Some lovely photos below (and after the jump) courtesy of Aude Guerrucci!

7(x1) Samurai:

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“Art answers the questions our hearts pose — and not always in ways our minds understand.”

It was solo performer Annie Houston who offered up that efficiently lyrical observation at the Warehouse Theater, sometime after 9:30 last night, in the waning hours of this year’s Capital Fringe Festival. Which made that deft little meditation on art and the heart one of the last thoughts I heard at this year’s Fringe.

And that line — from Thicker than Water, the moving autobiographical show Houston created with director Steven Scott Mazzola — made an apt shorthand summary, too, for a festival that served up everything from thrill killers, zombie rockers, and marauding space tortoises to chamber opera, classical dance, and old-school silent clowning.

Served it up to a bigger audience than ever, too. Fringe boss Julianne Brienza reports that this year’s festival moved 21,025 tickets — up a little more than 10 percent from last year, when circa 19,000 butts reportedly found their way into seats at Fringe venues across town.

(Also sold this year: precisely 10,000 units of the Fringe Button You Loved to Hate — about which more later.)

Prize Performances

As for the art? Well, Fringe audiences have spoken, voting for Ethan Now as best drama, the zombie-rock shocker Diamond Dead as best musical, and David Gaines’s sublime 7(x1) Samurai as best solo performance.

More Pick of the Fringe results, which got re-announced Sunday night at the Baldacchino following a sparsely attended Saturday-evening ceremony:

• Best Comedy - Dr. Serenity Hawkfire’s Beyond Being Workshop, a New Age/self-help parody
• Best Dance - The Fiddler Ghost, a folksy Celtic fairytale involving puppets and step dance
• Best Experimental Show - Crashing Home, the jazzy multidisciplinary show from the WEERD Sisters

For best overall show — much to my personal humiliation — Fringe-goers picked Molotov Theater’s messy I’ll-cut-you dramedy The Sticking Place. (So much for, y’know, critical authority.)

Much to the shock of experienced handicappers, Fringe Fanatic honors went not to spreadsheet-and-walking-shoes guru Alan King, but to one Mike Riley, who apparently saw 47 Fringe shows. To which I can say only: You, sir, are a better man than I.

The Director’s Award, bestowed by Fringe staff, went to Sue Jin Song’s rapturously reviewed Children of Medea. That prize — given, Brienza says, to an artist who’s taken artistic risks, found creative marketing strategies, and communicated honestly with the festival and with audience about self and show — comes with free registration for next year’s festival, a free ad in the Washington City Paper, and a year’s membership in the Actors Center.

Bite My Button

Now, about those buttons: If you’ve somehow forgotten, they were an innovation this year — a mandatory innovation, required (even for ticketholders and artists) to gain entry at any Fringe venue.

Not everyone likes change, apparently. Certainly not everyone likes to be charged $5 to experience change: Button-bitching, which got an early tongue-in-cheek start (not least on this blog), turned into a full-fledged phenomenon by the height of Fringe.

And not everyone was mollified by the dining-and-drinking discounts Brienza kept reminding the disgruntled masses about: One ticket-seller at last night’s closing party regaled her table with the tale of a patron who (perhaps under the influence of Weldon’s First Law of Fringegoing*) observed that “Our boys are fighting in Iraq to defend democracy, and you’re telling me I have to buy a button? This is not an option?”

On the other hand: 10,000 buttons sold, Brienza points out, translates to $249.00 — over and above ticket revenue — in the pockets of each and every act that performed in a Fringe-run venue this year. Whether that’ll translate into less bitching next year? Anybody’s guess.

Looking Ahead

Meantime, Brienza and her crew are laying plans — for ongoing monthly Fringe Factory workshops, for a possible Halloween shindig in the still-grubby bowels of Fort Fringe (where the recently signed lease runs through late 2009), and for at least one production in The Shop (the Fringe-built black-box space that will continue to operate behind the Fringe offices at 6th and New York).

Watch for new ideas, new initiatives, even new Fringe board members: a formal vote is pending, but word is that developer and Fringe landlord Doug Jemal has expressed interest in signing on.

We here at Fringe & Purge may be dropping in on those workshops from time to time, so keep an eye out for us. And for the next few days we’ll be adding more photos, courtesy of the indefatigable Paul Gillis and Bob Morrison. (Thanks for helping make us look pretty, guys.)

