Reviews

IndyFringe: Downtown Magic! With Jordan Rooks

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

Note: There are two magicians (both excellent) named Jordan in this year’s festival. This is the one in the jacket that looks like it’s made of newsprint.

This very friendly and charming young man does familiar tricks and illusions, such as with cards and scarves, but in his own particular style. He also relies a LOT on audience volunteers (“You make the magic,” he says), so bring friends, and especially children. 

Rooks is a natural with youngsters, though he’ll fool folks of any age. He embraces the silly — such as the popular “yellow bandana” routine — while engaging your sense of wonder.

Anyone seeking an all-ages fun diversion at Fringe, I’ve been steering them to this guy, performing at the Murat Oasis.

IndyFringe: DadBod

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By Wendy Carson

Brad Hinshaw has three children born in the span of just four years. And especially after everyone being confined to home over the last year and a half, doing this show is giving him a great excuse to get away from that chaos for a while.

He regales us with stories of being a dad and dealing with a pregnant wife. We find out that Lactation Cookies not only are a thing that exists but also they are delicious (especially with an oatmeal stout).

Hinshaw also warns us of the dangers of both “Lightning Crotch” and “Bowling Alley Jello Shots”.

His stories are funny, interesting, and relatable, even if he is an “Emotional Terminator.” This being his first chance to try material in front of someone besides toddlers, not everything will have a punchline as he works on his new standup routine. Still, if it doesn’t bring a laugh, it will bring a smile.

This ever-evolving show is a must-see for anyone who is, or will be, a parent. Performances are on the Indy Eleven stage of the IndyFringe building.

IndyFringe: Second Annual Tap Cabernet

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

If you don’t like tap-dancing, this show isn’t for you.

But if you like to see hoofers hoofin’ it, the Tap Cabernet is your cup of tea — or whatever is in your glass. You will need to acquire your own beverage at the upstairs Athenaeum bar, but during one number, snacks will be provided.

Following through on the pun of the title, this cabaret revue has members of Circle City Tap shuffling to various hits with the topic of wine and other strong beverages. We get the energetic talented tap stylings of Jeff Bird, Lora Dingledine, Ashley Lain, Tanya Radisich, and Ashlee Yackley, who also lends her voice to the “karaoke” number. And Lorenda Carr is drafted into hosting duties despite still celebrating her birthday.

Baskets of props add to the fun. Along with routines to songs like “Good Time Cheap Wine” and “Margaritaville”, there is also a nod to the recent “wine and paint” trend in which several audience volunteers get to make an original artwork.

And if you know a step or two yourself, all are invited to join in on the traditional “shim-sham” at the end — this time to a sassy recent pop hit. 

IndyFringe: Big Gay Debutante Ball

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By Wendy Carson

At the age of nine, Meg Anderson discovers a word that embodies her and changes her life forever – LESBIAN.

In the world of her Big Gay Debutante Ball, she would jump on her sparkly, Lisa Frank-inspired, rainbow unicorn cloud and trot through the town with everyone celebrating her word in a scene akin to the beginning of Beauty and the Beast. However, that is not the world she lives in.

The daughter of a preacher, she is taught that this is abohorent, she is wrong, everything around her keeps telling her to be more straight. But her Big Gay Debuntante Ball world is out there somewhere.

Join Meg as she performs for us, through movement, dance, and song, her quest to find and attend her very own Big Gay Debutante Ball. After all, even a lesbian wants to wear a poofy dress and bow to a cake, too.

This show was not the wacky gay comedy I mistakenly thought it was going to be. However, it was beautifully enlightening and Anderson’s storytelling skill will have you being glad you got to attend her Big Gay Debuntante Ball as well.

Performances at at the IndyFringe Basile (main) stage.

IndyFringe: Driving Kenneth and Betsy Ross

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

To say that Kenneth is stuck in his ways would be an understatement. A true Southerner, he won’t even travel north of the Mason-Dixon line, because the wrong side won The War. Fortunately for this lifelong Virginian, his new great-grandson is down in Atlanta, and his Liberal son Colin has agreed to drive him and his wife Betsy Ross down for a visit. Hopefully there will be a casino on the way.

