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SF Fringe Festival 2004

review Lisa Shalson, SF Bay Guardian September 15, 2004

 

 

*'San Francisco Fringe Festival' Various venues (main venue is Exit Theatreplex, 277 Taylor and 156 Eddy); 673-3847, www.sffringe.org. $1-8. Go to Web site for schedule. Through Sun/19. The 13th annual incarnation of the fest – highlighting unique, innovative performance – includes nearly 50 entries from San Francisco and points beyond. Framework: Tilted Frame – Combined Art Form Entertainment's resident improv company at Off-Market Theater, one of the festival's "Bring Your Own Venues" this year – combines old and new art forms to create its unique brand of spontaneous theater. Incorporating Internet and digital video technology into the long-form improv show, the cast of five actors – a compelling mix of personalities who interact and play off of (and with) each other with ease and overt pleasure – works together with two Internet-surfing techies and one musician to produce a single, hour-long play. Taking their cues from a randomly selected Web site, the night I attended, the ensemble successfully wove together a drama replete with romance, attempted murder, and various absurd plot twists and still managed by the conclusion to tie up the loose ends into the happy ending required of any well-made play. (Shalson) Certain Things, Which I Will Call Sacred: New York-based theater company Blessed Unrest brings its original meditation on love and memory to the fest. Incorporating texts from authors as old as Titus Petronius Arbiter, who died in A.D. 66, and as young as a 21-year-old college student, performers Jessica Burr and Matt Opatrny rehearse and remember the various stages of a lifelong love affair that, in its golden years, risks disappearing along with the memories of those who lived it. Repetition allows the richness of a simple idea to bloom: even the set consists of a single prop, a flower pot, multiplied 82 times, forming a garden where the flowers are buried, waiting to be unearthed. Although the older texts sometimes feel more stilted than "timeless," Burr and Opatrny create a touching dynamic that's pleasing to watch. (Shalson)

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