Word of mouth is such a powerful tool at the Fringe. Post-performances usually include the casts recommending shows to the audience to see later, or asking the audience to spread the word if they enjoyed it. All of which is helpful when faced with the decision of what to see at the Fringe (over 4,000 results can be a little unnerving). When I heard the high praises of this performance from my peers here, I had to see what all the fuss was about. As I was mentally preparing myself to walk in, I was greeted from the stage by the actors and was graciously thanked for coming to their show. A very nice touch, if you ask me. I always appreciate seeing the characters out of character to create a more personal feel. If I like them as a person and as an actor/actress, then I know I have seen a remarkable show.

The show was not a sold-out one by any means, which I think always makes the performers slightly lackadaisical. I really felt these vibes at the beginning but as the actors got into the groove, it really kicked off into the performance everyone was raving about. The audience participation found its niche right there. Whenever I see a show with great results in audience participation, I know that the actors are skilled in their abilities. There was the perfect blend of humor and sensitivity. My heartstrings were being tugged, but with a smile on my face. As a woman watching another woman on stage not being able to do something she has the full capability to do because of her gender was angering to watch. However, without this detail, the show would not have a driving force. Three men go on a journey of exploration to the Arctic in a balloon that flies free. A woman, the love interest of one of the three men, is forced to stay behind because “society would not be okay with a woman partaking in such an expedition”. Forced to stay behind and going mad, she tries to find solace and hopes that they reached their destination. 

My Love Lies Frozen in the Ice was one of my favorite performances at the Fringe. The actors really fell into their roles and it did not feel over-rehearsed. I was impressed with the writing; there seemed to be room to move within the script. Not all the lines were set and memorized. It was funny at times, and then dramatically beautiful. There was a raw truth to their performance. True love and true madness; where one falls from the other. From a more detailed perspective, it touched on 19th-century medical science and what that means for the contemporary world, national pride, and what becomes of a good adventure. 

I would see this performance again if not for the sheer talent that is incredibly evident. Witnessing the raw emotion and the tears that came to their eyes at certain points convinced me that what the audience experienced and what the performers left was a gift.

Well, I am just going to go ahead and say it. This performance was f****** terrible. I include that curse with purpose because the performers could not seem to get enough of using it. It does not look very professional in writing; try listening to it for an hour. My first complaint. Swearing has a time and a place and can be very effective when needed. However, that was not executed here. 

At first, I had high hopes for this performance upon walking in. The pre-life execution was excellent. There was creepy background music; think Freddy vs. Jason or Halloween style with some additional moaning incorporated. Seated at center stage was what appeared to be the (scarecrow?) cradling and stroking a dead fish menacingly. Promising, I know. When Dorothy came out on stage being played by a man, I was excited about the new spin. I thought it was going to be refreshing… and then he started speaking. And then the show started progressing. I think that the only way I can describe it is to think about yourself taking LSD and then watching the Wizard of Oz on a bad trip. It sounds horrible, but it is the best comparison I have. Think Oz gone crazy. Oz gone mad. Oz gone dystopian. 

The plot follows Oz as if it were in a dystopian society. Dorothy and her friends never found and defeated the Wicked Witch of the West and they were abandoned by the Wizard himself. Dorothy still has not made it home, and everybody holds resentment against each other for not being able to find the Witch and defeat her. Now, they’re on the Yellow Brick Road eating the innards of a rabbit (the sound of chewing guts included) and arguing with each other. Incidentally enough, I sat in the first row closest to all of them and it truly felt like the arguing was directed at me. Exploring deeper, this may be because the actor and actresses did not intertwine themselves with each other. They did not bounce off of each other like in some other performances I have seen. It was low energy, but loud screaming to compensate for it. In some parts throughout the performance they did audio from the original movie with spooky music in the background of that. Toto did not have dog barks for communication, but rather a human-robot voice. Also, imagine Toto not as a dog, but as an animal from a Tim Burton movie on the stage. Creepy, I know. You should have seen the eyes. 

After the performance, I instantly remember thinking, “Well, there goes another childhood movie ruined for me.” I was sad to say goodbye to such a special movie I held dear to me for so long. This performance had so much potential. I would have loved to see a horror version of The Wizard of Oz! Horror doesn’t need to be disgusting and distasteful, which is exactly what I found this to be. The theater company had its own merchandise and website. That helped build their ethos significantly. Lesson learned: You do not need to have talent to be established. I most certainly would not see this again, nor would I tell anybody else to.

Whatever you do, do NOT push the button. Naturally, what do two curious clowns do? They push the button. Repeatedly. This button pushing was the start to what seemed like an absolutely ludicrous show that turned into the sex education class that everybody missed out on. 