And of course we’ll be back with you for next year’s festival, which runs July 9 to July 26, 2009. That’s right, another three weekends at Fort Fringe, another 100-plus shows, another crop of guest bloggers.

Better start those spreadsheets now.

*Weldon’s First Law of Fringegoing: “Fringe audiences, on average, have a higher blood-alcohol content than most.” Back to story.

Dig it.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version.

Actually, as I write this, it’s looking more like the Apocalypse.  Monster thunderstorm, lightning over the Baldacchino, etc.

So, we’re winding down, eh?  Which seems like a good time to start asking big-picture questions.
So tell us:

How did Fringe — not the shows, but the festival itself — work for you as an audience member this year? As an artist?

What are your thoughts on the venues? On the schedule?

On the artists who participated, and on those who didn’t?

On the Baldacchino, and the bar staff, and the dreaded Button?

If You See Something Say Something
Woolly Mammoth Theatre

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 26 @ 4 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 8 PM

They say: “Master storyteller Mike Daisey’s new comic monologue takes aim at the history of the Department of Homeland Security. Combining eye-opening research and witty autobiography, he bores into the dark heart of America to discover the meaning of security and the price we are willing to pay for it.”

Brian’s take: Got some free time this weekend? Oooh, I’ve got an idea–you should pay $20 to let a man sit at a table and talk to you for two hours about the history of American security!

You might think I’m being sarcastic (two hours of a man sitting at a table, you say?), but I shit you not. That is actually what you should do, as long as the man’s name is Mike Daisey, the creator and comic purveyor of the exquisitely conceived If You See Something Say Something. I’ll leave the sarcasm up to him.

There may be no metaphor in security, as Daisey astutely notes, but he certainly injects metaphor (and simile, and irony, and synecdoche, and peripetea, &c, &c) aplenty into this series of monologues–stories, really–which he weaves with enthralling dexterity of voice, tone, gesture, and expression.  The show is billed as the story of the Department of Homeland Security, but much of the focus is on the history of the atomic bomb.  The piece is obsessively researched, and by interlacing the straight history with his own anecdotes and observations, Daisey is able to infuse a somewhat sterile topic with a folksy, around-the-campfire sensibility.  In some of the most disturbing but memorable moments, Daisey is even able to turn the monologue into something of a ghost story–one minute you’re laughing at the foibles of Bernard Kerik, the next minute Daisey is describing in unsettling detail what would happen if Cohen’s neutron bomb were detonated above the theater, and you feel just a bit sick for joking around only moments earlier.  

Daisey is one of those people (I’ve seen him before) who can make anything scintillating, so even if you proclaim to be uninterested in neutrons and bombs and the Cold War and deserts and Tom Ridge and that kind of thing, go if only to spend some quality time with Daisey.  It’s like taking one of your favorite nonfiction authors–I’ll use Ian Frazier but you can fill-in-the-blank–crossing him with your favorite stand-up comedian–let’s say, oh, I don’t know, Robin Williams–and hunkering down in a bar for a few hours to discuss a subject about which he’s read every book possible.

See it if: You’ve ever been frisked ever-so-scandalously by a security guard.

Skip it if: You are overly paranoid about getting radiation poisoning.

The 70% Club
Social Hall, Trinity University, 125 Michigan Avenue NE
(Note: The performance changed rooms within the Main Hall at Trinity; they have signs to direct you.)

Remaining Performance:
Saturday, July 26 @ 7:30 PM

They say: “Can a woman find lasting love these days — especially a black woman? Can two people stay together “’til death do us part”? As a couple prepares to say “I Do”, these issues are explored. Will Cynthia and Chris save their marriage? Will Deanna make it out of the 70% Club?”

Brett’s take: Deanna and Jackson are about to get married, but he might have cold feet, or possibly a secret that he’s worried will ruin their marriage.  Chris is not sure he wants to stay with Cynthia after five years of marriage.  Deanna’s friends, including a backstabbing roommate, her sassy mother and a gay man, are preparing for the big event.

