Goethe Institut – Mainstage, 812 7th Street NW

Remaining Performances:
Thursday, Jul 14th 10 p.m.
Saturday, Jul 16th 1 p.m.
Tuesday, Jul 19th 8:15 p.m.
Friday, Jul 22nd 10 p.m.

They say: “An untold story of 9/11, the stranding of 6000 airline passengers in Gander, Newfoundland (Canada), population 10,000. This “heartwarming & hilarious” solo performance recounts the story of Irish, English and Americans traveling to New York on that most unforgettable day.”

Glen’s Take: Michael Walsh is the real thing – an actor who creates vivid characters without pushing them down our throat, who assigns each one a small, economical gesture that delineates them clearly, and who transitions from each to each with a fluid, practiced grace. There’s a lot to be said for Fringe’s lunging eagerness to get all-up-in our collective grill, but it’s refreshing — and in the realm of solo shows, unusual — to catch such an unforced and naturalistic performer simply inviting us to engage with him and his story.

Which is not to say that Walsh isn’t putting in the work — it’s just that much of it’s been done before the audience take their seats. The show’s shape and tone feel fully considered; Between Takeoff and Landing is a funny, nuanced evening of theater, and Walsh is smart about the people he depicts.

There’s himself, of course, an affable guy just trying to get home when his Aer Lingus flight from Dublin to New York gets grounded for four days in Newfoundland following 9/11. There’s Siobhan, the good-time gal who keeps everyone’s spirits up by keeping the spirits flowing; Carl, the Newfoundlander who invites the stranded passengers to sleep on the floor of his Elks’ Club lodge; a trio of Irish lads who’re there to act as a sort of drunken Greek chorus, and several others as well.  All seem palpably real — especially to the older couple I sat behind, who told me they’d been stranded on Newfoundland themselves during the same period. (Let the record show that they greeted Walsh’s Newfie accent with hoots of recognition.)

Quibbles? Well at 70 minutes, the show’s strict chronology seems a little constricting. (“Day Three,” said Walsh at around the 50 minute mark, which set the couple in front of me into a bout of seat-shifting.) But Walsh fills those days and nights well, with several neatly constructed set pieces.

See it if:  Your face is weary of so many Fringe shows getting in it, and is looking instead for something it can get into.

Skip it if: “What, no dildos? No Maxi-pads? FUCK THAT NOISE.”

Goethe Institut – Mainstage; 812 7th Streen NW

Remaining Performances:

Wednesday, July 13th 10 p.m.
Saturday, July 16th 7:45 p.m.
Sunday, July 17th 2 p.m.
Wednesday, July 20th 8 p.m.

They say: “Is this comedy? Theater? An actual motivational talk? Whatever you call it, it will change your life forever, maybe. Off-Broadway writer/performer Laura Zam conjures Ken Johnson. Washington Post praise for other Zam work: “Funny”, “Smart”, “Beautiful”. Let Ken solve your problems.”

Glen’s Take: Well, look, lady, if you’re just gonna leave it up to us to decide whether you’re doing character-based stand-up, a satirical performance piece, or a straight-up no-foolin’ self-help seminar, we’re gonna need a little more from you.  It’s not that can’t do all three, of course, but right now you’re hitting those three notes at once, with equal emphasis, all evening long. If you want us to come with you, we need more than that loud and fuzzy power chord; you’re gonna have to do more to direct our attention as you shift between modes.

The setup: Laura Zam’s self-help guru Ken Johnson (hair, suit and cartoonish “Run, Forrest!” accent of late-period Ernest Angley, fervor of Tony Robbins, dance moves of Michael Scott) walks us through the Seven Openings (“seven open sores!”), his multi-step system for overcoming “Crappy Cogitating” with the help of patented “Un-ffirmations” (Ex.: “I am fat, and I’ve hurt the people that I love.”) that lead to the “Ding-Dong Door” behind which our fondest desires reside.