Set in 2010, “Driving Kenneth and Betsy Ross,” by frequent Fringe contributor Garret Mathews (directed by wife Mary Anne Mathews), is based on his relationship with his own parents. 

Colin (Thom Johnson) is not looking forward to this road trip, and Kenneth (David Mosedale) isn’t making it any easier. It doesn’t help that Colin’s job is writing books on the Civil Rights era, or as his father puts it, “about the Negroes.” They bicker, as sweet Betsy Ross (Wendy Brown) tries to smooth things between them. When he can speak alone with her, Colin asks why she is so accommodating when she doesn’t believe everything he does; she brushes this off, citing her traditional wifely duty, but eventually on this long road, she’ll find her voice. 

Like many whites of his generation, Kenneth is more passively than actively racist, blind to his lack of perspective. Mosedale plays him with a steadfast curmudgeonly conviction that never rises to anger with a touch of humor to make him likable (or at least lets you see how son and wife could love him). Brown plays Betsy with natural ease. Johnson (who has ably taken the narrator role in plays such as “Drowsy Chaperone”) is our window into their world, and we feel Colin’s struggle to make connections with elderly kin he might not see again.

I must also note the craftsmanship of the main prop, a very solid-looking front half of an automobile crafted by Tom Harrison.

There’s quite a few laughs, some familial and conversational tension, and a lot of heart in this sentimental journey. So pack your “change-a-roonies” and beef jerky, and head on over to the Murat Oasis for this show.  

IndyFringe: The Betsy-Patsy Show

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

This autobiographical “dramusicomedy” written and performed by Elizabeth Young-Collins, with writing and direction by Holly Hathaway Thompson, easily lends itself to comparisons to the popular show, “Always – Patsy Cline,” which would be unfair as that show is about Cline, while “The Betsy-Patsy Show” is about Young-Collins, as she looks back on her troubled life with an eye towards her childhood idol, leaning on the Country legend’s hits to put her own events in perspective.

Betsy is a recently-accomplished singer, and she shows us the path that took her here as she unpacks “the last damn box from the attic,” reflecting on running for Miss Muncie (Pennsylvania), her parents’ alcoholism, plus the discouragement – and encouragement – she received along the way. In Cline’s songs she found comfort, and in her tragic story a fellow traveler. She shares both with us with a raw sweetness and gentle humor that leaves us relieved she finally found someone “who could carry my sound system,” with hope that, maybe, we can, too.

It is a gem of a show that can use a bit of a polish, but with her willingness to be vulnerable on stage, I’m rooting for her. This is the kind of personal performance we go to Fringe for, with performances in the Murat Oasis.

IndyFringe: Cabaret Latino

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

Klein & Alvarez Productions’ Magic Thread Cabaret presents “Cabaret Latino: Songs of the Americas” with vocalist Iris Ramirez and Latin jazz ensemble Pavel Polanco-Safadit and Direct Contact (vocals by Polanco-Safadit and Leah Crane), in the room-for-dancing Basile auditorium at the Athenaeum.

Tom Alvarez, our emcee, and Dustin Klein, music director and assisting Pavel on the piano, curated a list of familiar Latin hits – from “La Bamba” to “Despacito” – given new life by these world-class performers. Ramirez gives smooth finish to songs like “Besame Mucho” and strums a guitar with folk tunes like “De Colores,” while Crane gets things moving with hits like “Livin’ La Vida Loca” and Pavel infuses every number with infectious joyous energy.

There’s no way I can do this show justice in a brief review. If you have any interest at all in seeing a music revue at this festival, this hour of south-of-the-border celebration is a must.

IndyFringe: Climate Follies

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

“Climate Follies” is a fast-paced revue of about a dozen skits and scenes getting silly and absurd about a very serious topic – our global climate crisis.

At ClimateFollies.com, it is noted that this show, by local playwright and former NUVO editor Jim Poyser, is a work in progress. So expect anything, and perhaps go back to a later performance to see what updates are made.

