Friday, August 6, 2021

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2021: "Fruit Flies & Friends"

Day: 1

Show: 1

Title: Fruit Flies & Friends

By: The Fourth Wall Ensemble

Performance Type: Virtual

Location: Streaming Anytime

Length: 60 minutes

Summary: The team behind the national Fringe hit Fruit Flies Like a Banana collaborates with their equally talented friends to create a collection of short pieces combining classical music, movement, and theater.

Highlights: I never miss a chance to see the Massachusetts-based company The Fourth Wall Ensemble, even if it's a virtual show a year and a half into the virtual theater world that's growing a bit tedious. This ensemble of flute (Hilary Abigana), trombone (C. Neil Parsons), and percussion (Greg Jukes) mixes classical music, acrobatics, theater, poetry, boomwhackers, and other unexpected things in such an innovative way that it's irresistible. While they have recently returned to live performance, this format allows them to safely create and collaborate with each other and with friends and colleagues from the Fringe scene, many of whom will be familiar to Minnesota Fringe audiences. This show is a collection of short pieces, mostly in the now familiar zoom box style, featuring all instrumentals or with vocals, sometimes accompanied by dance or movement, or spoken word, or imagery. It's a wonderfully eclectic mix with that familiar Fruit Flies magic but incorporating some new energy too. 

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.