Saturday: Dance, discovery, hypnosis, Lieutenant Penguin, and one of the funniest guys around.

by Kate Hoff | 8/2/09 • Saturday, what a day…and I couldn’t get out of the house to save my life. The 1:00 time slot came and went, and then the 2:30…and after fueling up on an Anodyne bacon sandwich, I went to see You/Provoke/Me at the Rarig Proscenium, presented by Same Planet Different World Dance Theatre. I really loved this atmospheric, lush dance show of five different dances. Beautiful and sexy, this is an incredible show and I recommend it very highly.

Next to Pipa created and performed by Tamara Ober at the Rarig Xperimental. I’m destined to be distracted through Tamara’s shows. Last year, she was in the Gypsy and the General, where I sort of lost track of the story because I was sitting close to the audio describer, and although I couldn’t actually hear him, I wondered what his description was like. In this year’s very lovely, dreamy story, I was distracted by the children in the audience who had running commentary throughout. Pipa is a sweet show, and Tamara is a joy to watch: incredibly athletic and almost reptilian in her movement. I loved the closing sequence of images projected on to her body. Really cool.

I’m a little fascinated by hypnosis, so I was excited to check out The Comedy Hypnosis Show presented by hypnotist Katie Knutson at the Playwrights’ Center. The audience got to participate in a short hypnosis test and from there the show subjects where selected. I don’t want to give too much away, but it was clear that either a significant number of the volunteers were actually deeply hypnotized, or else a bunch of people were convincingly playing along.

I was charmed by the penguin in the Fringe-for-All preview of Squawk presented by Walking Shadow Theatre Company at Gremlin Theatre. The penguin is really awesome (though I was a bit distracted by the puppeteers wearing fatigues; all black would have been less obtrusive). It’s a nice gimmick that just goes on a little too long. There are inconsequential inconsistencies in the story…can the penguin drive, or not?

Turns out the dash between Gremlin and Mixed Blood is fast and easy. Just a couple minutes. We handily made it for An Intimate Evening With Fotis Part III presented by Mike Fotis at Mixed Blood Theatre. I love Mike’s work. Hysterical, lightening fast storytelling, with funky musical accompaniment by Jen Scott on bass. This show is going to be appealing to a very wide audience. Don’t miss it.

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).