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Another growth year for the Fringe

This year's festival offers eight days of song, dance and drama
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By Steffen Silvis
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
May 23rd, 2007 issue

COURTESY PHOTO
The lively HotCity Theatre troupe: Everyone who wants to know what happened to Orson Welles, raise your hand.
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The Prague Fringe Festival

When: May 27–June 3
Where: A Studio Rubín, Divadlo Nablízko, Divadlo na Prádle, Divadlo Inspirace, U Malého Glena and Baráčnická Rychta
Tickets: 150 Kč per show, available through Ticketstream and at the venues
For daily performances, see the Calendar listings; for a complete schedule, check www.fringe.cz

It’s that time of year again, when Prague transforms into Edinburgh-on-the-Vltava with the return of the Prague Fringe Festival. The annual stage-orgy of theater and music has been growing larger every year, with more dates, venues, performances and many more patrons.
This year, the festival spans eight days, with 242 performances by 41 companies coming from 11 countries, including Venezuela and India. To house this multitude, the festival has also added two new venues. On top of this, there will be films, lectures and play readings.
Some of the more promising productions include:
Circus Fire: It was called the “day that the clowns cried.” During a performance of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum and Bailey Circus in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1944, a fire started under the big top (which had been waterproofed with paraffin and petrol) that killed 168 members of the audience, many of them children. The Canadian company Atomic Vaudeville takes on this tragedy through a piece of physical theater dependent upon mime and commedia skills. The troupe’s The Ugly Duchess was one of the great hits of the Fringe two years ago. (Divadlo na Prádle, May 27 June 3 at 9 p.m.)
The Infant: A blackly satirical look at societal paranoia is offered by British company Les Enfants Terribles. A critical success at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe, where it was proclaimed as “savage,” “funny” and “Beckettian,” the piece, by playwright Oliver Lansley, should offer a bracing bit of subversion. (Divadlo na Prádle, May 27–June 3 at 7:30 p.m.)
The Friends of Jack Kairo: This noirish satire was a hit at the Dublin Fringe, with actor Simon Toal getting a nomination as Best Male Performer of the festival. Gumshoe Kairo is called to investigate a murder case involving a captain of industry, which may just lead to weapons of mass destruction. Well, something had to eventually. (Divadlo Inspirace, May 27–June 3 at 10:30 p.m.)
Blow This Popsicle Stand: Another Canadian company, Black Hand Theatre, brings their surreal comedy of a tormented Popsicle stuck in deep-freeze. This live-action cartoon two-hander offers one of the more intriguing premises in this year’s Fringe program. (A Studio Rubín, May 27–June 3 at 6:45 p.m.)
Little Johnny’s Big Gay Adventure: Scotsman Johnny McKnight brings his Madonna-obsessed, zaftig queer boy Johnny to the streets of Prague in search of Mr. Right Now. He may, however, just discover himself in the process. “A genuinely funny romp,” according to The Scotsman newspaper. (Divadlo na Prádle Kavárna, May 29–June 3 at 9 p.m.)
The Probe: Subtitled “An Inquiry into the Meteoric Rise and Spectacular Fall of Orson Welles in Hollywood,” this piece from the American theater ensemble HotCity offers a stage-montage of Welles’ life and career. It recently won the company the 2007 Kevin Kline Award for outstanding ensemble in a play. (Divadlo na Prádle, May 29 June 3 at 10:30 p.m.)
Tarantella, Tarantula: As our cover image suggests, this San Francisco company seems to be melding movement and storytelling with a Zen philosophy. (Divadlo Inspirace, May 27–June 3 at 7:30)
This year’s Fringe is also giving audiences a chance to catch up with some past favorites. In music, there are those divas of the mic, Maria Tecce and Andi Neate. Tecce plays the cool chanteuse of standards to Neate’s funky folk-jazz songwriting. (Maria Tecce at Baráčnická Rychta, May 29–June 2, at 8 p.m.; Andi Neate at U Malého Glena, June 1–3, at 7).
The comedy offers include quirt-tongued rogue Scott Capurro (Divadlo na Prádle, May 28 at 9, May 30 and 31 at midnight), who enjoys nothing more than bringing the front row into his unsafe-sex musings. And what Prague Fringe would be complete without that leather-clad comic duo Topping and Butch? (Divadlo na Prádle, June 1 and 2 at midnight).
Chickensocks! is the latest read-athon from Prague’s Ancient Geeks. (Divadlo na Prádle Kavárna, June 2 and 3 at 4:30). This group of young writers never fails to win converts to their work.
As last year, while the festival is under way, daily reviews of the shows will be posted on The Prague Post Web site.
See you at the Fringe.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at ssilvis@praguepost.com


Other articles in Night & Day (23/05/2007):

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