Please Listen: A Musical Chaos
Baldacchino Gypsy Tent at Fort Fringe

Remaining Performances:
July 24th 10pm
July 26th 3:15pm

What they say: Arlo and Donovan kidnap a big record executive to force him to produce their band’s new concept album ‘Overwhelming Stimulus.’ Watch the album unfold on stage and experience your first robot ball and more musical chaos.

Matt’s take: Back in 1987, director Elaine May set out to chronicle the hapless adventures of  two songwriting  man-children who, unbeknownst to themselves, write laughably lousy jingles. The absurdity of their songs was a high point in what has since been denounced as one of the biggest cinematic disasters in history. The overgrown adolescents  in question  were played by Warren Beatty and Dustin Hoffman. The film was Ishtar and, for the record, the first 30 minutes are kind of funny.

Since then, the oblivious songwriting duo has taken many forms but it’s always the same story. Two hopelessly delusional but tenacious dreamers fight for the fame and glory they believe is rightfully theirs. The audience knows better. It’s funny until it’s not.

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Last night, 23 Fringe groups converged on a makeshift stage in the backroom of RFD’s for the fourth annual Fringe Previews. (Video, methinks, forthcoming.) The beer was abundant, the crowd somewhat rowdier and less attentive than last year’s, and the performances less…well, performative than declarative. That is to say: it was a lot more tell than show.

Not without its highlights, though, and certainly replete with the requisite Fringe-isms. Fake breasts? Check. Um, more fake breasts? Double-check. Duplicitous robots from space? Indeed. Desultory allusions to Beckett, Wilde, Shakespeare, et al. wielded with the weight of a French tickler? Duh.

Below the jump, a telegraphic rundown on last night’s 23 previews.

Deep breath!~ Here we go:

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