If this be stand-up, it’s passable enough – a bit too padded and light on the jokes, perhaps, but Zam’s comfortable in front of an audience and enjoys prowling the stage like a trapped animal.  If it be character-based performance, however, things get a bit stickier: Ken’s Alabama accent is more caricature than character (Zam monophthongizes the holy hell out of that dipthong of hers ‘till it’s fixin’ to burst), and the show keeps introducing  intriguing elements (like Ken’s oddly silent and possibly embittered wife Pam) that never manage to lead anywhere. The secrets from Ken’s past that come to light over the course of the hour turn out to be dark, yes, but fail to live up to the kind of truly troubled and twisted stuff hinted at in a series of murmured asides at the top of the hour. As a result, the show’s satirical edge is more butter knife than scalpel.

And that’s why, as an actual self-help seminar … it sort of works. In fact, your program includes contact information should you wish to book Ken for your next off-site strategic planning  potlatch (“This comic, motivational talk rides the new wave of infotainment that is revolutionizing conferences, meetings, retreats and other organizational events.”)  You heard that right: The revolution will be infotained.

See it if: You think it’s about time someone put that Seven Habits of Highly Effective People guy in his place.  (NOTE: Seven Habits was published in 1989. I am just saying.)

Skip it if: You want to see the self-help movement skewered, not poked with soft cushions.

Remaining Performances:

Saturday July 9th, 8:00 p.m.

They say: “Approximately 219,000 people annually in the United States are diagnosed with lung cancer. Even if one of them is your dad, it can be funnier than you think. The perfect show for anyone who has, or ever had, a father.”

Glen’s Take:  Jay Nachman’s got a story to tell. It’s one of the oldest, most profound and achingly human stories there is: the death of a father, and the hole it leaves behind. In Nachman’s case, the tale’s particulars (lung cancer, chemo, radiation, multiple surgeries, and, through it all, his fractious relationship with his father’s new girlfriend) are there to ground us, to remind us that the loss of a parent is just part of life’s end-user agreement. If we wait long enough, it’s a story all of us will get a chance to tell.

The problem – and it turns out to be a big one – is how it’s told, here.  The rhythms of My Dad is Now Ready for His Spongebath’s language are those of the written, and not spoken, word.  The script’s still full of passages that prove difficult for Nachman to get his mouth around; sentences crammed with phonemes trail off and get their ends unceremoniously swallowed. It’s clear that Nachman hasn’t yet gotten inside the text – he’s still merely reading it, indicating it, when he needs to be embodying it.

That lack of confidence undercuts the show’s general pace and Nachman’s comic timing in particular. There are plenty of jokes on hand, though they tend to be the kind favored by your corniest uncle.  But even these uncomplicated, facile comic observations (“Has anything been more perfectly named than a waiting room?”) might land better if they were delivered with a lighter touch and a satisfying snap instead of just being flatly asserted.

A good, uncompromising director might be able to crack this show open and help its author find its true heart. Because while what Nachman has to say about his father in Spongebath is certainly sincere, it currently lacks the kind of nuance, surprise, or specificity it needs to come alive on the stage.

See it if: The folks are in town.

Skip it if: You believe “Fringe” implies “edge.”

In Which Three WCP Theater Critics Set Out To Discuss Matters of Pressing Import, But Get Stuck Bitching About Draconian Late-Seating Policies, Tapped Kegs and The Fact That The Apothecary is HOT AS BALLS.

Glen Weldon: All right, Graham. Klimek.  It’s about time we blew the lid off a subject that THE MAN doesn’t want us to talk about.  A topic TOO HOT for polite discussion.  An issue that cuts to the very heart of the meat of the bone of the gist of Fringe.

Late seating. Comma why Fringe does not permit.

Look: The rest of the year, I loathe latecomers as much as any thinking person. They stumble over you in the brief darkness between scenes 2 and 3, reeking of entitlement and Chardonnay. They are to be mocked, abjured, pelted with fruit.

But something happened this year. Is happening. And it’s particular to Fringe: For the first time in my four years as a theater critic, I’ve been late to two shows in one week.

Neither time was my fault, except in the sense that both were totally my fault. (Graham, you’re a stickler for this; care to share your prim, nanny-like stance with the class?) Nevertheless, I submit that DC’s random! 20! minute! Green Line delays and rush hour gridlock on Mass Ave. played supporting roles.

