Five Captial Fringe shows opening tonight that no one has seen yet but from which we expect excellence nonetheless. Satisfaction not guaranteed.
Look alive, you; this is only Day Two of… of several many days. Tonight’s crop of promising shows starts weirdly early, so try not to get bogged down at the office this evening. Here we go:
The Tournament (Atlas Performing Arts Center: Sprenger, 6 p.m.) — Look, the horrible truth about humankind is that some of us prize violence about laughter, especially during the summer months. But the fight choreography-oriented company Live Action Theatre knows how to deliver both. Their debut, The Continuing Adventures of John Blade, Superspy, was the most physically impressive show of the 2013 Fringe, and one of the funniest. That show’s writer, Kyle Encinas, has also scripted the follow-up, which producer Chris Niebling (who founded the company, along with Encinas and Amie Root) claims packs nearly two dozen fights into a lean, mean 70 minutes. Kaboom.
What Would Tina and Amy Do? (Fort Fringe: Bedroom, 6 p.m.) — Make out with Kermit the Frog in Muppets Most Wanted and make out with Bono at the Golden Globes, respectively. But also many some other things, including inspiring College of William & Mary alums Mikaela Sccoccio and Larissa Kruesi to co-found See Saw Theatre and write a comedy about two recent college grads trying to navigate their careers and romantic lives.
Walken in His Shoes (Fort Fringe: Redrum, 6:30 p.m.) — As written and directed by Ruben Rosthenhausler, a longtime member of Tucson’s Arionza Rose Theatre Company, this comedy asks what would happen if a woman tried to join the Christopher Walken Club, a professional society of Walken impersonators. Is this show’s present quantity of cowbell sufficient or do you think an additional infusion of cowbell shall be requested? Wear your grandfather’s gold watch to this one; he went through a lot to get it to you. So did his friend.
Secrets of the National Mall (Capitol Reflecting Pool, 3rd St. NW side, 7 p.m.) — Radio reporter Andrew Baroch promises that his 90-minute walken, er, walking tour of the National Mall will uncover secrets of how the Freemasons — the mysterious order to which, claims Baroch, at least 15 U.S. Presidents have belonged — designed the Mall as a geographic expression of their bizarre doctrine and their “graphically sexually understanding of the meaning of life.” Hey, you had us a “walking tour.”
A Dream Within a Dream (Union Stylus, 7:30, 8:45, and 10 p.m.) — This entry in the Fringe’s first site-specific program is staged at 629 New York Ave. NW, mere steps from Fort Fringe. The “immersive transmedia performance” explores just how it is that Edgar Allan Poe, the famous Baltimorean who died in 1849, has somehow been reappearing all over DC. Quoth the Raven, “That sounds pretty cool, I guess.”
Let us know @fringeworthy how we fared with our predictions.
This photo is not from Walken in His Shoes; it’s from a tattoo parlor I walked by in Manhattan last year.