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These exclusive tips for you, our subscribers, let you know where our team is heading on the Philly scene this month. Traditionally, there are three sections: FIND US, Neil’s Nod of the Month, and Recommended Reading. As a special only-for-subscribers feature, in this month’s edition of BSR in the Wild, Alaina is telling you where she’s not going in this year’s Fringe, because let’s face it—this info can be just as valuable as the shows we are choosing to see. Reading this year’s Fringe catalog is a weird and wild trip, so she’s not holding back.

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Around the World in 80 Toys combines object puppetry, film, and special effects.

DON'T FIND ALAINA

For the first time in my memory, I am not seeing any of the “Curated” shows in this year’s Fringe. Some of them, like Around the World in 80 Toys and Rennie Harris’s Beautiful Human Lies: Chapter 4, sound interesting, but I can’t fit them in (look out for the BSR reviews). However, I am content to miss some of the others.

From the description, I can’t get a handle on what Weathering really is, but honestly, it doesn’t appeal to me. “Ten performers & crew enact a glacially morphing tableau vivant on a moving raft-like stage … The audience surrounds the performers, close enough to smell the sweat and feel the steam of the spiraling scenes.” The press invitation for opening night promises “a luminously living, breathing multi-sensory sculpture made of bodies, sounds, scents, liquids, and objects.”

I’m sorry, what?

I love theater and I’m a pretty adventurous arts-goer, but I don’t want to be in this splash zone, even if it did win an Obie and was hailed as “enthralling” by the New York Times.

Spiritual Experience is performed for an audience of just one or two people. Will you be one? Credit: Wide Eyed Studios

I’m getting a similar vibe from another Curated show, Spiritual Experience. I have no idea what it is, and that’s the point, apparently: “the contents of Spiritual Experience will forever remain a secret—revealed only to those who witness.” It is performed for an audience of just one or two people. It’s “sensual and cerebral, psychedelic and silly, strange and beautiful, and it is unlike anything you’ve seen before,” FringeArts says. Perhaps worried that we’ll read too much into this, they add that the show “is not frightening and it does not involve audience participation” (phew, amirite?).

Oh, and it costs $200 for a pair of seats. That’s a hell of a lot of money to fork over on the basis of ~vibes~. But what do I know? It’s already completely sold out.

asses.masses. is a live, seven-and-a-half-hour long video game played by the audience. Credit: David Mesiha

Sometimes my joy that a particular kind of art exists for those who want it is only outweighed by my relief that I don’t have to see it myself. That’s how I feel about another Curated show, asses.masses. It’s a live, seven-and-a-half-hour long video game that is an allegory for “the perils of a post-Industrial society” played collectively by the audience.

Since I was a kid, with very few exceptions (Tetris and Pac-Man), I have strongly felt that I would pay money to avoid being in any room where any video game is being played, let alone play it myself. I know I’m a philistine in this regard, but this is a more-tickets-left-for-you type situation, and if this experience piques your interest, I hope you click through!

I urge you to check out the Fringe lineup for yourself (we have plenty of preview coverage to guide you!). Some of the show titles, as usual, absolutely have me scratching my head, like A Young Man Dressed As A Gorilla Dressed As An Old Man Sits Rocking In A Rocking Chair For Fifty-Six Minutes And Then Leaves or Red Sweater Chalupa.

For reasons known only unto themselves, many artists use written descriptions to obscure their work as much as possible. Working title (entrance) offers “Coral reef to Hollywood Boulevard. Fog. Self-absorbed octopus with a vape addiction. A sacred and absurd woodland troll. Peeping out while being fed a lemon. Look at me, don’t look at me. See me and don’t. PENELOPE!!!!”

Grant offers “a missing show cat, the world’s greatest tumbler, a less-than-refreshing drink, and a fatal drawing so far. Does a theme emerge?”

No, it doesn’t.

Rhymes with Orange really leans in:

“My ears depends on if I cry everytime I see you not at strawberries. *headbutts quail toilet* ?!?!?! Headbutts against the quail toilet again. When you don’t remember birds - it’s because someone is headbutting a quail toilet on your grave.

Didn't I see you not at strawberries? Isn't that nicely after all, is it a crime to look real good and be magnetic towards shrimp. Here's three things you will learn at this show:”

But maybe this really speaks to you and you’re already ordering your tickets.

That’s the beauty of a festival. You never know what you’re gonna get, and there’s room for everyone. Happy Fringe!

Neil's nod of the month

nat čermák will be reviewing Lantern's production of The Real Thing by Tom Stoppard. I worked on a production of this play in October of 2000 and haven't seen it since. Heck, I haven't even heard of anybody putting it up in between then and now. I'm considering getting tickets to the Lantern and want to know what nat has to say about it too.

Recommended reading

I've recently been reflecting on a joke I first heard years ago: "How's Heaven?" "There's a lack of chairs..." Fringe is a heaven of performances but sometimes the physical reality for attendees is underwhelming, frustrating, or downright impossible. Alaina Johns wrote for BSR in 2018 about this specific access gap, inspired by a lack of chairs. Give this one a read, or a re-read, and carry it with you as you bop through Fringe shows.