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San Francisco Fringe Festival
Contra Costa Times August 31, 2001 (Pat Craig)
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Fringe benefit: Wild theater
PAT CRAIG: ONE HAND CLAPPING
San Francisco's annual serving of the unexpected can be quite a treat
ONE OF THE BEST byproducts of theater -- or books or movies, for that
matter, but since this is a theater column, let's just stick to that -- are the
long-lasting memories created when something stunning unfolds before your
eyes.
The memories come in several categories, such as encounters with legends --
Katharine Hepburn and Marcel Marceau come to mind here; or earthshaking
moments that either change the way you think about things or send theater
exploding into a new and exciting direction -- the first ACT production of
"Tartuffe," for example; Moises Kaufman's "Gross Indecency: The Three Trials
of Oscar Wilde"; "Ragtime" and its innovative approach to musical comedy;
plus a handful of others that seem to come along every few years.
The third category is a little bit more complicated, and a whole lot more fun --
the mind-blowing, often bull-goose loony, always cutting-edge sort of
grass-roots theater that comes when creativity marries low budget and
produces soaring and unpredictable offspring.
You see it a lot in improvisation, and certainly during the '60s and '70s, when
confrontational political theater could pop up and assault you on street
corners. Now one of the best places to encounter this sort of free-form
insanity is at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, which opens Thursday and
runs wild, occasionally in the streets, for 10 days.
This is about as far as you can get from the big-ticket touring Broadway
shows, or even the fare at ACT or Berkeley Rep. It is theater without a net;
theater with nothing to lose, and everything to gain. It's often very, very good or
very, very bad, but win or lose, it's always an exciting way to spend an
evening.
The eclectic nature of the festival is assured by selecting the acts by lot.
There are no auditions, no prerequisites or anything like that. Acts simply
submit their names, and if they are selected, they are booked into one of the
handful of theaters housing the shows.
Tickets are $8 tops, and you can buy a 10-show pass for $55. The only rule is
that pieces must run an hour or less, but outside of that, you pretty much get
this cosmic combo of a theatrical pizza.
In all, there are 53 acts from around the world on this year's Fringe schedule.
A good number of them are local, but several travel to get to the festival, which
is headquartered at the Exit Theatre on Eddy Street.
Looking at some of the shows offered gives you an idea of just how eclectic
the offerings are (a full list can be found online at www.sffringe.org). On the
more conventional side, there will be a production of Edward Albee's "The Zoo
Story" and Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland." But beyond
that, it gets a little bit bizarre.
A sampling of that side includes "What Big Teeth You Have! Or, Little Red
Bites Back," "The Condom, the Cucumber, and the Girl From Ipanema,"
"Kreskinned" (a play about "post-hypnotic suggestion and other blind date
dilemmas"), "Queens!" (a visit with 16 of Shakespeare's queens, played by
two actresses, in less than an hour), "The Last Smoker in Berkeley" and
something called "Shared Skitless."
Venues include the two Exit theaters at 156 Eddy St. and on Taylor at 277
Taylor St., the two Phoenix II theaters at 655 Geary St., and several "bring
your own venues," scattered around downtown and the Mission District. For
complete information, go to the Web site or phone 415-673-3847.
RIDING THE MERRY-GO-ROUND: You often think of Rodgers and
Hammerstein as this sort of postwar musical juggernaut creating shows every
couple of years, from "Oklahoma!" right on through "The Sound of Music."
But the duo actually split up temporarily after their smash with "Oklahoma!,"
which means "Carousel" (being revived by Diablo Light Opera Company, and
opening at the Regional Center tonight) is actually an R&H reunion show.
It's based on Ferenc Molnar's drama "Liliom," and the duo first had trouble
with turning such a tragic show into a musical, but some artful surgery -- such
as moving the location from Hungary to New England (allowing them a chorus
of fishermen and mill workers) and keeping the leading man, Billy Bigelow
sympathetic, despite major character flaws -- helped.
They succeeded admirably with the first, though I still have trouble
sympathizing with old Billy. On the other hand, with a score like the one in
"Carousel," Billy could be Hannibal Lecter and it really wouldn't matter that
much. Whether you like the story of "Carousel" or not, it's the music in the
piece that has kept the show vital for more than a half-century.
Essentially, the musical is about Billy, a carousel operator, his growing love
for Julie Jordan, a more innocent factory girl, and the troubles they encounter
in their often tragic relationship. While the relationship is turbulent, the tunes
are as smooth as whipped cream.
The show includes such songs as "If I Loved You," "June Is Bustin' Out All
Over," "You'll Never Walk Alone" and the moving "Soliloquy," sung by Billy as
he muses about his impending fatherhood, among other things.
The DLOC production of the musical plays at the Dean Lesher Regional
Center for the Arts through Oct. 6. Tickets at $28, with youth, senior and
group discounts, may be reserved by calling 925-943-SHOW.
Pat Craig is the Times theater critic. He can be reached at 925-945-4736 or at
pcraig@cctimes.com.
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