Thursday Fringe recap and reviews

by Kate Hoff • August 8, 2008 • Damning the traffic on Washington Avenue, I arrived a few minutes late to Les Kurkendaal’s The Attack of the Big Angry Booty showing at Interact. Les is an engaging storyteller, perfect for the intimate space at Interact. This year he’s focusing on the universally identifiable theme of weight loss – his own and that of the clients at the weight loss center where he works in LA. His story has the uncommon ending of success. Last show Saturday at 8:30.

Full Frontal Fringe is the blog of Kate Hoff, one of five bloggers covering the Minnesota Fringe Festival for the Daily Planet.

With new toes, I checked out Numbers Up! presented by John Leo (Brooklyn, NY) at Minneapolis Theatre Garage. It’s a clown show. John seems like a pretty good clown, as clowns go. The show was a long, slow, drawn-out lead-up to a stunning, insightful conclusion…which never materialized. I’m going on record as saying this clown show is not without merit, but it is without a point. Does that make me anti-clown? Heresy. Last show Sunday at 2:30.

The finale of my evening was Gone, Gone, Gone presented by Monica Rodero and Daniel Schuchart at the Southern Theater. This show has received a lot of buzz, and for good reason. I think I could watch Monica read a book and understand the story. She’s subtly, elegantly expressive. Though my eyes, she was the center of the show.

Bob left the show lukewarm about it. Bob prefers dances that are rhythmic and flawlessly synchronized…or on a pole. The more we talked about it, though, the more he acknowledged how perfectly they conveyed the joys and struggles of relationships…I recounted the scene where Monica carefully made a lovely paper towel man and Daniel kept coming by and ruining it, oblivious, so she’d put the towel man together again, only to have it ruined again and again. Art imitates life. Most excellent. Last chance Friday at 5:30 and Saturday at 1:00.

Kate Hoff is a fundraiser, printmaker, and alternative-theater denizen. Her prints were included in the Visible Fringe show in 2004—also the year she began blogging about the festival. A few years, countless blog entries, and a hundred-some Fringe shows later, Kate joined the Fringe board in early 2008. The views expressed here are hers alone and do not represent the official position of the Fringe (unless noted).