You might be able to see from the synopsis, but “The 70% Club” is not a play.  It is a Hollywood romantic comedy on a stage.  That’s not a judgment; the play follows the familiar structures and keeps with the tropes almost exactly.  Considering romantic comedies usually take several Hollywood screenwriters and script doctors to put together, it is impressive that Mary McCallum constructed this on her own - and more so that she then puts in a necessarily likeable appearance playing Deanna, a lead role.

Actually, the script occasionally dips its toes into darker waters, as at the end of each act.  The title is a reference to a New York Times article which reported 70% of black women are without a spouse; although producing company Sista Style Productions “prides itself on providing quality and relevant theatre” only during a scene at Deanna’s bachelorette party (the overall highlight of the evening) does the play actually tackle the subject with any interest.

The actors all acquit themselves well, particularly Jene India who effecitvely plays against her apparent youth to portray Deanna’s mother.  If not for the awkwardness of the musical cues covering transitions, this could very well be filmed and put on screen as part of TInseltown’s menu of romantic comedies.  The play is performed in a massive, echoey ballroom; the sumptuous decor actually matches the plush set (no set designer is credited), although the venue has no place for lighting whatsoever, and thus overhead lights remain on the whole time.  The actors effectively project above their own echoing and the din of an air conditioner.

See it if: You like romantic comedies.

Skip it if: You don’t.  (Sometimes these things are simple.)

Crashing Home
Harman Center - Forum

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 26 @ 3:00 pm
Sunday, July 27 @ 12:00 Noon

They say: “Voted “Pick of the Fringe 2007,” WEERD SISTERS brings back singer/songwriter Annie Johnstone and choreographer/poet Diana Tokaji in a feast of words, dance, live music, and song. Expect chilling beauty - voice and muscle: Raw, ripe, “funny, intense.” (Takoma Voice) With David Jernigan, jazz bass; and Mattias Rucht, drums.”

Sheffy’s take: With the clock running out on CapFringe ’08, I’ve been combing the blogs to chart a roadmap for my final few hours. Even though the alluring blurb for Crashing Home in the festival guide is right on target, I didn’t know what to expect. But Fringe is about experimenting, and I’m glad the nearly 70 people in the audience ranging in age from 7 to 70 were not deterred by the less-than-stellar review posted elsewhere. The multi-cultural WEERD SISTERS showcase musical and creative talent in a program of four unrelated pieces that feature live instrumental music, original poetry, dance, and vocals.

I must admit I’m usually inside-the-box when it comes to theater: I prefer characters with names, a plot, and at the end of the day, I expect there to be some meaning. But this was no theatre (it’s the Harman Center for the Arts). Crashing Home is more akin to a jazz concert—while I didn’t learn anything, I enjoyed each piece, and the show left me in a relaxed, peaceful mood.

Although Diana Tokaji’s vibrant energy was the glue holding everything together, the show lacked unity and focus. Yet each individual element—from Chinwe Enu’s soaring operatic voice harmonizing with Annie Johnstone’s rich alto to Tokaji’s choreography to a primal drum circle to David Jernigan’s string base—resonated with an innate beauty. The verdant costumes and lighting design and the nature video projected during the last piece imbued all with organic overtones. The silent rainstorm featured in the finale left my spirit feeling cleansed. What this show lacked in coherence, in made up for in Zen. And just like good theater, there’s plenty to discuss afterwards as everyone leaves with a different impression.

See it if: You’ve been heretofore avoiding that “experimental” genre from the festival guide because it conjures images off-beat college kids in turtlenecks and black lipgloss lying on the floor in a circle in total silence interrupted intermittently by shouts in Esperanto (and no, don’t anyone steal that idea for next year).

Skip it if: You can’t call it poetry if it doesn’t rhyme (don’t get me started on Homer’s Iliad “poem”).

[eureka]
H Street Playhouse

Remaining Performances:

Friday, July 25 @ 11:30 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 3 PM
Sunday, July 27 @ 7 PM

They say: “Albert is so damn frustrated he can’t even talk about it. But he can launch into hilarious feats of slapstick comedy in his bumbling search for peace of mind. Spirituality and old school clowning collide in this unique and explosive solo show.”

Trey’s take: Not sure what I expected, but I sure didn’t expect what I got: Patrick Bussink as a dorky (if impressively flexible) office drone with singularly passive-aggressive relationship with his briefcase. Also a deep yearning for a few minutes to think — the solution to which yearning he imagines he can buy.