Last Wednesday, when I sprang out of the unmoving cab four blocks away from the Goethe Institut, ran/hobbled through the broth-like air to arrive at PRECISELY 6:00 ON THE DOT, I was turned aside by the Fringe volunteer at the door.

“We’re closed,” she said.

Perched on my forearm, my falcon Cholmondeley let forth a querulous squawk from beneath his hood; he sensed my surprise.

“I’m …. sorry?” I asked.

“Closed,” she said. “The show’s started. You can go to the box office to get a later ticket, or try to get a refund, if you …”

“My good lady,” I said, tossing my vermilion opera cape over one shoulder with a flourish. “Do you know …. who… I …. am?”

She blinked at me, saying nothing. Clearly my erudition and breeding had dazzled the poor, dull thing.

I rapped the silver handle of my walking stick (an exquisite piece, shaped into the head of a doberman, with eyes of polished onyx) against the table peremptorily.

“Come come,” I said, “I am Glen Weldon. Of the Washington. City. Paper. …’s blog. I am a CRITIC.”

She stared.

“Your petty laws do not apply to one such as I,” I said. Cholmondeley’s feathers ruffled in sympathy. “Now let me in, that’s a good girl, and I shan’t report this affront to various and sundry Fringe board members, with whom I play whist and peasant-chess every fortnight. They will surely dock your pay, insolent wretch.”

“I’m a volunteer, fuckface,” she spat.

The rest of the tale is less interesting, and I refuse to say more on the advice of counsel, but the point is:

Why does Fringe, with its loosey-goosey, unjuried, gleefully slapdash, “Hey Gang, Let’s Put On A Show With Dildoes” vibe, carve out this one area to impose absolute, inviolate, no-fuckin-around rules? Why does Fringe feel it can get away with such a policy, while even DC’s largest houses adopt a sheepish, laissez-faire attitude toward latecomers?

And – really the point – why have so many of us missed shows this year, including (especially) Fischer? Is it the heat? The tourists? The creeping decrepitude of Metro? Fin-de-siecle ennui?

Thoughts?

Trey Graham: Well, first of all, we’re a decade into the siecle, dude. So I’m not sure what you’re still bored about. Also, Julianne is THE WOMAN, which I’d think you’d have noticed, being a perceptive critic and all. Also, I believe that Goethe-Institut takes a hyphen. [EDITOR's NOTE: . . . fuck.]

But I digress.  To be honest — and despite the (purely performative) little Mary Poppins lecture I gave you the other day about how “Early is on time, on time is late, late is unthinkable” — patron lateness isn’t something I’ve been especially prim about since the day Other Half and I arrived at the Kennedy Center several minutes after the start of that Irish-import production of Godot.

Which, yes, we then had to wait for.

The seating break, I mean.

And then — I am not making this up — Other Half’s cellphone rang.

So me, not so much with the stone-throwing anymore. (The glowering in the general direction of the tardy party, yes. I’m only human.)

Aaaaaaanyway, I think I talked to  Julianne about the late-seating thing a few years back, because you know what? Among the unwashed Fringegoers, this is not a new topic for bitching. If I could be bothered to go dig up the post I think I may possibly have done about it in 2000-whatever — unless maybe I expired from hunger while waiting for my turkey burger at the Baldacchino and never wrote said post [EDITOR's NOTE: Verily, that must be what hath occurred.] — I believe we’d find that the answer is: It’s not as strict a policy as you may think.

Consider:

• Most Shows Don’t Really Start On Time. There’s usually a short hold built in. (This is a trade secret; we could tell people, but we’d have to kill them, because then they’d cut it even closer than they do now, the Type A shits who just need to get in that one more world-changing e-mail before they bolt from their Chinatown desks at 7:50 to hop in a cab to get to Studio, you know who I’m talking about.)

• Not All Venues Are Created Equal. You could sneak in at the Baldacchino and not disturb people unduly.  Not so much at the Bedroom or Redrum.  I believe this finds itself expressed in policy: Unless I’m making this up, Julianne told me that officially, the rule is no late seating, but unofficially, the venue manager is allowed a little wiggle room.  (So I’m just assuming that you pissed off the nice lady at the Goethe-Institut there, Cholmondeley.)

• I Don’t Really Have a Third Point Here. But two bullets looked kinda odd, so.

