Day 6: 8:30 p.m. Time Slot

Show: Goats
Die Roll: 3
Venue: Pillsbury House Theatre
Artist: Alan Berks

You know, for a guy who doesn't like one man shows, I'm seeing an awful lot of them. I'm starting to see an inherent problem with the system I've got set up here.

My one overwhelming thought with this show was that profundity is not always profound the second time around. Having seen the first ten minutes of this show at the Fringe Preview a couple of weekends ago, I was very excited to have it come up on the charts. Yay!

But...it wasn't as funny, insightful, or attention-grabbing as I initially thought. Berks is an able actor, and many of the things he had to say were very entertaining, but the whole thing felt a little empty. Perhaps it was this performance itself. Maybe he was having a low energy day the same way I was at my show. It's possible.

All I know is that when I was laughing (at least during the first half) it was because I felt obligated to due to the fact that I'd plugged the show early on. Now, the second half was different. Alan found his groove somewhere along the line and I settled into actual enjoyment. The thing is, the show is well written. I enjoyed the writing a lot. That's why I'll give him the benefit of it just being a down performance.

Alan did a lot of living in his 24th year. He was a goatherd in Israel. He had to learn to think like a goat, how to just "be", he had to learn how people are capable of hate, and much more. He learned enough about live that he is qualified to write a meaning-of-life play.

There are two quotes that stuck out for me, only one of which could I write fast enough to get on paper. That one was "The only thing thatmeant anything is the touch." Communication with goats is what he was talking about, but he was really talking about so much more. The other had to do with waitin patiently without fear and taking care of the things that you're supposed to take care of. But, since I only got part of it down, I'll just say that the end of the show returned to a place where the profound was present again.