The madness starts from when you enter the room at the Murat Oasis, ushered to your seat by constantly noisy (upcycled prop) leaf-blowers. The cast of Jaddy Ciucci, Kerrigan Howard, Beverly Roche, Dena Toler, and Anabel Watson – with understudy Maddie Davies, stage manager Kieran Shay, and director Raphael Schwartzman – present everything from heavy-handed metaphors (Captain: “There’s a hole in the [ship’s] hull!” Tourists: “Fearmonger!”) to the sublime but icky requiem for a “me”-gan, who takes reducing his carbon footprint to the extreme. The players mostly keep their masks on, which aside from being Covid-compliant, help to keep the focus more on what’s being said than who’s saying it.

Not everything seemed to work – I don’t really get the point of the “Happy Trail” puppet bit – but these folks are trying their best. We’ve known about all these climate problems for years; worldwide events have been dropping reminders (and glaciers); what more do these activist actors have to do? Pound it into your head with a baseball bat?

Oh, and there’s a bit called “Baseball Bat.” It’s audience participation.

If you like issue-driven Fringe shows, this should already be on your list. Bring a friend.

IndyFringe: Narnia

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By John Lyle Belden

To be fair, I must note that since the opening performance of “Narnia” by Agape Theater Company, there were a lot of notes and technical fixes. For this youth company, hosted by Our Lady of the Greenwood Catholic Church, this was not one of their most polished productions – but they have set themselves a high standard over the past few years.

But it was a daunting project, even for its original creators, to adapt “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis – an epic fairy-tale fantasy layered thick with Christian symbolism – into a workable musical, which then the local players, a talented cast of about two-dozen aged tween to college, had to hammer down into a single hour.

This heroic effort, directed by Aidan Morris and Grant Scott-Miller, is led by Ethan Wood, Rebekah Barajas, Flannery Partain and Alyssa McDonald as the Pevensie children, Silvia Seidle as the White Witch, and Caleb Wilson as the lion Aslan (and briefly as Father Christmas). McDonald steadily manages the heavy, conflicted role of Edmund. Laura Sickmeier gives a “best supporting”-worthy turn as Tumnus. Alex Bast (who is also music director) and Julie Seidle deftly handle scene-stealing roles as Mr. and Mrs. Beaver.

Since scenes and props, aside from a well-constructed sleigh, had to be rudimentary for a shared stage, the artistic emphasis is on excellent costuming, from regal Aslan to Indy’s cutest Squirrel.

The songs (by Thomas Thierney and Ted Drachman from the book by Jules Tasca) are servicable, but reach their height at “Deep Magic,” which lets Wilson and Silvia Seidle shine in a hero-villian standoff.

Will Aslan defeat the Witch? Will the Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve ascend the Four Thrones? See it all play out on the Basile Auditorium in the Athenaeum.

IndyFringe: Grace and Nick – Have You Been Drinking?

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This is part of IndyFringe 2021, Aug. 19-Sept. 5 (individual performance times vary) in downtown Indianapolis. Details and tickets at IndyFringe.org.

By Wendy Carson

When entering the show, you are asked to take a slip of paper and write upon it the worst thing that has ever happened to you. Please take the time to do this, as they payoff later is very well worth it.

Grace Bahler and Nick Polk gallantly zip from one skit to another with a bright energy that will keep you laughing. Skits range from various reactions to the revealing she is pregnant to the hassles of drunk people on a plane.

Grace shines in her solo skit as a “Master of all Accents Worldwide” while Nick’s solo brings you back to the frenetic energy of Martin Short during his heyday.

My favorite highlights were the two small children playing “Grown-ups;” scenes from a “Conversion Camp” (complete with a mention of a certain politician); and the two of them sitting around drinking heavily, citing the horrible things from the past two years making these drinks necessary (remember the bowl?).

This show is a nice palate cleanser from some of the more serious shows in the lineup or if you just want a quick laugh or two. However, the venue has very limited seating, and there are only two performances left as of this posting, so get your tickets now.