WTF Philly Fringe 2016

Many Fringe previews are glowing recommendations of the best, most compelling, most original work in the festival. For the last few years at BSR, when we read the catalog, we make sure we don’t forget to mention the titles that make us say, “What the fuck is going on here?”

Of course, that’s part of the fun of the fest: checking out a new performance without knowing whether you’ll be engrossed and entertained, or reel back onto the street with your eyes glazing over.

After perusing the catalog, here’s a shortlist of the shows I just don’t understand.

Big promises

One of the first to grab my eye was Sword of the Unicorn from New Works, even if only because it promises a lot. It’s a sci-fi fantasy epic featuring “Dinosaurs, aliens, and bears oh my!” and it’s coming to the Drake (302 S. Hicks Street) September 9-18. If you never wanted anything more in exchange for $30 than a play to “blow your mind with pure awesomeness” and “compel you in ways you never felt possible,” then this is the show for you.

But don’t decide before you’ve heard about Sassy’s Hot Dog, coming to the Iron Factory (118 Fountain Street) on September 16. The catalog description doesn’t tell you much: “A hot dog walks into a bar….”

If this scintillating description gets you to the show’s FringeArts page, you’ll hear a little more, but I doubt you’ll be any less confused. It’s “an exploration,” (do tell!) “a celebration of sacred space and absurdity” with fun, games, thrills and chills, “and a few surprises along the way.”

To elucidate further, the show’s creators are “two gnomes” who met at the National Theater Institute. In a prologue typically reserved for the playbill bios of MFA students, they want to thank all their supporters for “entertaining our delusions.” For $5, you can too.

Fringe, definition of

But leave time for GOATPIG’s story of my eye. Sometimes you say, “Huh?” and then you get tickets. It’s coming to Kung Fu Necktie at 1250 N. Front Street September 10-12. I’m going to check out this original piece from two real-life lovers who are trying to “forge a healthy sexual relationship in the midst of an influential media landscape.”

Creators Jenni Messner and Zach Trebino offer “a saturnalia of excessive grotesquerie that dips into pseudo-sincerity.” Their gender identity is “Bathroom Vaudeville,” and they’re “two despicable people with admirable intentions standing before you screaming ‘STEP AWAY FROM THE SCREENS AND FEAST ON OUR FLESH! WE’RE JUICY! WE’RE CRISP! WE’RE ONLY 100 CALORIES!’”

What the fuck. If that isn’t the Fringe I don’t know what is. I’ll be there.

Promotions: What not to do

And then there’s Cat-A-Strophe (from a dramaturge named Samuel Beckett of Fail Better Productions), which I have been desultorily trying to figure out if I should try to figure out for two months now. It’s running at Kensington’s Papermill Theater, 2825 Ormes Street.

A July 3 e-mail missive informed me that the show is a Barrymore Awards candidate, that it made an actor I never heard of cry with laughter and is “smart and literate,” and likened the show to something jointly penned by Samuel Beckett (the playwright, presumably), Dario Fo, and Hannoch Levin.

Beckett (the dramaturg) followed up by friending me on Facebook (no thanks; we’ve never met) and messaging me: “So, I wasn’t successful in getting your attention.” He urged me to watch a video about the show that would lead me to “never look at theater the same” because “It will bite you in the ass.”

Another e-mail contained nothing but a link to the video. Another e-mail was a repetition of the first. Yet another alluded to Wilt Chamberlain’s record-breaking game and told me to “claim [my] place in history” by seeing the show.

I still have no idea what this weird mix of grandiosity and obfuscation is about.

And the catalogue and website aren’t much help, just urging me that if I pick only one Fringe show to see this year, Cat-A-Strophe (a “farcical satire”) is it. According to the catalogue, it runs through September 22 as well as “indefinitely,” and its side effects may include “a pressing need to go to the bathroom.”

You can make your own choice on this one. (Our Mark Cofta braved it; Here's his review.)

I love the Fringe. Here’s a round-up of my picks.