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San Francisco Fringe Festival
SF Chronicle September 10, 2001 (Robert Hurwitt)
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A pair of aces from the Fringe

Robert Hurwitt, Chronicle Theater Critic
Liebe Wetzel conjures magical images of childhood
joys and racking pain with crumpled sheets of paper,
a few shoes, pots and other found objects. Elisa
DeCarlo regales her audience with bracing humor
about an alcoholics support group, artfully shifting
into a gut-wrenching story of child abuse and murder.

The annual San Francisco Fringe Festival is always a
crap shoot. Exit Theatre producers Christina Augello
and Richard Livingston present an unjuried slate of
256 hour-or-less performances by 52 groups at eight
venues for 11 days. You pay your pittance and take
your choice of five or six shows at any given time,
relying on hunches, word of mouth or online audience
reviews.

Inevitably, there are disappointments. But you may
strike gold, as I did with Wetzel's "Brace Yourself!"
and DeCarlo's "Toasted."

"Toasted," at the Exit, is brightly comic, painfully
brave and, ultimately, terribly tragic. DeCarlo, a
longtime Fringe fave for her brassy, bawdy songs
and stories ("Cervix With a Smile" et al.), wraps
serious themes in a deceptively laid-back package,
deftly staged by Michelle Cohen. Her story is true,
names and e-mail quotes included.

A member of the drinkers' support group Moderation
Management, DeCarlo was one of two of some 200
regular users of its chat room to call the police when
member Larry Froistad confessed online to the
murder of his 5-year-old daughter. Her actions
helped lead to his arrest and conviction, uncovering
horrific details in the process, and also raised issues
of Internet and therapy-group privacy.

Flooded with recriminations from fellow MM
members and besieged by the media, DeCarlo
achieved a brief fame unlike that she'd long sought as
an actor and writer. She tells the story with
unflinching honesty and light, clever flourishes that
heighten its emotional punch. Well worth seeing,
"Toasted" repeats tonight, Thursday, Saturday and
twice on Sunday.

"Brace" by Wetzel's Lunatique Fantastique, also at
the Exit, is based on a true story as well, but a more
tender and uplifting one. Told through found- object
puppetry -- like her luminous "Snake in the
Basement" -- it's an affecting meditation on the
once-epidemic scourge of polio as reflected by the
life of her father, who was stricken with the disease
as a child.

A wheel and a cane become a playground for happy
children's shoes, skillfully manipulated by black-clad
puppeteers. Pots and lids convey the terror of iron
lungs. High heels, hats, a coy purse and a leg brace
enjoy a delightful courtship. Still in progress (a full
version opens next year), the show repeats Thursday
and Friday.

The other four shows I saw were only fitfully
rewarding. At Exit Stage Left:

"Midair: Odes to Easycomeasygo" is a vague
multimedia piece revealing creator Sarah Kraft's
impressive vocal and movement skills but little else;
the 3 Noses Theater's "The Macy's Account" is a
clever, hip hopeless-crush monologue by "Queer as
Folk" writer Jason Schafer and Sherri Langsam, well
staged by Alfredo Galvan but indifferently performed
by Langsam.

"The Store: One Block East of Jerome" (also at
Stage Left) is a preachy, predictable play about
strippers by Fred Newman -- with one good, gritty
strip- monologue executed by Kirsten Long -- in a
flaccid Bay Area Center for Independent Culture
staging by Cris Cassell. The Peanut Butter
Productions (of Canada) marionette show at Exit on
Taylor, "Lucid," is not.

Fortunately, my Fringe visit ended with "Brace
Yourself!" and "Toasted." Two-for-six isn't a bad
average at all.

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