What I would really like to know is, what is the policy about early departure?  Because the other night? When we were at Superheroes Who Are Super, and the show was really really bad and the Apothecary was roughly the temperature of a Tandoori oven? I wanted to leave midway through Act 1, but I’d have had to walk across the stage. I think you should be able to pull a cord, like on a Metrobus, and they should have to stop and let you out at the corner of the next scene.

Klimek, what say you?

Chris Klimek: Um . . . forty-two? Sorry, what were you fellows talking about? Just got here.

Yeah, sorry G-Weld, but I kind of have to concur with Trey that the you-shall-not-pass may in fact have been more precipitated by your demeanor upon approach than by Brienzanian Doctrine. My other half’s show is, as you know, at the grrrrr-tah insta-whatever gallery, a venue that, like the Baldacchino, may be discreetly infiltrated after the performance has begun. But I don’t think that’s why the venue manager let me up there when I was late — twice! I think she was being nice in response to nice. Also, I didn’t bring my falcon, Ffolkes.

I suspect the no official no-late-seating-anywhere-ever policy is there at least in part for ease of wrangling the staff, comprised largely of volunteers like the one you subjected to so orotund, and yet so impotent, a rebuke. Late-seating is a thing. It needs must be managed. The conductors thereof must be trained, because the late-sat really must be trained — trained, nay complelled to move with more rapidity and prudence (my beloved former twin falcons, both now deceased) than would be required had they arrived on time.

And it is worse this year.  A lot. Promptness has always been an adversary of mine, but there are external factors. Metro’s decline in the last year has been palpable.

Glen Weldon: Stuff and nonsense. I was (despite what my Unsolved Mysteries-caliber reenactment above would have you believe) my usual affable self. Affable as fuck. And still I got shut down. With extreme prejudice.

Maybe she just didn’t like my face.  I have been told it’s less than likable.

Just two other points, both for Graham:  1. I, of course, go by the Mayan calendar, and by its reckoning our siecle is just a couple of years away from a big, explody fin, so shut it; and 2. Hyphen, schmyphen: I feel like we’re meeting the Goethe folks more than halfway already, by rolling over on their quaint, Olde Worlde, vowelist approach to spelling.  (“Institut”, really?  How cut.)

Oh, and: Your aphorism be damned: “On time” is and forever shall be ON TIME. Because that’s how language works.

Studio Theatre – Mead Theatre, 1501 P Street NW

Remaining Performances:

Saturday, July 24, 3:30 p.m.
Sunday, July 25, 3:00 p.m.

(Plus a four-show post-Fringe revival at the Warehouse.)

They Say: “This new musical comedy takes our heroes – and an ass kicking princess – on a quest to overcome man-eating plants, spiky killer mushrooms, and a neurotic, love-starved homicidal purple platypus. Features original animation, puppets and eggplants!”

Glen’s Take: Look: I expected the po-mo jokes.

I expected there’d be ample electronic sound and music cues to push the audience’s collective nostalgia button, and that the dramatis personae would be recognizable, yet tweaked just enough to keep the Nintendo cease-and-desist letters at bay.  I even suspected, given the subject, that the 11-o’clock number would likely involve existential, “are our lives just a videogame?” sort of questions. I mean it’s a Fringe musical about a pop-culture fixture; there’s kind of a formula.

What I didn’t expect is that co-authors Marshall Pailet and Drew Fornarola wouldn’t be content to simply riff on the Mario Bros. games of their (well: my) youth, but instead interrogate those games to the extent they have here. This is some serious-ass 8-bit dramaturgy, up in here; these guys have meditated on the frickin’ text; the fact that the text in question is an NES cartridge instead of, say, Love’s Labours Lost is immaterial. The result is clever and ironic, yes, but it’s not merely clever and ironic — it’s a fully imagined, well-realized piece of work about love, death and stomping on fungi.

“So,” I imagine some of you who prefer more meaty and/or difficult Fringe fare sniffing, “it’s just nerdy in-jokes, then.  Nothing to do with art,” (in my imagination, you at this point toss one end of your scarf over your bird-boned shoulder), “or with me.”  (In my imagination, you then attempt to steer the conversation toward your movement class.)

