Cabaret CooCoo
The Mountain at Mt. Vernon Place United Methodist Church

Remaining performances: July 11 at 8 p.m.; July 16 at 6 p.m.; July 17 at 8 p.m.; Jul 25 at 4 p.m.

They say: “Classy acts! Captivating Characters! Hosted by Guitar Prodigy Scooter Undercroft, Featuring Izzy and Diz Aster Singing Cheery Songs of the Great Depression, Nicolo the Juggling Accordionist, the Amazing Illusionist Catastrafi, Hotsy-Totsy Dancing Cigarette Girls, the Melodious Pit band, and surprise(d) guests!”

Ted’s take: More clowning reality-reprieve from the resident masters of vintage slapstick.

This year, M.C. Scooter Undercroft welcomes you to the Cabaret CooCoo, which—as the project’s name and pedigree surely attest—is an utterly bonkers evening’s worth of dysfunctional, downmarket cabaret, magical malaprop, and period pasticherie set to a very fetching incidental soundtrack courtesy of accordions, ukuleles, and at least one harmonic saw. The “Hotsy Totsy Dancing Girls” (pronounced “goils”) are also present, but the Flying Zamboni Brothers are not—which sends Scooter AWOL and leaves the rest of the cast scrambling in the service of a show-within-a-show that…well, must go on.

Happenstance, here, is playing to its strengths—vaudevillian funny business isn’t exactly an artistic leap for a group that, as far as Cap Fringe is concerned, has practically cornered the market on the stuff. Which is not to say the performances aren’t versatile: This is an extended family of gifted physical comics, and whether dancing, singing, miming, preaching, mumbling, or staring vacantly at the audience, they execute with equal aplomb. Anchored by the dual charisma of Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell—here, Izzy and Diz Aster, respectively—Happenstance mines the physical idioms of Marceau, Chaplin, and Harpo Marx to produce a show about how art—even and especially disastrous (make that Diz Aster-ous), wildly loopy, fourth-wall-busting art—offers its audience a reprieve from the economic doldrums.

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MANIFESTO!
The Source

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 19 @ 8 PM; Sunday, July 20 @ 3:30 PM; Wednesday, July 23 @ 7:30 PM; Saturday, July 26 @ 9 PM

They say: Manifesto!
Art movement. Political movement.
MANIFESTO! is DADA. Clown is HAHA!
Three clowns, two punk visionaries, and an impresario walk into a bar. This is not a joke! This is a spectacular divertimento to launch the next great movement! Inspired by the PAST, NOW is the FUTURE. MANIFESTO! excites everything!**

Brian’s take: Pearheads. Choo-choo trainsies. Hypnotic spiraling head expanders. Funny HAHA dancing. Wheeling typewriter impostors:::::::::::::::::::::Honky-tonk saw. Stand UP! sit down. (Bald-headed crystal ball). Balloon&Broom&Bicycle wheelie….

Those are just a few examples of the glorious nuggets of nonsense that comprise MANIFESTO!, the Happenstance Theater’s delightful romp through the surreal, unreal, anti-real, ethereal landscape of DADA. This superb ensemble cast, led by Mark Jaster and Sabrina Mandell, has taken snippets from texts across four schools of thought–futurism, communism, capitalism, and dada–and artfully fashioned them into an hour-long comedic revue in which, ultimately, dada seeps into and seduces all.

But MANIFESTO! is by no means a history lesson. In fact, it is perhaps the most deftly theatrical display of reading-in-between-the-lines I have ever seen: a multi- and extra-sensory extravaganza with insanely stunning visual imagery stitched together by rag-tag bursts of sound and slapstick.

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Watch and listen as Fringe & Purge chats with Jeffrey of Speakeasy D.C., Mark and Sabrina of Happenstance Theater, and Julianne and Scott, the masterminds behind D.C. Fringe.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version of this video