As I was mentally preparing myself for a good laugh coming in, I forgot to prepare myself for the important lessons that I would potentially take away. Seeing a clown show just made me think that it was going to be goofy and humorous. Nevertheless, these girls set the scene for something sexy very quickly with the hip-hop music and dance moves. They tackled the most important sex education/sexual health topics that no one gave you in your health education class in school. All while dancing, grinding and using blow-up condoms. 

This show resonated with me because there was an actual storyline with it. The clowns were 13 years old just turning 14 and it was time for their first sex education lesson in school. Overhead, there was a voice playing that was meant to be a school teacher. In the audio, just about every word that had to deal with the male/female genitalia was bleeped out. I think the performance purposely meant to send this as a message or as a metaphor for what it is like being in school and having a teacher try to teach sex ed to you, even though they’re not really addressing the grit of the topic. Moreover, they used real stories from girls describing their first time having sex, embarrassing school stories, etc. In turn, the clowns would dance/perform the next topic that the girls touched on. 

What really surprised me was that they played on each of the puberty stages that a woman experiences and sexualized them. I’m talking physical uteruses, tampons, and silly string that quite frankly, wasn’t used like silly string. Humor set aside from this, the performers also touched on a major political topic: tampons being taxed. Some governments do not consider it a necessity (even though it falls under basic female hygiene needs) and therefore puts an added tax on it. I was not expecting to see a topic like that brought up in a clown comedy performance, but I am glad it was. 

The intent to involve the crowd occurs in this performance as well. Personally, shows that involve the crowd always keep me on my toes just a little bit more than the ones that do not. There was an entire impromptu scene involving one of the men from the crowd, who was actually acting as their mother trying to give them an idea of what sex is like. That alone should spark your interest! Quite brilliant, actually. 

“2 Clowns 1 Cup” left me in thought, a fit of giggles, and a smile on my face. The amount of creativity, cleverness, dirty humor and hilarious vulgarity in this performance is enough alone to make me want to come back and bring all my friends with me. And remember, whatever you do, always push the button. 

According to the basic laws of the Fringe: the later the performance is the more likely it is to be for more adult audiences. Now, if you are Donald Alexander, this means that you just wanted to be the headliner of the evening. Truly, I cannot find a fallacy in his logic. At 23:15 we were ushered into a dark, hot basement room packed with folding chairs. When a room is full of chairs for a performance, usually that means it is quite popular. A good sign for the girl who bought random tickets to a random show. 

To provide some background, I have never seen a stand-up show in person; which, in theory, makes my opinion a little more unbiased than the next person. Jeff Dunham, Gabriel Iglesias, Kevin Hart are some of the leading names in American stand-up comedy, which are pretty vulgar examples compared to what the rest of stand-up comedy has to offer. After seeing “Donald Alexander: The Great”, the biggest lesson to be taken away from the show is that there does not need to be excessive swearing to make something humorous in stand-up comedy. 

First and foremost, when Donald Alexander walked out and upon the stage, I truly did not think that he would be able to get on the stage without losing his head. This man could clear the ceiling if he was on his tiptoes. This detail is quite important because for the duration of the show he used the lankiness of his body to create humor. He did this by bending, squatting, going against the wall and stretching his legs, and swiveling around. His persona made him easily likable and amusing even without performing. 

Donald Alexander has this whimsical storytelling capability that some stand-up comedians lack. In solo comedians shows, oftentimes comedians walk through the show by telling joke after joke; sometimes losing the storyline that follows the humor. Throughout the entire show, he flowed effortlessly through each story, punchline, and quip. He remembered what he had said before so that he could use it later, and set us up for the joke so that we felt like it was our right to laugh too. What made him so likable is that he laughed along with the audience. If I were to make a guess, that is a tell-tale sign of a good comedian. His stories never became too disgusting or offensive. The purpose was not to offend the audience, but rather for us to see things from his perspective; which happens to be an absolutely hilarious one. His stories were easy to perform because he had lived through all of them. When stand-up comedians try to tell jokes that they have no personal relation to is when the show starts to lose its humor. For the audience, it is as if now we know somebody to whom this horrendous and hilarious story has happened and now we find it funny as well. I think that that’s part of the psychology of why stand-up comedy is so humorous to whoever listens. After doing some background research on him, typically Mr. Alexander does not perform the same show twice. He keeps refreshing and reviving. This was very easy to tell. He wasn’t too practiced by any means. 

Donald Alexander reminds me of that lanky, awkward younger brother that constantly wanted to be by his sister’s friends when she had sleepovers. Maybe this is what makes him so likable to the audience. I highly recommend this show to anyone looking for a good laugh and a few bittersweet moments.