Three points:

1.  Very fine, or at least very fun, evenings of theater have been molded from the base clay that is nerdy in-jokes.

2.  In my imagination, you are kind of a dick.

3.  Even if you’ve never exploited the Minus World Glitch yourself, there’s something here for you.

Why? Because the script is smart, the songs are strong, but this particular staging is even smarter, and stronger.

Yes, I’m talking about the puppets. Not just Dian M. Perez’s creations themselves — though they are great — but how they’re used: As the Goomba-esque puppets tromp across the stage toward Steven Gregory Smith‘s Claudio, their handlers’ faces flush with evil intent; once stomped (in admirable sync with Nick Upchurch‘s sound cues), their handlers slink offstage, dejected, defeated.

That’s the only visual joke I’m going to spoil here, but rest assured that Super Claudio Bros. is full of ‘em, each one earning from the audience peals of laughter and/or annoying expository whispers, i.e.: “Those’r the rising platforms from the second world!”

It’s the casting, though — which reads like the DC musical theater producer’s wishlist it likely was — which particularizes a show that constantly threatens to devolve into Big Kampy Komedy Broadness. Sam Ludwig‘s Luis is all deadpan asides; Smith’s Claudio threads the pompous/world-weary needle believably; Lauren Williams undercuts her sudsy Broadway vocal chops with coolly ironic comic timing, and Matthew A. Anderson‘s evil-platypus-as-New-Jersey-crime-boss keeps events grounded, believe it or not.

If the songs aren’t immediately memorable, it may have something to do that many feature rhymes which seem to sit in odd, counterintuitive places in the verse. Ambitious, yes — but lacking the clean, simple, gleeful power Chris Sizemore puts into his stage-ending ditty, “The Princess is Not Here.”

Chop-chop, people.

See it if: You get why a character’s observation that there are only two choices in life (“A” or “B”) earns the laughter of recognition, and not the fruity existential kind.

Skip it if: Your thumbs have lived soft, pampered, uncalloused lives.

‘Tis a Pity She’s a Whore

The Warehouse, 1019 7th Street NW

Remaining Performances:

Friday, July 16 at 8:00 p.m.
Saturday, July 17 at 10:00 p.m.
Sunday, July 25 at 6:30 p.m.

They Say: “A juicy story of secret lovers, betrayal, incest and revenge, among the most controversial plays in English literature — See it onstage: all the romance, all the lust, all the blood! From the theatre that brought you “Jack the Ticket Ripper.”"

Glen’s Take: The historical rap on ‘Tis Pity She’s a Whore — the thing to which the Georgetown Theatre Company folks are referring, with that “most contrversial” jazz —  is that the play, written in 1629 or so, revels in debauchery (incest, bloody vengeance, post-mortem dismemberment, etc.) without ever carving out a moral center.

I know, right?  In a post-Tarantino America, the complaint seems kind of … adorable.

Props to director Alia Faith Williams and company for having done the hard, good work of paring a play that usually runs over three hours down to a spry-ish 90 minutes by neatly excising huge chunks of text. The result isn’t as clean as it could be — denied their respective subplots, Frank O’Donnell‘s Richardetto and Nathan Cederoth‘s Grimaldi just sort of hang around as if they’re waiting for the next bus out of town. But as a canny, quick-on-his-feet servant, Terence Aselford gets some nice, oily bits of business in, and Lindsay Duso sinks her teeth into her woman scorned with an unapologetic and at times downright operatic brashness that’s big, yes, but you can’t say it doesn’t fill the stage and goose the energy.

The two leads, Evan Crump and Jessica Shearer Wilson are only given one note to play, though you may wish for a bit more variation in tone from Crump’s Giovanni. Scene to scene, his delivery vacillates between insistent and shrill — and even if you’re prepared to cut him some slack on the forcefulness front, given that his character is both 1. a pompous academic and 2. consumed with boning his sister, it’d be nice to see more of an arc.

Playwright John Ford (no, not that one – but how awesome would THAT be?) wrote dialogue that’s clean, vigorous and often funny, and it’s done good service here.  The fight choreography’s tight, and features characters shouting things like “Have at you!” and “Vengeance!”,  which: Yes, please.

