The Princes of Persuasion: Recipes for Romance makes for an oddly entertaining concert, not a satisfying work of theater. Ithai Benjamin's music is catchy, Rebeca Raney's lyrics are delightfully twisted (think Roald Dahl), and the automated puppets are novel and neatly designed. But the show is mostly prerecorded, and the puppets, not Benjamin, are the characters: airy and deranged Linda, sensible Destiny, boyish but occasionally demonic Lil' Bo-tique, and the goofy Domingo (whose eyes and nose face a different direction from his mouth). There's also no plot, no momentum: it's just a loose series of conversations that serve only to segue into one of the many songs. Still, although it can't compete with the far more complete
Jollyship the Whiz-Bang and
Avenue Q, it's whimsically winning enough to persuade Fringe audiences to love it.
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