A Venture Through The 12th Annual New York Fringe Fest

Dixie Sheridan

Pleasantly insensitive: China—The Whole Enchilada

Details

ALSO
More Fringe Festival 2008 Reviews!

Related Content

• Launch Party for finite + flammable
  December 7, 2011
• The Edinburgh Festivals: Some Whiskey With Your Program?
  August 31, 2011
• Scientists Poo-Poo Your Near-Death Experience
  October 31, 2011
• GREAT EXPECTATIONS
  August 3, 2011
• The 10 Best Bitchy Comments Of All Time
  July 12, 2011

More About

• Jacqueline Susann
• New York International Fringe Festival
• Jessica Dickey
• Musicals
• Theater

Music also featured rather inexplicably in Tiny Feats of Cowardice, a cabaret-cum- confessional by New Georges founder Susan Bernfield, in which she details her fears: airplanes, malaria, toasters, violin teachers, cows, and (more problematically) performing in front of an audience. It's unclear why Bernfield half sings the script—the sung bits don't differ much from the spoken—or why she required a three-man backing band, but it's an affecting piece. As is Too Much Memory, though it seems misplaced at the Fringe: Written by Keith Reddin and Meg Gibson and nicely performed by an estimable cast (Laura Heisler, Louis Cancelmi, Martin Moran, etc.), this smart, colloquial "adaptation of an adaptation of a retranslation" of Antigone would seem a likely Off-Broadway candidate.

As I'm still attempting some post-vacation equanimity, the less said about Heaven Forbid(s)!, Choose Your Own Play, and the unspeakably twee Velvet Scratch—Voyage of No Return, the better. Apparently the Fringe has some fine shows I haven't seen—other Voice reviewers have enjoyed The Alice Complex, Julius Caesar, and The Grecian Formula. But I'd just as soon rest up and steel myself for next year's fest. After five Fringe-filled days, I'm tempted to echo Jacqueline Susann's dying words: "Let's get the hell out of here, doll."