After spending yet another day at the Fringe, I have learned to get into the groove of prepping myself before I see a performance. First: read the description of the performance. Second: Figure out what kind of performance I’m seeing so I know how to respond as an audience member. Third: Go in with an open mind. Now, after completing all of these things, I walk into Sea Sick. There is a chalkboard (which automatically speaks educational undertones to me) and a glass table with a pitcher of what looked like water and a glass of water right next to it. My mind is trying to piece together the symbolism of the glass table and the relationship between the glass and water in the space they share. Also, what in the world is this folk music doing playing overhead? All of these things circulated in my mind until the performer, Alanna, emerged and started speaking. She had a very solid voice, but a twang of nervousness as she skipped a few periods and forgot to enunciate the ends of her words. Despite this, her actions spoke louder than her words with her deliberate movements, careful lighting, and the well-placed scene changes.

Whenever I see a performance I always try to pinpoint the exigency of it. Some are harder to pinpoint than others. But, when that woman walked in and was honest with the audience saying she would rather us not know the side of her she was about to tell, it resonated with me. If not now, when? If not here, where? We are the vessels that carry the stories. And in this performance, carry we did. Alanna took our humanity from us and molded it into a more compassionate, loving, and forgiving essence; then, she gifted it right back.

Science.

Art.

Storytelling.

Performance.

How can these things possibly find equilibrium with each other? In Alanna’s performance, they do through curiosity and exploration. She takes us on a journey across the world and down into the depths of the ocean. Typically, anything scientifically related can confuse one who doesn’t study such topics. However, Alanna does it in a way that is engaging, and artistic. She leads us on her exploration through the horrors of climate change, what happens when the ocean becomes too acidic, and to quote her directly, “warm, breathless, and sour.”

The Fringe likes tackling political, social, and sexually charged topics. Who is there to advocate about the planet? This is the moment Alanna strolls in with Bob Dylan and Neil Young on each of her shoulders, ready to give us a lesson in forgiveness. Not a lesson in how to reduce our carbon footprint, but a lesson in forgiveness.

Often, advocacy gets locked away in that hidden box. You know the one! The one that has those old pictures of “the one that got away” or if you are like some, locks of hair once had. We get too scared to advocate for ourselves that we lock the tool away and only pull it out when remembered. Performance is the key to unlocking that box. Performance is advocacy. A storyteller’s story is never quite finished, neither is an advocate’s. To quote Alanna, “The truth lies not in the facts, but in the way we tell the facts.”

Tell the story.

Be the advocate.

Upon entering the line and having our tickets ripped and ready to go, there were these people above us. They were calling us “beautiful darlings” and drawling, “Oh, who must YOU be lookin’ like that?” Really, all very clever; most certainly an ample way to hype up an audience before a performance. They were dressed up in leather pants, black tops, and white shirts that most decisively deserved more than one glance. While the performance didn’t start for us until 15:00, their performing began as soon as they came in contact with us. This performance had a very extended pre-life articulation that sent the audience in with a smile on their face and a slight fear of sitting in one of the front rows. I mean, who knows what could happen in a show where the actors actually talk to you beforehand?

I have to admit, I was also a little nervous about not knowing the finer details of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as classic literature, or really any detail at all. Have no fear, you will leave with as big of a smile on your face as the person who wrote about it in their college thesis. If you’re familiar with some new age hip-hop music, more power to you!

As we seated ourselves, the audience was greeted with even more participation from the actors and actresses. They really took an interest to us. Dr. Tuder is absolutely beautiful, which Ginger (one of the actresses) exclaimed; and no, Ginger, I was not birthed by Dr. Tuder personally, thank you for asking. As they left our area and I had a quiet moment I whispered over to Jen that I was not dressed up enough for this performance, nor was I even wearing the correct bra for such scandal measures! She told me to have no fear because they accept me for what I am here in this moment. And accept us they did! From start to finish there weren’t more than a couple minutes where the audience wasn’t a direct part in the show. There were swearing and profanity, but nothing that your little sibling or grandparents couldn’t handle. To me, swearing always adds such a unique dynamic to the show. It means that there is this relationship between the audience and performer that is more relaxed and amusing. Loud laughing is encouraged; and no, the Karen that is sitting in front of you won’t turn back and glare.

I was truly impressed by the give and take between performers. They were feeding off of each other. These lines weren’t memorized, they were the equivalent of practiced conversation. There weren’t waiting for one person to say a line so that the next could say the following. They performed like it was the first time. In Performance Studies, there is a term for this: raw and canned. Their performance was very raw, making it lively and entertaining. If it was canned, I am sure the practiced sexual innuendos would have left some uncomfortable.

From seat to stage, this was an all-around exuberating performance. The flattery alone is enough reason for me to want to see it again!