Roofies in the Mochaccino

by Phillip Andrew Bennett Low • August 7, 2008 • I’m at a bit of a loss as to what to say — I’ve already reviewed so many of the pieces that make up this show at the dozens of showcases he’s performed at leading up to the performance.

Womb With a View is the blog of Phillip Andrew Bennett Low, one of five bloggers covering the Minnesota Fringe Festival for the Daily Planet.

Much of his comedy hinges on pop-culture references, and there’s a real artfulness to it — there’s a reason that one word will work where another won’t, and it has to do with both the sound that it makes and the image it evokes — there’s a reason “Jim Morrison” is the right joke where “Jimi Hendrix” wouldn’t be. There’s also a surprising sentimentalism here, underneath all of the filthy, filthy jokes, and at least one piece that seems to be played almost totally straight.

Glancing around at his audience numbers, I hope that he’s not on the way to becoming another Dean Hatton — a brilliant, funny, hardworking performer who just can’t seem to get an audience. I’m sincerely baffled — this guy should be a Fringe hit, and I don’t understand why he isn’t. Is it the poetry stigma? Is that all it is? Because that’s pretty lame.

Phillip Andrew Bennett Low (maximumverbosityonline@gmail.com) is a playwright and poet, storyteller and mime, theatre critic and libertarian activist, who lurks ominously in the desert wilds of St. Louis Park, feasting upon the hygienically-prepared flesh of the once-living. His main claim to fame is probably as co-founder of the Rockstar Storytellers, and as founder/producer of Maximum Verbosity, a garage-band-like theatre troupe that is in a state of constantly re-defining itself.