It is, as that “can’t even talk” suggests, almost entirely wordless, but like the similarly giddy 7(x1) Samurai it’s chock-full of incident. Nearly unrecognizable in his high-waisted, greasy-haired nerd disguise, the actor — he was the intensely moving Jesus in The Last Days of Judas Iscariot not long ago — knocks himself around, throws his back out, pretzels himself into a sort of aggrieved yogic pose, and generally makes physical-comedy hay, all in the service of a story (and a clearly etched one, too, words or no) about a little guy who discovers too late that what he wants isn’t what he needs.

See it if: You think funny + existential angst = the perfect night out.

Skip it if: Like my seatmate, you’ve never met an actor who could make the silent-clown thing work for you.

The Passion of Persephone

Remaining performances:
Friday, July 25 @ 6 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 11 PM

They say: “Hades has captured the Goddess Persephone and tied her up to keep her from leaving the Underworld. When her mother Demeter discovers why Zeus won’t rescue Persephone, Demeter wreaks a terrible vengeance . . . Greek myth updated to modern times: A work-in-progress, presenting the last two scenes of Act I.”

Suzyn’s take: As the blurb notes, Passion of Persephone is still a work in progress, so perhaps it’s appropriate that it has the feel of something that’s still deciding what it wants to be. The advertising materials play up the S+M focus, suggesting those mediocre Anne Rice S+M novels about Sleeping Beauty. There’s some of that in this show, which is also a rock opera, and at times there is a bit of winking farce.

Primarily, however, the show seems to exist as a vehicle for the leading lady/librettist/composer/instrumentalist/producer Rosanna E. Tufts. Tufts plays Persephone, and is at the center of the show. Tufts’ performance showcases her voice, which is indeed very good. That said, her acting leaves something to be desired. She has little chemistry with Hades and they frequently sing about how attracted they are to each other, yet have bored-looking expressions while doing so. At one point Persephone sings about Hades when he’s offstage and she achieves a quiet fire in that scene that was absent when Hades was actually there. It is as if she finds the idea of Hades more striking than the reality, which in a sense is the most accurate part of Tufts’ portrayal of a naive young woman in love. Also, Tufts is a bit past the maiden stage. A male friend of mine described her as the “MILFiest Persephone I’ve ever seen.”

The music is fine, though the songs sound very much alike. I found myself wishing a little bit more had been done with the direction. The lights could have gone down a bit as Demeter sings about the sun fading, for example. Also, there’s a lot of standing in this opera. Some of that is because they have a large cast in a small venue, but even when individuals are on stage alone, the actors don’t move around much. A notable exception is Sara Stewart, whose Demeter moves very naturally. Stewart chewed the scenery in a satisfying way that suited her character, particularly after she took off a large goofy hat that obscured her face for much of her first scene on stage. Her voice was impressive as well, and I will look for her in future shows.

Michelle Mullany, Lily Fay Tufts Prothuro and Ayana Fenton do an excellent job as the dead children in the underworld, singing with charmingly sweet voices and appearing convincingly dour.

Again, the show is a work in progress. I suspect a lot of the problems will be ironed out by the time it is a full length show. I saw it with three friends and two of us were interested in coming back when the show is performed in full. Still, like Persephone’s Hades, right now this show is a lot better in theory than it is in reality.

See it if: You’re into Greek Drama, Rock Opera or the combination of the two, which works surprisingly well.

Skip it if: “Dick Cheney” is your safe word. The show takes itself a little too seriously for that.

One more recommendation. Not a review, because (a) I’m not really a dance critic, and (b) my other half used to perform with this company, so even if I were I’d probably recuse myself.

But if only as one last reminder that this year’s Fringe has been a bit more multidisciplinary than it was in years past, I thought I’d point out what the WashPost has to say about the Tehreema Mitha Dance Company’s contribution to the festival.

I’ve always been impressed by the technique and the focus Tehreema and her disciples exhibit in the more traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire — that’s some heavy-duty stuff — and by the expressive range she finds in both that material and in the classical-contemporary fusion pieces she choreographs.

So check ‘em out, if that’s the sort of thing that appeals to ya. Three shows left: Tonight at 8:30, Saturday at 5, Sunday at 5.