Minnesota Fringe Festival 2024: "Mae West's The Drag"

Day: 9

Show: 29

Title: Mae West's The Drag

Category: Comedy / Drama / LGBTQIA+ Content

By: The Feral Theatre Company

Written by: Braden Joseph

Location: Mixed Blood Theatre

Summary: A modern update of play written in 1927 by Mae West, with drag performances!

Highlights: This play feels like it could have been written today, with its modern themes of identity and LGBTQIA+ rights. The story focuses on a closeted gay man named Rolly (Mitch Vosejpka), his wife Clair (Abby Wagner), and their friend Grayson (Zach Sain), whom Rolly has a crush on, but asks to accompany his wife when he's away, as he often is. We also meet the couple's fathers, one of whom is a doctor attempting to covert homosexuals, including Rolly's ex-lover David (Basil Jenkins). A lot happens in 60 minutes, but in the end several of our characters come to terms with who they are and who others are, including Clair, who's given more agency and voice in this re-write. And of course, we have some fabulous drag performances by Chad Burke, Dee Jackson, and Jordan Girard at the drag ball Rolly holds in his home. This nearly 100-year-old play is a find by Feral Theatre, and they've given it nice treatment, bringing it into the modern age while still being a period piece (with beautiful period costumes and set pieces), so that it's both historical and timely. And you still have time to see it - their final show is today (Sunday), the final day of Fringe.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2022: "Stranger vs The Malevolent Malignancy"

Day: 1

Show: 1

Title: Stranger vs The Malevolent Malignancy

Category: COMEDY / SCI-FI / LITERARY ADAPTATION

By: The Feral Theatre Company

Written by: Braden Joseph

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: A superhero story about what happens when the superhero has cancer and is suddenly mortal like the rest of us.

Highlights: This riff on the superhero story employs all of the tropes we love - saving the world, fighting evil, hidden identity, falling in love with the eager reporter - and adds a new twist. The story is told through a meeting of the superhero known as Stranger (Shain Longbehn) with his therapist Dr. Jarhead (Calista Robinson manipulating a large jar with a head in it, crawling around on surfaces with spider legs). The twist is that Stranger has malignant tumors in his bowels (voiced by Daniel "DK" Konold just off stage, like a devil on his shoulder). Stranger tells his story and we see flashbacks of his life leading up to this point, and a decision he has to make about whether to save himself, or save the world. Classic hero stuff. The cast (also including Teddy Lee, Eliana Meyerowitz, and Olivia Dubiel) is fully committed to the concept, and the script is full of references to science fiction and pop culture. A fun and clever whirlwind of a tale with some poignant rumination on mortality thrown in.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"The Dolls of New Albion" streaming from Feral Theatre Company

Intrepid young #TCTheater company Feral Theatre seems to have figured out this pandemic theater thing. Maybe because they've only been around since 2019, they were able to be more flexible and adaptable to the new world, since they had barely established themselves in the old world. In the last year, they've produced a series of podcast play readings, had several entries in the 2020 Virtual Minnesota Fringe Festival, and presented a live virtual production of The Awakening of Spring from various locations. Now they're bringing us the regional premiere The Dolls of New Albion, which seems to be somewhat of a cult hit musical, especially in the UK. In fact, this is only the third US production. It's a great piece; it reminds me of the kind of obscure musical gems that Theatre Elision and Minneapolis Musical Theatre often do. And it lends itself well to this time, in that although this production features a nine-person cast, most scenes only involve a few of them. They're able to practice social distancing on stage, wearing masks if there are multiple people on stage (even singing through masks), or removing their mask if they're alone on stage. Because that's right, this show is performed live, with all of the performers together, at Elision Playhouse. I can only hope/assume that they are following protocols backstage as well, but from this end, they appear to be doing everything right. That is: live theater almost as we remember it, with safety protocols in place for the performers, and with the audience tuning in from the safety of their own homes.

"The Awakening of Spring" - a live virtual performance by Feral Theatre Company

Spring Awakening is one of my favorite musicals, so much so that 11 years ago I named my new kitten Moritz Stiefel. I've seen it on stage eight times, including twice on Broadway (the original run with most of the original cast, and the stunning 2015 revival by Deaf West). The musical is an adaptation by Duncan Sheik and Steven Sater of the ahead-of-its-time late 19th Century German play Frülings Erwachen by Frank Wedekind. The play was often banned or censored due to it's frank (no pun intended) discussion of the sexual awakening of teenagers in an oppressed society. Feral Theatre Company is offering us this 100+ year old play for 2020, complete with zoom and masks. The themes of this play - suicide, abortion, sex education, child abuse - never lack relevancy, and are perhaps even more important now as we approach this election. It's an ambitious undertaking for a new theater company, and they do a great job bringing this story to life within the limitations of the current world, with a talented young cast that gives raw and vulnerable performances to a camera, nicely edited together with graphics of modern social media communication.