Super Glossy
Warehouse Arts Next Door – 1021 7th Street NW

Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 27, Midnight
Saturday, July 28, 9 pm

She says: “Cosmopolitan meets The Stepford Wives meets The Venture Bros in this sci-fi satire on women’s magazines. Courtney McLean is dorky and single everywoman Jane Fuller, who reluctantly caves to society’s pressures after *$@%ing a Hollywood heartthrob and unwittingly becomes a pawn in the plot to brainwash the women of Earth!”

Trey’s take: Solo performer Courtney McLean was one of the brighter (and noisier) spots at last year’s inaugural CapFringe, so I wanted to check out her new show; the very idea of a sci-fi sendup of the women’s-mag racket seemed to offer a wealth of possibilities, and God knows McLean (who’s somehow both dorky and sexy, and I say this as a confirmed Kinsey 5.8) has the attitude to sell it.

And for a while, it works nicely: The observations about glossy-mag brainwashing bite with a satisfying sharpness, the one-liners land with an agreeable thwack, and Courtney’s still got a bit of a potty mouth. If the mysterious subplot — it’s to do with ensuring an heir for a scary magazine queen and her empire — isn’t quite rivetingly suspenseful, and if it eventually takes over at the expense of the feminist wise-assery, it does at least pay off with a snappy little finish.

See if it:  You’ve ever gone hoarse railing at your copy of Glamour — then did what it told you to anyway.

Skip it if: You wouldn’t dream of going on a date without consulting Cosmo’s sex tip of the week.

Today’s guest reviewer is Bill Chappell, who’s a colleague at NPR and my home-boy from down South. Saw him coming out of this one last night and asked him to write it up…

– trey

Bad Dad!
Warehouse Arts – Beyond

Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 27, 11 pm
Saturday, July 28, 4 pm
Sunday, July 29, 4 pm

Bad Dad says: “Winner, San Francisco Comedy Convention! Comedian/ Social Critic Mark Whitney examines tolerance, zero-tolerance, Post 9-11 America (where everyone’s a suspect) and the inherent tension between the Golden Rule and the Rule of Law.“

Bill’s take: You know how in the movies, when the hero is telling his harrowing story in flashback, you take comfort in thinking, “Well, at least he’s still able to narrate this thing”? That reassurance is sometimes hard to come by in Mark Whitney’s one-man show, despite the fact that he’s standing in front of you.

Whitney’s life comes across as a stream of blessings and curses; he’s lived through a lot since he set out as a young man trying to start both a family and a money-making business. Now in his late 40s, he’s found himself in the crosshairs of crooked bankers and angry federal agents — and in prison. But he talks about all of it as if it’s just the normal fallout for guy who really wanted to open a few Ben & Jerry’s franchises. (He’s from Vermont.) The lessons Whitney learned, and imparts, are often traditional (family matters the most) and occasionally counter-intuitive (don’t tell lies, unless you’re under oath).

The title’s pretty lame, but most of Whitney’s riffs — on his own story, and on silly attempts to create a utopian society — are clever and well-put. The underattended performance I saw took a while to get off the ground, but it was a relief to realize that Whitney knows how to tell both a story and a joke.

See it if: Your parole officer says it’s OK; you hate airport screenings; you’re a Ron Paul fan.

Skip it if: You just don’t get why some people have trouble with authority.

“Sometimes it’s better to be quiet than to be loud.”

– Patron coming out of a certain show about a certain Baltimore poet.

Waiting on a giant download at my desk, so I’ve just got a few minutes. And plenty of people have commented already on Callie Kimball’s sprawling 27-character (or was it 28?) show about the actress and the talking elephants. So I’m not gonna go on at length here.

I did wanna say, though, that “astoundingly misguided” concept or no (and I’d have to say no), I thought it was pretty delightful: Rangy, confident, and fearless in conception; executed boldly and with an attention to detail and craft that some other Fringe experiments could stand to emulate; and chock full of appealing performances.

The woman playing the Tall White Bird was aaaaaamaaaaazing (wonderfully, precisely physical) — which is not to slight the other beasties, ’cause from elephants to hyenas, there was a lot of evidence that folks had spent a lot of time watching Animal Planet and figuring out how to distill the essence of critter movement into moves that work on the human body.

Now, y’all know Kimball and I are friends-ish, but I’d say in a minute — to her face and in print — if I thought it blew. I was a little fuzzy, I confess, on the fate of one character whose illness set a key plot arc in motion; I’m not sure why she was as important as she clearly was, or what ultimately was wrong with her, except that I’m pretty sure there was some watery connection to Hamlet’s Ophelia.

