I Like Nuts! (The Musical)
Studio Theatre

Remaining performances:
Saturday, July 26 @ 4:30 PM; Sunday, July 27 @ Noon

They say: “Horatio likes nuts. He really, really likes nuts. Join Horatio and a cast including a Robot, a Pirate, a Vampire, and two Squirrels on a musical quest for nuts, knowledge and Norwegian fish balls. Including the musical numbers ‘Girls Don’t Like Adventure,’ ‘Everyone I Know is a Moron,’ and many others!”

Brian: Hey Ted. I like I Like Nuts!! I like I Like Nuts! a lot!

Ted: I’m not surprised. Why did you like I Like Nuts! so much, Brian?

Brian: Well you see, Ted, the show was a true expression of itself. The players were as earnest in their mounting of this goofy spectacle as Horatio Hornbeam (played with plain-faced nut naïveté by Nick Greek) was in his quest to follow the sagely nut guru’s orders, help Rob the Angry Squirrel find his long-lost nut tree, bring a robot, vegan vampire, pirate, and a guy named Gary all the way to Norway, and then soak up enough nut-knowledge to get his dream job at the nut factory.

Ted: Wow. You used the word “nut” like forty times there. Way to go.

Brian: What did you like about the show, Ted?

Ted: I liked the old dude.

Brian: Oh, you mean Jeff Baker! Wasn’t he super?

Ted: Beyond super. That guy transformed from faux-Hindu guru to disaffected nightclub owner to doddering old codger to overenthusiastic, anaphylactic neighbor faster than you can say “anaphylactic neighbor.”

Brian: Did you know that I’m actually a prophylactic?

Ted: What? You’re a condom?

Brian: Nipples!

Ted: Excuse me?

Brian: Nipples! I loved the part with the nipples!

Ted: Oh, you mean the scene where they twisted and tweaked and titillated each other’s–

Brian: Shhh! You’re going to spoil it for everyone! Why don’t you tell us something you learned from the show.

Ted: Oh, well, yes, I Like Nuts! was very educational. I think the most important lesson I learned was about all the things that aren’t nuts, including (but by no means limited to) coconuts, polka dots, corn, and “very small rocks.”

Brian: Yeah, all that was news to me as well. To think I’ve spent all these years putting polka dots in my brownies.

Ted: I love your brownies.

Brian: Thanks dude.

Ted: What was the most important thing you learned from the show, Brian?

Brian: I learned that despite mediocre singing and lagging tempo (they did it faster at the preview a few weeks back to grander effect–you can check out the video below to see for yourself), a show can still be more fun than a barrel of freaking monkeys.

Ted: Yes. It was an exercise in taking one thematic joke and actually making it sustain an hour’s worth of entertainment. The SNL skit-to-movie formula in successful action.

Brian: So, what’s the take-home, Mr. Ted?

Ted: I’d say see it if you want to renew your faith in the non sequitur.

Brian: Touché. And I’d say skip it if you’ve misplaced your epipen. Or if your co-worker used it to get high last Tuesday night and still hasn’t gotten you a replacement like he promised.

Ted: Um, yeah. I’ll get on that.

After the jump: that video we were talking about.

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Wow. So this is still going on, and I’d just like to say: I want some of what he’s smoking.

That is all.

UPDATE, 11:45 p.m. – So just to revisit: I’m not going to write a full review, because I’m not sure quite where to start.  

This was one of the most out-there things I’ve seen yet at Fringe; can’t say it was good, not sure I want to say it was bad, exactly. (It had the distinct whiff of the Radical Faerie about it, and everybody needs a little Faerie dust once in a while.) So let’s leave it at mad — and perhaps spectacularly ill-advised, in a town as buttoned-up as this one. 

Of the 18 audience members who came, 12 of us survived until the end. Which was convenient, because it meant no one was left out when lead performer Huilo Marvavilla produced a dozen yellow roses and went about bestowing them upon the patrons.

The projections were intriguingly psychedelic, the soundscape much the same; the puppets, whether smallish or enormous, were wonderfully well-crafted.

But the puppetry itself was amateurish and unfocused, the dancing likewise, and the whole thing thoroughly incoherent. Act 2, an improvised and largely undecipherable puppet conversation titled “Tea With Duality,” was possibly the single most uncomfortable thing I’ve ever seen on a stage.

Finally, if I were called upon to offer one technical suggestion, it would be this: If you know that, during the course of your trippy hourlong multimedia paean to peace, you will be donning a giant papier-mache puppet-head and dancing about the darkened performance space, you might think twice about building a spider-web of purple yarn throughout said space before the puppet-head dance.

That way, there will be less stumbling.

On July 2nd at RFD’s, the beer flowed mightily and the crowd went nuts over some sneak peeks at this year’s festival.

Read about it here; watch it below.

Trouble viewing? Try the YouTube version of this video.

Last night at RFD in Chinatown, a smattering of Fringe productions presented short segments from their shows, and I have to say that on the whole it was pretty impressive. So as you’re sifting through the festival guide, wondering how on earth you’re going to choose from 120 different productions, here are some standouts from the preview. Keep in mind, however, that last night was only a small handful of this year’s performances. What are you looking forward to? What else do we Fringe & Purgers need to see?

7 (x1) Samurai
David Gaines
Mr. Gaines may hawk his show as “An Epic Tale…told by an idiot,” but during the 7 minutes I witnessed last night, it became uproariously clear that this man is no idiot. Dressed as part street-pantomime part Japanese warrior, Gaines was riveting as he moved seamlessly among his manifold nonspeaking characters. This is serious, sidesplitting, mesmerizing stuff, and to see one man sustain it for 45 minutes is a feat I refuse to miss.

Slave Narratives Revisited
Mosaic Theatre Productions
Talk about a powerhouse: Lary Moten, in two tantalizingly short monologues, had everyone in RFD’s back room transfixed last night. He transformed that space twice in 5 minutes: first into an antebellum southern crossroads, and then into a Montgomery bus in 1956. There were some truly sublime (and deeply funny) moments, and if this is what 5 minutes in a bar feels like, well then I can’t wait to see the real thing.

Check out a few more suggestions after the jump.

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