The much-discussed blood doesn’t really show up till the closing minutes, but when it does there’s gouts of it; and the play’s most famous image –a grisly cardio-kebab — will put you off Fort Fringe burgers for a day or so.

See it if: VC Andrews-brand siblings + “Have at you!” + Post-mortem dismemberment = Your winning formula.

Skip it if: You’re unwilling to wait a bit to get your visceral ya-yas out, and routinely eat dessert first.

What's the next item up for bid? Narrative.

So you’re headed to Showcase Showdown, SpeakeasyDC‘s storytelling/The Price Is Right mashup?  Awesome; you’re gonna have a good time.

And you say you’re an extroverted sort, and so will be putting your name in the running to be called down as a contestant, and possibly earn the chance to win glamorous prizes? Glad to hear it!  Knock yourself out. Mazel tov.

Little advice?

The mechanics of Showcase Showdown are straight-up TPIR: Once your name is called, you’ll take a seat in Contestants’ Row (read: three downstage chairs) and bid for a chance to play a game.  But you won’t be bidding on a lounge suite, a canister vacuum, or a 18-inch television encased in a faux-walnut console the size of the Altar of Baal. Instead, you’ll be listening to a SpeakeasyDC storyteller, who’ll stop midway through and ask you to guess a number relevant to the story he or she is telling. You’ll bid (guess), the story will continue and the number in question will be revealed — and the contestant who came closest to the actual number without going over will win.

Basic, right? A process most of us soaked up via pop-culture-osmosis over years of ditching school to laze on the couch snarfing Pop-Tarts, right?

If we are to judge by the performances of Showcase Showdown contestants to date: Wrong.

Lookit:  There’s a simple science to bidding on The Price is Right. Pencil-necked academics have published papers on it.  Game-theory geeks have filled message boards with bid-bloviatin’.

But you don’t need to worry your pretty little head with any of that.  We’re gonna break it down for you.

Keep this mnemonic in mind:  ABC3.  Always. Be. Contestant #3.

You want to be sitting in the chair farthest downstage, because (unlike TPIR, which rotates the order of bidding), the Speakeasy DC folk always start with the contestant in the chair farthest upstage.  This will provide you with the singular advantage of knowing your competitors’ bids, which allows you to exploit a quirk of the rules to best effect.

Remember: The idea is to come closest without going over.  You don’t get extra points for guessing on the nose.

Okay, let’s role-play:

It’s last Friday night.  You’re a beardy guy who’s made his way into Contestants’ Row.  The first contestant was asked the number of times the storyteller … did something (no spoilers here).  The true number could be just about anything, really – 1 to 100 or more, it’s anyone’s guess.

Contestant #1 guesses “3.”

Contestant #2, for reasons of her own, guesses “5.”

Now it’s your turn, Beardy McGurk. Here are your options.

1. Guess “1.” A time-tested strategy, to be employed if and only if you believe your fellow contestants have all overbid.  As a gambit, it is simple, elegant, and not a little bit snooty; it says “Oh, DO let’s allow cooler heads to prevail, hmm?”  It’s effective, having sent many a corpulent Keokuk realtor into the waiting arms of Bob/Drew. In this particular case, however, the odds are against it being the smart move; ideally, you want to see a little more daylight between “0″ and the lowest bid before busting out the ol’ 1er.

2. Guess “6.” You know who wins in life?  Who wins elections, money, narrative-based-game shows?  I’ll tell you: The bold, that’s who. Granted, this is an aggressive tactic. Which is to say: Yes, it’s a dick move. You’d be claiming for yourself all rational and imaginary numbers above 5, essentially shutting out contestant #2 — and she looks like a nice person.  But you know what, Grizzly Addams?  There’s Fringe glory at stake here.  Fringe glory, and an Econo-size bottle of Palmolive.  Which, we shouldn’t really have to point out, SOFTENS HANDS WHILE YOU DO THE DISHES.  So risk the approbation of the crowd, and nut up already.

There’s … another option, of course. It’s the one chosen by that beardy guy last Friday night.  Call it the Path of What The Fuck Are You Doing, I Mean Are You Kidding Here, With This?  Because that’s what the ardent TPIR-watcher two rows in front of me exclaimed, when she witnessed it.

