Minnesota Fringe Festival

schedule

Show reviews by TJ Hara

Burning Man and the Reverend Nuge
A Must-See Performance by TJ Hara
Rating: 5 kitties
I've been giving a lot of thought to adding a second performance of this show to what I thought was a full itinerary for my first time at Fringe. Nugent gives a really touching account of his journey to find a faith of his own that resonated with me and, I suspect, with a lot of his viewers. This isn't the out-and-out comedy performance I went in expecting, but Nugent is very adept at using humor to punctuate his story and keep his show moving. I can't say enough good things about this show, but if I can't convince you to see it, then at least I know there'll be an open seat for me before Fringe is done.

Boobs
Is "I Love Boobs" way too easy? by TJ Hara
Rating: 5 kitties
...well, if I can't be original, I can at least be cheap. Boobs was a great show from start to finish. I loved the variety of styles employed in this show, especially the spoofy beat poetry and audience participation bits. Boobs is definitely one of my favorites of Fringe!

Rumspringa the Musical
The droid that I've been looking for... by TJ Hara
Rating: 4 kitties
If we're being completely honest here, Rumspringa is kind of a mixed bag (still tending toward the good) in its writing and performance. But if we're being completely honest here, it's so much damn fun that the flaws tend to vanish in the silly and entertaining musical numbers. If I didn't have a full dance card already this week, I would easily come back for another performance of this show!

Cigarettes for Jesus
Cute show, but needed much more polish by TJ Hara
Rating: 2 kitties
This was a show I really wanted to enjoy, but turned out to be really disappointed withâ"I've seen religious satire be intelligent and funny without being mean-spirited, but as presented, Cigarettes fell into a bland space which was none of the above. Ann Rice's Mary and Ian Knodel's Rev. Price were two big pluses to the show, but poor pacing, an unfinished script and cheap jabs at the religious fundamentalist stereotype that felt shoehorned in to round out the script tanked it for me. All that said, I still think it's a show that could be reworked into a smarter critique of the misuse of religion in our time, and I'd love to see it again after it's had a little more time to gestate.

The Mutant Squad!
Swearing kids aren't really that funny by TJ Hara
Rating: 2 kitties
This show had a really good cast, and I'd love to see what they all go on to do next, but the script for this show comes off with too much of a South Park vibe, with the brand of humor but not so much of the wit that goes with that. There were some genuinely funny jokes and some really clever sight gags, but at the end of the day this wasn't my cup of tea. That said, I expect these actors to all go on to do great work in their future projects and I look forward to seeing what becomes of them.