Dancing With Abandon

Of all the musicals I saw at this year's Fringe Festival, this is the one I'd most want to see again after some more development. The characters - a world famous opera diva and the rocker teenage son she abandoned years ago - are extreme and don't behave as people are supposed to in musicals. Example: when mom and son are reunited his neediness is almost psychotic and she, not the least bit maternal, responds by locking him in a closet. The material needs plenty of work - his songs (which contrast with her opera arias) need to rock much harder, the quality of the lyrics is wildly variable, the show should be his story more than hers but is currently the opposite. And yet despite the hot messiness the authors have written a story that demands to be musicalized, and the parts that work are fresh and wildly entertaining.

All Over.

photo: Samanthe Burrow/Rachelle Beckerman

In Elizabeth Audley's solo show, which vividly recounts her long solo car trip through parts of America, the actress begins in a place of some cynicism about the United States and ends soon after she decides to work on the Obama campaign. Although Audley does a fine job of making clear how the trip restored her political optimism - lots of those red state people have blue state social values, it turns out - the show's most affecting stretch is more personal: as Audley drives on through underpopulated terrain day after day, the isolation forces her attention inward and makes her confront personal demons. What is she doing with her life, and is anything she's ever done worth anything? That's the moment our intelligent, engaging, sometimes humorous tour guide becomes someone we care about and root for.

Population 8

photo: Larry Gumpel

Set in a North Dakota town with a population of 8, this play (by Nicholas Gray) is peopled with characters who live simultaneously in isolation from the world and in close association with each other. There is a main story that takes hold of our attention, but the often atmospheric, evocative play is driven more by character than by plot: we're watching the last gasps of a distinctive community of people. The details, such as how the act of changing the city limits sign has become ritualized, are thought-out and credible, and the characters are individuated and just oddball enough to ring true. The production doesn't rise to all of the play's challenges - there has to be a more fluid way to quickly delineate the space and move between the often very brief scenes - but it gets the general job done and doesn't ever blunt what is special about the play. Cast stand-out: Gideon Glick

Willy Nilly

My reaction to this one-act musical went from mild amusement to annoyed tolerance to outright loathing within 20 minutes. Is there a reason we have been asked to watch a snarky, cartoon-thin spoof of the Manson Family murders in which everyone, criminal and victim alike, is turned into an object of snickering mockery? There's stage craft and songwriting skill on display, and many performers giving their fully committed all, but the material is bad taste for its own sake. The use of a square law-and-order narrator recalls the Jack Lord character in the in every way superior Manson Family Opera - here the character is eventually cross-dressed as Tiny Tim to infiltrate the cult for no apparent reason but convenience. The mocking caricature of Sharon Tate, the cult's most famous victim, is a new low in cynicism: are we really being cued to laugh at what a Hollywood bimbo she was, when we all know how viciously she, and the baby she was carrying, were murdered?

May-December With The Nose And Clammy

I'm hard to please when it comes to romantic comedies, but I was instantly won over by this one-act which keeps the light comic tone of the genre but gives its couple true-to-life rather than easy-to-solve problems. The heroine (played with irresistible charm by Naomi McDougall Jones, also the co-writer) laments early on that in movies the girl has to choose between the guy who is clearly great and the one is clearly an asshole, but in real life guys are a combination of the two. She can't make up her mind if she wants to stick it out with Noah (Craig Waletzko, also perfect for this material) and enlists us in direct address to help her decide as they re-enact the highs and lows from their relationship. Their conflicts aren't glamorous - she says he turns into a "swinging dick" when he's around his friends, and he says the accusation reminds him how young she is, 15 years his junior. He's insecure and clingy, she won't make him the only important thing in her life as he has made her in his. We all know problems like these and that recognition helps to make the show consistently engaging and memorable.

Two On The Aisle, Three In A Van

photo: Patty Wall

No one will claim that this backstage comedy (by Mary Lynn Dobson) breaks new ground - you know every "type" in the beleaguered community theatre troupe from their entrance line, from the spoiled diva (Natascia Diaz) to the egomaniac artistic director (John Dowgin) to the seasoned seen-it-all veteran (Terri Sturtevant). But the yuks and gags are nearly relentless and, apart from some wheel-spinning at the top of the tad-too-long second act, the show undoubtedly works and is broad, old-school funny. My favorite running joke involves a desperate, overeager performer (Stephen Medvidick) who keeps trying to grab the spotlight - he thinks as the Gentleman Caller in The Glass Menagerie he should launch into a tap routine. While the show doesn't give Natascia Diaz the chance to sing and dance, it does give her a terrific showcase for her unerring skills as a comedienne. As always, she's captivating and reason enough to see any show.