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.

"These Old Shoes" by Transatlantic Love Affair at Illusion Theater

I didn't realize how much I've missed Transatlantic Love Affair until I saw their remount of These Old Shoes last weekend, one of my favorite shows of theirs. There's simply no one like them. An ensemble of seven people plus one musician creates an entire rich world using only their bodies, voices, and souls. It's simply exquisite. With origins in the Minnesota Fringe Festival (like many of our great small companies), TLA is a physical theater company that often adapts fairy tales or myths with their unique brand of storytelling. But this show, their first in three years, is an original story about a man moving into a retirement community, which allows for an exploration of aging, memory, relationships, and loss. It premiered at the 2013 Fringe Festival and was produced by Illusion theater in 2015, when it won Twin Cities Theater Blogger Awards for Favorite Play and Favorite Actor in a Play (Derek Lee Miller). I've always loved this show, but having spent some time in a nursing home recently, it was particularly resonant for me this time. It's heart-breakingly beautiful, and I cannot recommend it highly enough. See it at Illusion Theater in their new home in the Center for Performing Arts in South Minneapolis, Wednesdays through Sundays for the next two weeks only.

"Bone Mother" by Sandbox Theatre at the Museum of Russian Art

Combine Russian folk tales, aerialists, music, theater, and a unique space and what do you get? Sandbox Theatre's latest uniquely beautiful creation, Bone Mother. The devised theater company recently started an offshoot called Swingset for aerial works, which takes their ensemble driven, innovative, physical theater style and lifts it up in the air. Literally. This piece about Russian folk tales is appropriately staged in the Museum of Russian Art in South Minneapolis (I didn't know it existed either), conveniently located just off 35W. The museum is in what used to be an church designed to look like the Alamo, and I hope to go back and visit it again, because the performance doesn't really allow for much viewing of art. But in the meantime, go and enjoy this entirely new and unique way of telling these ancient and familiar tales.