3. Guess “4.” Yep, no kidding: 4. The one number that occupies the tiny patch of real estate on the number line between his fellow contestant’s guesses. I mean: Come on.

Do we even need to tell you he didn’t win?  We don’t, right?

Here endeth the lesson.  But if you glean only one bit of wisdom from this experience, let it be this:

Don’t bid like Beardy Guy.

Showcase Showdown will be performed Thursday, July 15 and Friday, July 16 at the U.S. Navy Memorial at 8 p.m. Tickets here.

United States Navy Memorial, 701 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Suite 123

Remaining Performances:

Saturday, July 10 at 8:00 p.m.

Thursday, July 15 at 8:00 p.m.

Friday, July 16 at 8:00 p.m.

They Say: “The producers of last year’s top-selling show (SpeakeasyDC and The Sin Show) present a storytelling game-show. Hear unforgettable true stories and participate by guessing the end of a story, choosing sides, picking out the truth, and more.”

Glen’s Take: We’ve chided the SpeakeasyDC folks in this space before – gently, and never less-than-admiringly – about their ringer status.  For years now, they’ve been the trust-fund babies of Fringe, what with their built-in local fanbase, deep(ish) pockets, their mutant ability to sell out shows without working up a sweat and, yes, their reviews, which dependably land on the Fringe-Metacritic scale somewhere between “fawning” and “fellating.”

They’ve got laurels, is my point, and the impulse to rest on them must have been powerful strong. After all, the Speakeasy formula would seem to encourage repetition; certainly last year’s Sin Show – seven storytellers taking on the Seven Deadlies – wasn’t appreciably different than their previous Fringe outings, or indeed their weekly shows, unless “a bit longer” counts as different.

There’s also the fact that the stories these performers tell have been workshopped to hell — painstakingly shaped, honed, crafted for maximum effect.  Which, if you think about it, is about un-Fringey as it gets.

And that’s probably why this year’s outing, with its slap-dash gameshow bells and whistles (the bells, at least, are quite literal) feels so heartening.  The storytelling’s just as strong: Witness Sheldon Scott’s portrait of himself as a young overachiever, which he stuffs with rich language that should sound written, but never does; or Jessica Solomon’s note-perfect, finely detailed evocation of 1992. It’s also just as varied: Solomon seems to be just discovering the beats and laugh lines of her story, while the wounded, faux-exasperated tone Mike Kane employs to relate a tale of cat-napping seems more calibrated – but just as funny.

But the low-rent, low-fi, low-brow Price is Right gimcrackery in which they’ve couched the stories?  The contestants from the audience? The golden-throated announcer (B. Stanley, who’s more Gary Owens than Johnny Olson/Rod Roddy, really)?  The glamorous prizes (read: Shake n’ Bake)? The  louche host (John Kevin Boggs, who bats a perfectly respectable .500, in quip-per-laugh ratio)?  The interstitial vintage commercials (seriously, that Old Spice spot is just disquieting)?

It’s all filled with awkward pauses, blown cues, strained laughter, panicky performers, and flop sweat.  It’s cheesy and exciting and kind of awkward, and watching it you can’t miss the fact that these people have stepped outside their comfort zone, that they don’t know quite what’s going to happen, and that wherever the evening ends up, you and they are gonna discover it together.

SpeakeasyDC: Welcome to Fringe.

See it if: Your favorite pricing game is Cliffhanger.

Skip it if: Your favorite pricing game is that shitty golf one.

[ED NOTE: Look, even we know enough about sports to know that a batting average of .500 would be much closer to Goddamn Miraculous than to "perfectly respectable."  We've checked, and Glen's creative license and registration are both in order, so just relax.]

Remaining Performances:  Friday, July 24th at 8:30 p.m.; Sunday, July 26th at 6:30 p.m.

They Say:  “The fifteen year high school reunion of the Fighting Eagles brings out the teenager in 7 former friends. But as the drink count rises and secrets are revealed, will they manage to stay that way?”

Glen’s Take: The above description promises — or threatens, I suppose, depending on your point of view — a tried and true reunion-sparks-shattering-revelations drama in the That Championship Season mode.  Which is essentially what Late Bloomers and Glory Days delivers — you’ll know you’re on rails from beginning to end, but the track runs pretty smooth.

