Minnesota Fringe Festival 2026: "The Importance of Being Eternal"

Day: 9

Show: 33

Title: The Importance of Being Eternal

Category: Comedy / Literary adaptation

By:  Little Apple Theatre Company

Directed by: Paul Willis Jr.

Location: Open Eye Theatre

Summary: Oscar Wilde's most well-known play The Importance of Being Earnest, reimagined in the vampire world.

Highlights: Just a few weeks ago, I saw the debut of new #TCTheater company Little Apple Theatre with a charming and clever production of The Importance of Being Earnest, seen through a queer lens. Now they're back with their Fringe debut that takes that version, and adds vampires! You don't need to have seen the first production to enjoy this one, but it certainly adds another layer of fun. Many of the team of artists from the first production return for this one, including three of the five cast members. How do you do a three-act play in less than an hour? Like this: cutting out a few incidental characters, trimming some scenes, but still conveying the major plot points of the three acts. Although altered, because BFFs/lovers Algie and Jack are vampires, as is Aunt Bracknell and her daughter Gwendolin, and Jack's ward Cecily is a goth girl who wants to be turned. They've changed the names of the characters in this version of the play to names familiar from vampire stories, from Nosferatu to Interview with a Vampire to Twilight, and added in some vampiric references. The Algie, Lady Bracknell (her Dracknell/Dracula), and Gwendolyn characters are all played by the same actors as the first production (Adam Rider, Tinka, and Grace Barnstead), in performances that are similar but campier, and vampires. Joining the cast are Ian Olson as Jack and Victoria Jones (set designer for the previous production) as Cecily, and all are delightfully over-the-top and bloodthirsty. On its own, this is a very fun and very fringey take on a classic comedy, but viewed with the previous production is an even more impressive double-shot of original and clever adaptation.

Read all of my Fringe mini-reviews here. 

"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.

"The Adding Machine" by Clevername Theatre at the Hive Collaborative

Clevername Theatre's production of the 1923 play The Adding Machine feels like a sequel of sorts to last year's production of the 1928 play Machinal, or at least a continuation of the theme. Both plays are a little weird and dark, performed in an Expressionist style, are about the mundanity and absurdity of everyday life, and even share some cast and creative team. Where Machinal focused on a woman trapped in societal expectations and the extremes she goes to to escape, The Adding Machine tells the story of a man fired from his boring job of 25 years, also going to extremes to escape, only to find more of the same. Once again, Clevername has taken a hundred-year-old play, performed it in the style it was intended, and made it relevant to today. See it at The Hive Collaborative through June 22.

"Machinal" by Clevername Theatre at the Center for Performing Arts

Machinal: mechanical, done without thinking, from force of habit. Early 20th century playwright Sophie Treadwell uses this word as the title of her her 1928 play about a woman caught in the mechanics of a woman's expected life path and the disastrous results. In Clevername Theatre's new production (my first experience with the play), it feels like it could have been written yesterday instead of almost 100 years ago. It's performed in the German Expressionist style with exaggerated, almost absurd, performances, which is a bit off-putting. But that's intentional, and how the play was written, and it beautifully and harshly exemplifies the experience of this woman. Even if the style feels unfamiliar to audiences used to modern American theater, the themes are resonant with modern life. The show is halfway through its short two-week run, with only three remaining performances at the Center for Performing Arts in Uptown.

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.