Minnesota Fringe Festival 2023: "Yes No Maybe (please explain)"

Day: 10

Show: 36

Title: Yes No Maybe (please explain)

Category: COMEDY / DRAMA / ORIGINAL MUSIC / PHYSICAL THEATER

By: Sandbox Theatre

Created by: Sandbox Theatre

Location: Rarig Thrust

Summary:  A now 41-year-old woman looks back on her high school years in the mid to late '90s through the many notes she received.

Highlights: Kristina Fjellman shares what I believe are her actual notes from high school, which she stuffed between the mattresses on her bed and were later found by her mother. It's done in a clever and meta way; she's brought on stage when the playful and enthusiastic ensemble (Chasya Hill, Charlie Henrikson, Jada Pulley, Megan Campbell Lagas, and Scobie Bathie) point a camcorder at her sitting in the front row. They proceed to ask her questions and throw letters at her (posing as the Ambers inside her head) until she reads from some, the camcorder giving us a close-up of the intracies of folding and doodles in the notes, hundreds of which are piled up on stage like a snowbank. She read letters from her friends as well as a boyfriend, referred to as M, who loved her a little more than she loved him. The use of music as underscoring, original songs sung by the ensemble (including a tribute to everything '90s), and the camcorder which is always on and displayed on the back wall, sometimes pointed at scenes acted out by tiny toy figures, is all very inventive and charming. It's a sweet, playful, nostalgic show.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

"Killer Inside" by Sandbox Theatre at Red Eye Theater

The "murder ballad" is a genre of music in which a deliciously tragic tale of murder is told through a sad and lovely song, often associated with Appalachian or traditional Scottish or Irish music. Sandbox Theatre, a company that performs new works created by the ensemble, has taken the idea of the murder ballad and turned it into a 90-minute musical called Killer Inside. Basically it's a series of new murder ballads acted out and sung by the ensemble, tied together in a prison setting. It's dark and disturbing, but really creative and inventive, and well-performed by the seven-person ensemble (Derek Lee Miller, Derek Meyer, Evie Digirolama, Kristina Fjellman, Megan Campbell Lagas, Sam Landman, and Theo Langason) and two-person band (Charlie Henrikson and Derek Trost).

The ensemble members, who collaborated to write all of the music and the story, play various characters on both sides of the law - prisoners and officers at Pittsville Penitentiary. There's not so much a throughline plot, but rather a series of vignettes in which we hear the various stories of these characters in the prison. The officers tell and sing about what it means to them to work with murderers. The prisoners also share their stories of murder. Some of the murderers are sympathetic - wronged people standing up for themselves or protecting their family, others are after revenge, still others are cold-blooded psychopaths. They all have a different reason for killing, but they all ended up in the same place.

Songs range in style from the Appalachian/bluegrass sound (my favorite) to a wild rock song, with a crazy tap dance thrown in. Some of the songs are funny, some poignant, some frightening, all pretty great. (You can hear some of the creators talk about the process of writing in an episode of Twin City Song Cycle.) The band accompanies the ensemble, some of whom also join in with the band, on fiddle, guitar, drums, and piano. All are dressed in matching gray and yellow color-blocked prison uniforms, on a starkly bare stage.

Killer Inside continues for one more weekend at Red Eye Theater. Check it out for some original, inventive, creative music-theater.