Showing posts with label Theatre Mobile. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Theatre Mobile. Show all posts

Saturday, August 7, 2021

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2021: "AWAY, NOW - The World's Most Desired Destination"

Day: 3

Show: 6

Performance Type: Virtual

Location: Streaming Anytime

Length: 60 minutes

Title: AWAY, NOW - The World's Most Desired Destination

By: Theatre Mobile

Summary: This video travel guide of a mythical place called Away, Now, where everyone wants to go, is a collection of songs, stories, and many puns.

Highlights: I loved Paul and Erika's House Show at last year's all-virtual Fringe, so I was eager to check out more work by this Cincinnati-based duo, created in their apartment. They've actually done AWAY, NOW as a live show in a couple of places this summer, but they also created a virtual version using all of the charming tricks and techniques they discovered making last year's show. This one is pure silliness, including some great silly songs, like the man who fell in love with 3:12am. It's all framed as a travel guide to the city of Away, in the county of How 'Bout, in the state of Now. Where smellsniffing is recommended when you get tired of sightseeing, the dead end road is an endangered species, people are not ashamed when their feet fall asleep and snore, and the letters c-o-n are pronounced but (that's but-cerning). They again close the show with a moment of poignancy, that if you have half of a heart, you can fill the other half with patience, kindness, and listening, as we contemplate What Next. But mostly, it's just a lot of fun.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here.

Saturday, August 8, 2020

Minnesota Fringe Festival 2020: "Paul & Erika's HOUSE SHOW"

Location: Digital Hub (available anytime)

Length: 35 minutes

Title: Paul & Erika's HOUSE SHOW

By: Theatre Mobile

Summary: Paul Strickland and Erika Kate MacDonald do a show from their house to your house.

Highlights: This one's a real charmer, and surprisingly poignant. There are several different segments, or start-overs, the first with an impossible director Sterling Spoon (an actual spoon) complaining about their lack of skills. They call it a "we don't know how to make a movie but I guess we have to now" production. I love that they fully acknowledge this is a weird and wrong way to do and watch theater, but it's all we've got, so let's make the best of it. And they do, in a great example of creative artists adapting their art to fit the times. They sing, tell stories, do fun edits, share outtakes, in a mostly silly and fun show. Until they brought tears to my eyes at the end when they talked about how much they miss performing in front of an audience, and that "we tried to make a show that shows what a show is in a time of no shows," but that the real "show" is what happens in the space between the performers and the audience. A space that seems cavernous right now. I really hope Paul and Erika come to a live in-person MN Fringe, because I'd love to watch them do what they do in person!

Read all of my Nightly Fringe mini-reviews here.

Read all of my Digital Hub mini-reviews here.