Philadelphia Fringe Festival: Part 3

I began my second week of this year's Fringe Festival with a bit of a bad taste in my mouth from some overindulgence from my first few shows, but hopeful that having picked a nice variety of shows that I would find something interesting, something different and vital, as I have so many times in this Festival.

Unfortunately, the series of shows I picked for this week ended up being at best unremarkable and at worst intolerable. The week began with the truly wretched "They'll Be Calling Us Witches." A confused, pointless drudge through Salem in the time of the famous witch trials, the cast, led by the play's writer Molly Lang, was for the most part too inexperienced to command the audience or even the play itself. It was something along the lines of three girls rejected from society by various means coming together to invoke the dark spirits to help them take their revenge in exchange for their eternal souls. A tale as old as time but without any of the mysticity and mortal metaphors that often make it exciting and intriguing.

Despite all of this, I would be remiss in not mentioning the terrific job the stage and lighting crew did in creating a legitimately spooky atmosphere for the show. It was dramatic where the show's plot was not yet understated enough to allow the work to shine through. It was the occasional flourishes of an interesting storyline and the all around suitable staging that brings the real disappointment that in more capable hands that this could have been a serviceable show.

The other two shows I saw in the week were both better than "Witches," but suffered from a similar lack of purpose. The first, the historical comedy "A Runaway, A Soldier, and A Snowball Fight" sets out to tell the story of a heady meeting in the American 1770's between a runaway slave and Sam Adams. Cannily taking place at Fergie's Pub, the play's essential point was to show how Adams, often something of a controversial figure from the Revolution, was maybe not such a good guy. This is of course in stark contrast to the runaway slave, a man with a certain sense of right and wrong who has been treated horrifically by society. While there were plenty of alcohol fueled laughs to be had in this show, it more often than not felt a little too confused to truly hone in on anything of substance for the audience to leave with.

But while "A Runaway, A Soldier" was maybe a little too heavy on laughs and not enough on storytelling heft, "Shadow House" was an exercise in something beautiful being weighed down in far too much self-seriousness. The Philadelphia Opera Collective helmed show focuses on some of the intersections of time, death, and the impact we leave with both.

An interesting concept of linking a series of characters by somewhat ghostly means was often obscured by the tedium of the writing. A large part of the show is funneled through the characters' in-depth discussion about Nietzsche, which seemed charming at first and dull quickly thereafter. For a show already impressing dramatic insinuations about our place in the grand scheme of things, perhaps dialogue regarding the philosophical and metaphysical wasn't the best pairing.

Still, the music that the Collective's fan base was there to see was the beautiful part that maybe shone brighter than the show's whole. The cast was uniformly terrific, and its location in the Powel House in Old City was a pleasant addition to the experience. However this didn't appease a feeling that into works that felt more and more like not so much Fringe as half-baked. Good theatre, whether in a large venue or a cramped bar, should either provide entertainment or gift the audience with something to walk away with. This week's festival picks failed to do either.