see. Whether or not you’re high on Vertigo, and the celebrated 50th anniversary of the Hitchcock masterpiece this fall, this playlet contemplating how Hitch and (wife and writer) Alma Reville might discuss and remake Vertigo from aloft in heaven is smartly written by photographer Lucy Gray (whose gorgeous collage images, inspired by the characters in the film, grace the back of the stage) as well as genuinely funny and deftly acted.
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