Author Archive
Hip Shot: The Attack of the Big Angry Booty
The Attack of the Big Angry Booty
The Bedroom
Remaining Performance: Sunday, July 26 at 7:00 pm.
They say: Dieting sucks! Whether it’s 1 pound or 100 pounds losing weight is never easy. Come experience the roller coaster ride on the one hellish trip that we all will eventually have to take, getting in shape.
Ann’s take: Have you ever gone out for happy hour with your coworkers, and there’s that one colleague who won’t stop with his stories about the various and ridiculous customer interactions he had that day… and you laugh politely but you’re really thinking, ‘it is not a unique experience to have to deal with difficult people and these stories really aren’t that funny’… and he’s not letting anyone else have the floor during his little stand-up routine… so you just sit there, for an hour, silently sipping your half-priced vodka and soda until you can finally blurt out that you have to leave immediately to pick up your dry cleaning before it closes? Les Kurkendaal is that coworker, and The Attack of the Big Angry Booty is that happy hour, minus the cheap drinks.
Hip Shot: ‘Home Free’
Home Free
Goethe Institut
Remaining Performances: Thursday, July 23 at 10:15 pm. Saturday, July 25 at 7:00 pm. Sunday, July 26 at 11:15 am.
They say: In a studio apartment, Lawrence and Joanna live in a world of their own making with Edna and Claypone. How long can they keep real world outside? What happens if reality comes through the door?
Ann’s take: Lanford Wilson’s Home Free gives its audience much to unravel as it follows the muddied logic of Lawrence and Joanna’s aberrant, make-believe world. Psychological disorder drives the piece, and we have much to sort through as we piece together the mystery of what’s so scary about the outside world. Social taboos abound in this one-act, but there is an eloquent innocence in Wilson’s deviant world, providing a nice tug-of-war on the audience’s sensibilities.
Hip Shot: ‘Not Your Granny’s Revolution’
Not Your Granny’s Revolution
Goethe Institut
Remaining Performances: Wednesday, July 22 at 6:15 pm. Thursday, July 23 at 8:00 pm.
They Say: A storytelling play created by Laura Zam (“A name to know”-The Washington Post) and ensemble cast. What does it mean to be a woman in today’s world? Five females find revolution in a Paris tryst, a royal beheading, and fighting AIDS.
Ann’s Take: Long ago when I was in college, my good friend began embracing the term “chick” as an appropriate way to describe a new generation of feminism. I think “chick” is a rather brilliant signifier, describing female-specific content that doesn’t take itself too seriously. Plus, this coinage reclaims the word from its more demeaning form (an activity socio-political-activist-types adore). So, at the risk of scaring off male audience members and pissing off old-guard feminists, I’ve decided Not Your Granny’s Revolution is a chick show—that is, a show about chicks who have moved past the sensitive diatribes and onto the self-aware humor of personal discovery.
Hip Shot: Sex, Dreams, and Self Control
Sex, Dreams, and Self Control
Goethe Mainstage
Remaining Performances: Thursday, July 16 at 6:30 pm. Friday, July 17 at 10:00 pm. Saturday, July 18 at 7:00 pm. Sunday, July 19 at 3:30 pm.
They Say: This rites of passage tale presents itself bold and racy, and speaks loudly about sexuality and religion. With an original alternative folk rock score in which Kevin Thornton croons like a young John Hiatt or a post-Smiths Morrissey. One guitar. One man. A wild ride.
Ann’s Take: I hope years from now we’ll say, “they just don’t write songs like Kevin Thornton used to.” Accompanied by gorgeous guitar riffs and a sweet, melodic voice, no written description can do his songs justice. You need to hear the refrain “After bible study hand jobs…We’ll read the word of God and then throb…” set to music to understand fully how poignant his lyrics can be. And lucky for you, you can, tonight and every night this weekend.
Hip Shot: ‘Cover Me in Humanness’
Cover Me in Humanness
Fort Fringe – Redrum
Remaining Performances: Wednesday, July 15 at 7:30 pm. Saturday, July 25 at 2:30 pm.
They Say: In the National Gallery, a statue stirs. Everything changes when this ancient voice begs to be freed and a quiet girl stops being quiet. Four hearts murmur through air thick with technological chirps and Footloose in this mysterious new one-act.
Ann’s Take: Cover Me in Humanness was lovely. And, in the sometimes slapstick, fart-joke, snarky, esoteric, experimental, deviant world of Fringe (all good things, mind you), it’s nice to have a little lovely once in a while.
Jake Jeppson’s one-act asks, with modest prose and light-hearted humor, “What’s beneath one’s surface?” Through a cast of three humans and a rather bossy ballerina statue, each longing for connection, we find that intimacy ain’t so easy. For starters, the wax replica falls in love (or maybe in “need”) with her security guard Nigel, which uh…poses some challenges. Then there’s Beth, whose inability to share anything about herself inadvertently causes both the guard and her local video store clerk to helplessly chase after her.
Hip Shot: ‘2 Shorts in Black and White: Count Dracula’s Cafe’
2 Shorts in Black and White: Count Dracula’s Cafe
Goethe-Institut — Gallery
Remaining Performances
Sunday, July 12 at 2:30 pm. Thursday, July 16 at 9:00 pm. Thursday, July 23 at 6:00 pm. Sunday, July 26 at 6:00 pm.
They Say: 2 short plays: Count Dracula lost his creativity because the FDA doesn’t accept gays blood… now Drac needs a good man to suck! Then, a man dies and returns to life with power to foretell the future.
Ann’s Take: Clever occasionally, disjointed primarily, Scot Walker’s two shorts deliver as advertised without adding much more.
The first piece, Count Dracula’s Cafe, tells the tale of two vampires who take over a Starbucks in an effort to attract the gay blood they desperately need. The how’s and why’s of their struggles are never fully fleshed out because the 10-minute sketch is really just an opportunity to crack a steady stream of not-so-witty gay one-liners. Like, Liza Minnelli one-liners. I challenge you to come up with a gay cliché that wasn’t covered in this sketch. After every “suck” joke was exhausted, the stand up routine abruptly ends with a well-meaning but unsophisticated discussion of the Supreme Court. Fringe bonus points for delivering political message through a barechested man in hotpants.
Fringe Blogger Profile: Willemssen
Name: Ann Willemssen
Hometown: The frozen tundra of La Crosse, Wisconsin…dontcha know. But now my parents live in Minnesota, so I like to pretend I’m from there. I think it’s classier to be from a state associated with plastic Viking helmets adorned with yarn pigtails instead of foam hats made to look like cheese.
Years in DC: Three. I arrived just in time for the very first Capital Fringe Festival.
First Capital Fringe Festival? First-time blogger, longtime fan.
Shows I’m Seeing: First two on the list…2 Shorts in Black and White: Count Dracula’s Cafe and Cover Me in Humanness.
Random Thing You Might Find Revealing About My Sensibilities: I own very few pairs of pants.
