Company: Walking Boxes Productions
Venue: Lake Harriet United Methodist Church
Die Roll: 5
Well the Fringe is underway. This is the very first show of the entire thing. So, I had to be there. Apparently so did fellow bloggers Matthew Everett and Phillip Low. We all sat together in one big clump of Raspberry-colored fringiness. We were informed prior to the show by one patron/fringe producer who will remain nameless that we looked ridiculous sitting together like that. And we did, but we weren't about to admit it... So... Anyway on to the matter at hand... The first show.
Before I even got into the first show, I knew something was different about this venur, and yet somehow familiar. As I drove the 45 minutes it took me to get there from my place in St. Paul, I realized that I sometimes take acting lessons from Steve Hendrickson there. The other thing I realized was that I didn't want to make that drive again during rush hour. 35W was recommended by Mapquest, and it was not speedy... certainly it didn't take only 24 minutes, which is what the website promised.
But be that as it may, I got to the venue and got my ticket. I actually would have been the first ticket sold for the entire festival, had it not been for the fact that Matthew Everett's tickets were pre-purchased. Well... I got mine in my hot little hand first, so nyaaaa!
We all went in, and saw The Musicker's Balalaika.
Upon reading the program, I discovered that this was the third part of a series of works featuring this Musicker character. Now... here's the thing, in order to understand what is going on, you have to read the program before the show starts. Despite the fact that the program itself proclaims that you don't have to do that. Trust me, if you don't...you'll be hopelessly lost for the first 5 minutes of the show.
This is a sharply produced show. There is a constant soundtrack and syncs up impressively with the live music played by J Roth on stage. The story was about a Russian Gypsy who fought on the side of the Red Army in WWII. It actually was a pretty good story. And the accent J Roth took on was convincing, as was most of his acting. However, the fact that the tale depended on what had gone before in the past two installments knocked my enjoyment of the show down a peg or two.
One of my favorite things was that the humor of the show was built around the thought that it is a curse to be protected by God if you want to die and God won't let you be killed.
Were I to sum this show up in 10 words, here's what you'd get: Musician tells war story in Russian Accent. Hail multi-track recording!
That's 10 words so long as you buy into the fact that a hyphenate counts as one. I'll be trying to summarize all the shows I see in 10 words... Part of the Fringe by Numbers thing.
RATING: "d10 - Worth Going To"
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