Show: 33
Title: An Exorcism, Don'tcha Know?
Category: Comedy / Horror / Puppetry
By: New Endeavors
Created by: Andrew Rakerd
Location: Barker Center
Summary: The show description pretty much says it all: "Church Basement Ladies meets The Exorcist."
Highlights: I recently saw the original Church Basement Ladies for the first time, and the setup here is almost identical. There's a new pastor at the Lutheran Church in small town Minnesota, and the ladies holding an Easter fundraiser to raise money for a new furnace aren't sure what to think of him (he's "different"). And there's a young woman returned from school at "the U" in "the Cities," coming home different than when she left. And here's where this show diverges from CBL - she's possessed by a demon. A demon who is disappointed to find out he's been sent to torment not a Catholic Church, where they expect and know how to handle such things, but a Lutheran Church. The ladies (Angela Fox, Cayla Marie Wolpers, and Michelle Schwantes) and one husband (Mitch Kiecker) turn to Pastor Sal (Rob Ward) to help rid poor Regan (Emma Kessler) of the demon, but he's not sure what to do. One of the ladies has seen The Exorcist, and offers suggestions. But in the end, Minnesota Nice is the only thing that works to rid these Lutherans of the demon. Because it's not the Minnesota Fringe Festival without some Fargo accents and lutefisk jokes, and this show fills the bill nicely. The cast is great, particularly Emma with a blood curdling scream, her words echoed by Mike Dee as the demon, dressed all in black and shadowing her moves, creating a spooky otherworldly effect. This show is really fun and ridiculously funny, as I would expect from the team that brought us one of the most brilliantly stupid Fringe shows in my memory - 2017's The Buttslasher, and the 2019 sequel The Buttslasher: And Then There Were Buns. I'm still waiting for part 3, but in the meantime, you can catch the final performance of An Exorcism, Don'tcha Know? today (Sunday) at 1pm for some Minnesota humor mixed with a touch of horror.
