7(x1) Samurai
The Shop at Fort Fringe

Remaining Performances:
Saturday, July 19 @ 8 PM
Sunday, July 20 @ 2:15 PM
Thursday, July 24 @ 10 PM
Saturday, July 26 @ 1 PM
Sunday, July 27 @ 7 PM

They say: “Kurosawa’s epic tale of victimized peasants, marauding bandits, and samurai warriors – retold at breakneck pace, through movement, by one exhausted and ridiculous actor. With accompanying gibberish and vocal sound effects.”

Trey’s take: Best 45 minutes of my Fringe so far. Don’t be intimidated by the Kurosawa name-check — or by the fact that this guy’s a highly trained mime.

Solo artist David Gaines tarts up the tale of The Seven Samurai with decidedly American pop-culture tropes ranging from action-flick fight sequences to Looney Tunes cartoons — I think there’s even a nod in the direction of the Samurai homage The Magnificent Seven — using those instantly recognizable vocabularies to help tell the story almost entirely without words.

And Gaines is as deft as anyone I’ve ever seen at the efficient definition of character: A gesture, a posture, a shambling shrug, or a katana-sheathing shhhhwwwt sound, and you see the archer, the sleepy swordsman, the giant or the klutzy apprentice samurai. By the time the show culminates in an epic one-man rendition of a full-tilt defend-the-village free-for-all, the illusion is total: One guy, a couple of masks, and a white backdrop, and a roiling battle against the landscape of feudal Japan has unfolded in your mind’s eye.

See it if: You grok that, far from being an outdated discipline to sneer at, the rich nonverbal language that is mime informs contemporary entertainments from Broadway’s Lion King to Pixar’s Wall-E.

Skip it if: You’ve got better things to do than be charmed by a witty concept and a first-rate performer.

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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