Candide – Four Humors Theater

“Go where glory awaits you!”

A comedy concerning floggings, rape, justifiable homicide, ship travel, Jews, Christians, mass murder, death, desire, and the general joy and suffering one finds within this, the best of all possible worlds.

Playwrighting wunderkind Nick Ryan adapts the Voltaire classic, slimming it down to 45 minutes. Brant Miller surfaces for the second time in the evening, this time as the hapless victim of two newfound drinking buddies who then enlist him in their army. This ends up getting him flogged repeatedly when he’s unable to deal with the noise from artillery practice. The comical flogging here took up about as much of the preview time as the gay-bashing in the Steel Kiss preview, prompting host Robin Gillette to remark at the end of the evening, “Thank you for attending this surprisingly violent Fringe-For-All.” There’s a reason that Fringe hits follow Four Humors around wherever they go. They’re good at what they do, and what they do is smart comedy. Bonus points for now insuring that the most unlikely people will be added to the list of those who know the basic plot of Candide.