This show is part of the 14th Annual Indianapolis Theatre Fringe Festival, a/k/a IndyFringe, Aug. 16-26, 2018 on Mass Ave downtown. Info, etc., at www.IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

To tell The Truth: Will the real benevolent dictator please stand up?

The clowns of A Muse Zoo are the kind of red-nose folks who speak, telling their Truth with jesters’ license. One puts on the furrowed brow of a professor, relating the True story of an imaginary land:

You may not know of the country of Kundnanibonbar, as it was just discovered. Four different neighboring tyrants looked over their border with it and each decided to take the land and its resources for his or her own purposes…

But this lecture is often interrupted, as the teacher leaves the room, allowing each ruler in turn to step in and tell us their Truth.

So, whose Truth will prevail: the flower girl, the cheese smuggler, the mole-person, or the boy prince?

(Aside: In an appropriately bizarre coincidence, during the weekend we are presented with this comic allegory of how history is written by the victors, there are reports that the President’s lawyer is declaring that every person has their own Truth, so what is The Truth anyway?)

In the Fringe show, “The Truth*,” aside from all the thinky content, we get very funny and entertaining performances, with all manner of silliness from whimsy to slapstick to melodrama. Note the bees are not real, but there is use of a strobe light. – So, that’s my Truth.

Therefore be careful with your soup, and listen to the turtle on your shoulder when he tells you to see A Muse Zoo at 9 p.m. tonight (Monday, Aug. 20) at the IndyFringe Indy Eleven Theatre, 719 E. St. Clair, just off Mass Ave. and College, in their last show before returning to Oregon.

And that’s The Truth.