But it totally didn’t blow, and it made a good bit more sense than the WashPo seemed to think. In fact, that whole bit about “the spiritual impoverishment of modern civilization” and how it wasn’t really a theme in the play?

Um, yesitwas. In a fairly big way. I mean, a Washington nonprofit guy decides to stay in Kenya and live with elephants because he realizes how shallow his life has been …

Swami Yomahmi – Unnatural Acts of Comedy
The Scientarium, 709 D St. NW

Remaining Performances:
Friday, July 27, midnight
Saturday, July 28, 2:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 29, 2 p.m.

They say: “From last year’s wildly popular Cheeky Monkey Sideshow comes SWAMI YOMAHMI. Razor blades, broken glass, rusty nails, bondage–you’d have to be crazy to do this stuff! Hilarious, shocking, and always innovative.”

Dave’s take: Staff was still working to finish the Scientarium when I arrived to pick up tickets, but everything seemed in place once the doors opened. We were greeted by such nerd-rock classics as “Hip to Be Square” and Weird Al’s “White & Nerdy,” which properly set the tone for the unapologetic punnery and geek celebration that followed. The Swami has obviously been working this tightly-crafted show for awhile–one can envision versions at schools and hospitals–but it never felt like he was just going through the motions. The heavy audience-participation factor kept things lively, and well-practiced lines such as “Once you go geek, you want it all week,” seemed fresh.

Mr. Yomahmi promised that each remaining Fringe performance will be different. I hope that they all include the finale I saw, which kept me and everyone else in the audience still sitting even after the house lights came up and the stage manager insisted we leave. Why? Because we weren’t sure what we had just seen, and were still seeing. Was the joke on us or was this a stunt gone horribly wrong? “He left us hanging,” laughed one attendee, a nice literal summation.

See it if: You have ever thrown 12-sided dice, believe in the Force, or don’t mind getting squirted.

Skip it if: You’re allergic to puns and squeamish about violations of various bodily orifices.

First-time Fringer Jonathan Padget is taking a literal plunge with his play The Blue Lagoon: A Musical. Turning films into musicals is all the rage these days, but Jonathan deserves much credit for going where even Hollywood wouldn’t dare venture. And in true Fringe spirit, the production was built largely from dollar-store items.

The next performances of The Blue Lagoon: A Musical are Saturday, July 28, and Sunday, July 29, at 8 p.m., at Playbill Café, 1409 14th St. NW.

(And apologies to Jonathan and everyone for the intrusive camera mic that keeps peeking into the shots.)

So, quick and sorta random notes about a few things:

• Festival director Julianne Brienza reports that the venue for The Super Secret Show, starring Trixie Little and the Evil Hate Monkey, has changed: The show’s at the Warehouse mainstage now, not at the Scientarium. (Something about their rigging and their tech rider.) Dates and venue info have been updated at TheaterMania.
• Adrian Dunston, who wrote Stone Goddess, points out that we at City Paper suck toads’ toes, in that we apparently printed incorrect times for the show in the print paper, and attendance hasn’t been so hot. (Actually Adrian wrote a very nice note, drawing attention to our huge honking mistake in the gentlest possible way.) We grovel with remorse, and we hope our new overlords will clean house mercilessly. Unless of course it was Adrian’s fault, or the fault of the people who gave us the schedule — it’s not like I’ve checked. The correct times (according to Adrian) are Saturday and Sunday at 3 pm., and you can get your tix here.
• Kristin Cantwell, she of the show Butter: A Love Story, relates a delicious anecdote: Apparently her heroine Sandy Patti, a TV chef who combines “the evil genius of Paula Deen and the overblown vocals of Patti LuPone,” has fired the indignation of those who worship Sandi Patty, the iron-lunged, taste-free contemporary Christian singer. Ms. Cantwell wishes to assure all those concerned that “my Sandy is a sassy, Southern, butter-loving chef on Food 24. She hosts Quasi-Home Cooking in Minutes. She’s not a Christian singer who also cooks. There are no jokes about the real Sandi Patty in the show.”

While we’re on the topic: For those who are still wondering, the late City Paper critic Joel E. Siegel, writer of lacerating reviews of many a chuckleheaded Hollywood cheesefest, was not the same person as the late Joel Siegel, cheesy chuckleheaded movie reviewer for Good Morning America. Believe it or not, we once had to point this out in an Editor’s Note.

And I am not a Baptist minister who commutes from Texas to see D.C. theater and live a secret gay life.

Thank you for your attention. That is all.

Kristin Cantwell photo:  Bob Morrison

Ladies, germs, children of all levels of annoyingness: Permit me to introduce this evening’s guest Fringe-blogger, Mr. Glen Weldon.

