"The Importance of Being Earnest" by Little Apple Theatre at the Historic Mounds Theatre

Viewing The Importance of Being Earnest through a queer lens makes so much sense (especially considering playwright Oscar Wilde's importance in queer history), that I'm surprised to one has thought of it before. Well maybe they have, but new #TCTheater company Little Apple Theatre is the first company I've seen do it that way. Their production, playing at the Historic Mounds Theatre in St. Paul's Dayton's Bluff neighborhood, is quite charming and amusing, not just as a fine production of this clever play, but also in the way it reimagines the relationships in the story, with only one minor edit to the dialogue. And even more intriguing, after this play closes on August 2, they will be doing a different reimagined version of the play at Minnesota Fringe Festival, with the same director and some of the same cast members, but shorted to under one hour, and with all the characters as vampires (because Fringe). See this "Earnestly Queer" production of The Importance of Being Earnest at the Mounds Theatre through August 2, and then see The Importance of Being Eternal at Open Eye Theatre August 8-15 as part of the Fringe.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2024: "The Peter Pan Cometh"

Day: 1

Show: 1

Title: The Peter Pan Cometh

Category: Comedy / Mystery / Literary adaptation

By: Clevername Theatre

Written by: Alexander Gerchak

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: A mash-up of the classic children's story Peter Pan by J.M Barrie with Eugene O'Neill's play The Iceman Cometh.

Highlights: For the third year in a row, Clevername brings us a mashup of a sweet children's tale with a dark classic play. In 2022 it was Winnie the Pooh and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, 2023 was The Care Bears with Mother Courage and her CHildren, and this year we have perhaps their most clever pairing yet: Peter Pan and The Iceman Cometh. I'm of course very familiar with the former, but not at all with the latter. A quick WIki read tells me it's a bleak existential tale of alcoholics who await visits by a salesman, who tells them they should all quit drinking, oh and by the way he killed his wife. Somehow, the story of a boy who refuses to grow up (inspired by Barrie's brother who died as a child) meshes brilliantly with this existential story of dying dreams. And as with their previous productions, it works because the cast is 100% committed to it, performing as if they're in a serious drama despite playing iconic children's characters high on pixie dust. Hook (Thomas Buan), Smee (Alec Berchem), and Tinkerbell (Isabelle Hopewell) are wallowing in a cove when Peter Pan (Nick Hill) appears in a suit, boater hat, and roll-y shoes, announcing that he's all grown up and they should all give up the dust and join him in London. But then the truth comes out about his life, and Wendy, and it's not happy. But it is very clever, smart, ridiculous, and well executed, with whimsical live glockenspiel music (played by Bradley Kallhoff), spot on character costumes, and some kind of blue sugary powder as the dust.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2023: "Mother Courage Bear and Her Children"

Day: 4

Show: 16

Title: Mother Courage Bear and Her Children

Category: COMEDY / ORIGINAL MUSIC / LITERARY ADAPTATION

By: Clevername Theatre

Written by: Alexander Gerchak

Location: Southern Theater

Summary: A retelling of Bertold Brecht's Mother Courage and her Children, as Care Bears.

Highlights: I didn't think there could be a more Fringey mashup than Winnie the Pooh and Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf. But then Clevername Theatre followed up last year's brilliant weirdness with this mashup of the Care Bears and Brecht. It's so strange and clever, I'm not sure where to begin. We're introduced to this tale of the centuries long "Sunshine War" by a stern Director (Connor McEvoy) speaking in a German accent, giving a short intro to every scene with zero emotion (other than perhaps annoyance). Mother Courage Bear (Grace Barnstead) sells "cards" and "likes" from her cloud cart (a commentary on our social media obsessed culture), with her children Humanity Bear, Hubris Bear, and Sandwich Bear (in the original play, Mother Courage has a daughter named Swiss Cheese). Other bears we meet include Cowardice Bear, Drudgery Bear, and Prostitution Bear. Children go off to war, bears are murdered, and we get to the eventual unhappy ending. The cast (also including Thomas Buan, Nick Hill, Victoria Jones, and Will Vierzba in multiple roles) stays completely serious despite the ridiculousness of the story (and the costumes - pastel t-shirts and pants with matching ears and a belly patch), even into curtain call. It's a high-concept Fringey show that's well executed with great attention to detail.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2022: "Who's Afraid of Winnie the Pooh?"

Day: 5

Show: 16

Title: Who's Afraid of Winnie the Pooh?

Category: COMEDY / LITERARY ADAPTATION

By: Clevername Theatre

Directed by: Alexander Gerchak

Location: Theatre in the Round

Summary: A retelling of the classic Edward Albee play Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with the characters from Winnie the Pooh.

Highlights: The key to making this premise work - Pooh, Piglet, and Christopher Robin as characters in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, is to play it with deadpan seriousness. And this cast does just that. In this version of the story, Winnie the Pooh (Thomas Buan) and Piglet (Stephanie Johnson) are the unhappily married couple who invite the new couple in the Hundred Acre Wood, Christopher (Nick Hill) and Hunny (Stephanie Callaghan), over for cocktails. The cocktails being honey, or nectar, or sweetened condensed milk, on which out party-goers proceed to get drunk, which is when things get dicey. They take turns telling stories that may sound familiar to Winnie the Pooh readers, only with a decidedly more sinister turn. Playwright/director Alexander Gerchak doesn't miss an opportunity in the mashing up of these two familiar but very different worlds, dropping in lots of little nuggets. The mid-century costumes and design are spot on, characters dressed in the familiar color (Pooh is in faded yellow, Piglet in pink) with animal ears to remind us where we are. The vintage bar is well-used, and much honey and sweetened condensed milk is consumed over the course of the play. This unexpected, genius, and well executed mash-up is the kind of thing that can only happen at Fringe, and the reason that we love Fringe, and the reason that we need Fringe!

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.