Local playwright Allyson Currin knows that we ‘ve seen this all before, and plays with those expectations a bit.  That shattering revelation is deliberately anti-climactic, and — mercifully — has nothing to do with anyone coming out of the damn closet because that shit is, can we all agree, A) not particularly shattering, and B) SERIOUSLY tired, already.

But Jessica North Macie’s direction doesn’t seem to be coming at Currin’s script from any particular angle.  True, this  allows us a clear, unobstructed view of the performances.  It doesn’t, however, give us much else to hang onto, and the evening starts to seem more like a tag-team actor showcase than a narrative about which we’re supposed to care.  This feeling is underscored at the close of the play, which calls for characters to make a symbolic gesture that, in this production, comes off more capital-S-Symbolic/on-the-nose/writerly than real.

But if this show’s intent is simply to introduce us to some actors, let’s play along.  All the performers are graduates of DC’s National Conservatory of the Dramatic Arts, and they do solid work.  Oh, there’s some stiffness, some rushing through lines.  And with the notable exceptions of Leigh Anna Fry and Michael Harris, there’s also a vague but pervasive reluctance to commit to the script’s comic touches, to really hit the jokes.

But again: You can go into Late Bloomers and Glory Days confident that you’ll get out of it … pretty much what you imagine you’ll get out of it.  Which, people tell me, is what going to a high school reunion feels like.

(Note: Harris is not scheduled to appear in Sunday’s production; Fry will not appear in tonight’s.)

See it if: You’re on Facebook to reconnect with high school friends.

Skip it if:  You’re not on Facebook, because you see very little daylight between the phrase, “You can reconnect with people from high school!” and the phrase “You can get spastic colon!”

Remaining Performances: Wednesday, July 22nd at 10 p.m.; Friday, July 24th at 8 p.m. [SOLD OUT]; Sunday, July 26th at 2 p.m.

They say:  “Riding on the sold-out success of last year’s Chocolate Jesus and Revenge of the Cat-Headed Baby, SpeakeasyDC presents yet another sure-to-be-Fringe-fave, THE SIN SHOW featuring true stories about pride, greed, envy, sloth, gluttony, lust, and wrath.”

Glen’s take:  Look, the SpeakeasyDC guys don’t need our help — they’ve a proven record at Fringe as both vets and all-stars, they’re selling out shows, they got a rave in the paper blog of record.  So they really don’t need us to tell you the show’s pretty great, but they’re getting it anyway, because, turns out? The show’s pretty great.

It’s great for the reasons their previous Fringe outings were:  With seeming effortlessness, these stories, and these storytellers, provoke precisely what they mean to — gasps, laughter (raucous and rueful, in turn),  along with quieter, more introspective reactions.

That seeming effortlessness is part of the game, because it’s clear that all seven performers — though they may evince varying degrees of comfort in front of an audience, or at least an audience this size — have worked over their stories,  shaped them, honed them into the versions they present to us.

This is particulalry true of the two tales that bookend the evening:  John Kevin “Gluttony” Boggs’ sardonic account of quitting cigarettes, and the emporkening that ensued; and Seaton “Envy”  Smith’s blisteringly funny screed against an old college classmate, which is nothing less than a master class in comic timing.

So, yeah, it’s great.  But let’s just note that their previous Fringe outings featured fewer performers (Chocolate Jesus: Four, Revenge of the Cat-Headed Baby: Five) in more intimate spaces, so those evenings felt satisfyingly cohesive.

The Sin Show is looser, and considerably longer, and more uneven.  With seven performers, it’s easier to discern those who still need to work on their confidence, and those — like Saurabh “Lust” Tak, whose spin on the line “a warm TICKLE ran through my body” reduced the dude in front of me to boar-like snorting  — who’ve got it going on.

See it if: That Spalding-Gray-shaped hole in your heart? Yeah, it’s still there.

Skip it if:  “Shaped? Crafted?  That’s bullshit — Fringe means fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants!  First-thought-best-thought!  Boy, I’m angry about how unfair that is, but I will use this anger to inform my blowetry.”