You may have seen him at local theaters recently, sitting in the City Paper press seats: He’s the pale one. (And coming from me … )

Also he’s smart. And even if he did go and try to one-up my whole condoms-and-exclamation-points thesis from the other week with a Crisco-and-surgical gloves metaphor in this week’s review of Democracy, we’re glad to have him on our team.

– trey

Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind (30 Plays in 60 Minutes)
Woolly Mammoth Mainstage

Remaining Performances:
Thursday, July 26, 8 pm (SOLD OUT)
Friday, July 27, 7 pm and 9 pm
Saturday, July 28, 7 pm and 9 pm
Sunday, July 29, 1 pm and 3 pm

They say: “The Chicago-based Neo-Futurists’ late-night sensation — continuously running since the Reagan administration — is an ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes! Audiences decide on the random order of these funny, personal, abstract, political and poignant plays, making every performance a unique experience not to be missed.”

Glen’s take: First off: Don’t think Fringe. You know that rough, haphazard, catch-as-catch-can frisson that the best and worst of Fringe provides? Yeah, you won’t find that here. The Neo-Futurists have been doing what they do for a good long while, in Chicago and in New York, and even though this is the road-show version, the five writer/performers are polished, practiced and supremely comfortable in their own skins. (Yes, from a Capital Fringe perspective, they’re ringers, but don’t hate them because they’re beautiful.) So if it’s the feeling of discovery that you Fringe for, keep looking; this show has already been discovered, thank you very much. If, on the other hand, you Fringe hoping to hit upon as show that’s fast, smart, risky and (not for nothing) fucking funny, sit down and start screaming out numbers between one and 30.

The numbers, see, correspond to the titles of plays, which are listed on a menu provided to each member of the audience. This menu changes each night (a die-roll at the final curtain determines how many plays are cut, and thus how many new plays are written to fill the gap), and the audience’s screams determine the order in which each of the roughly two-minute plays are performed.

Words to the Wise Department: Thursday’s show has already sold out, and they tell me that both of the Friday shows are getting awfully close, so: chop chop, people. It would be presumptuous, if not downright churlish, for me to tell you which plays to ask/scream for, because A) there’s no guarantee they’ll still be on the menu, and B) it kind of defeats the whole experimental purpose and robs the evening of the thrill of discovery and whatnot.

But, you know, screw that: the one about after-school specials, the one about Purple Rain, the one about Milwaukee and yearbooks, the one about the Stupid Love Play. And, especially, magically, transcendentally, No. 5: Half Naked Ninja Pudding Pie.

See it if: Your dogged search for diamonds amid Fringe’s rough has thus far proven particularly rough.

Skip it if: You routinely turn your back on once-favorite bands if they sign to a major label, and you still resent Dylan for going electric.

This is really getting out of hand…

Christmas in Bakersfield
Goethe-Institut

Remaining Performances:
Thursday, July 26, 9 pm

He says: “Heart warming! Hysterical! Puts the fun in family dysfunction. Les finally meets Mike, the man of his dreams. Mike takes Les home to meet his conservative Caucasian family he realizes that he forgot to tell him one small detail, that Les is African American. Oops!”

Trey’s take: Fun and family dysfunction, sure; hysterical, not quite. Les Kurkendaal, if I heard right, works as a stand-up comic, and he certainly has a comedy-clubber’s steely nerves. Good thing, too, ’cause they keep him going even when a half-empty house is responding halfheartedly to his tale of a holiday in enemy territory — Bakersfield, Calif., about which Kurkendaal knows only that it’s home to (a) Hee Haw’s Buck Owens, (b) Flavor of Love’s Pumpkin, and (c) the KKK’s California headquarters.

And the story’s every bit as gruesome as you’d imagine: “We’re having ribs, but they’re not in your honor,” boyfriend’s mom says. (And that’s one of the milder mortifications: I’ve got some crackers in my family, but I’d leave the house if they dropped some of the buffoon-bombs Les attributes to his out-laws.)

But I’m surprised that a comic wouldn’t demonstrate better timing. Kurkendaal’s anecdotes could benefit from a little punctuation, and a genuinely first-rate comedy writer (or maybe a director) might find a way to shape ‘em and send ‘em zinging out into the house. As it is, they tend to amble amiably along, never quite dragging, but never quite dancing, either.

See it if: You think you can’t be surprised by how oblivious some folks still are about race — and about when it needs talking about, and when it’s OK to just eat the damn ribs.

Skip it if: You’re more likely to bridle than giggle when the dotty aunt asks, “Do black people sunburn?”