Fringe Festival Encore

"Pope! An Epic Musical" is one of the FringeNYC performances coming back for an encore

Fringe Festival Preview

Our guide to navigating nearly 200 performances with ease

Manhattan's off-beat August merry-go-round, The New York International Fringe Festival, has come to a halt. Was it great, was it God-awful, was it just kinda meh? It's a challenge to draw conclusions about this 200-show behemoth. After all, I only saw a dozen shows...in as many days. Fortunately, the organizers revive the most acclaimed shows and biggest crowd-pleasers in a September showcase. So we can all catch up on the ones we missed. (Check out our sidebar)

Personally, I got lucky on my Fringe Binge. For the first time in a decade of attendance, I saw a show that didn't need a qualifier like, "Good, you know, for the Fringe." "The Twentieth Century Way" won an award for Overall Excellence from the Fringe and it'll play in the showcase. "Way" tells the true-life story of the LAPD's persecution of homosexuals during WWI, and it unfolds from many points of view. Two superb actors turn the stage into a hall of mirrors, dizzying the audience with quick changes, sterling chemistry, and a charged erotic tone.

Other fine shows garnered equally loud buzz. In next month's revival series, I plan to catch "When Last We Flew" (another queer drama), "Saving Throw vs. Love" (a rom-com), and "Veritas," yet a third queer drama that, sadly, won't be returning in September. Colleagues also liked "Bunked! A New Musical," whose teens in love by the campfire plays to the "Glee" crowd.

But the frenetic, bare-bones style of NYCFringe just isn't conducive to well-rounded productions. It's more common for a show to back one great element with raw enthusiasm. That's what I found with "Just in Time," a bio-drama about post-war comedienne Judy Holliday. A scintillating performance by Marina Squerciati brings to life this brainy Brooklyn-ite who won a Best Actress Oscar playing a dumb blonde. She adds vivacity and emotional depth to an otherwise unfocused show, and makes it worth seeing all on her own.

A similar thing happens to "The Secretaries," a horror-farce about a coven of bacchantes who live on Slim Fast, synch their cycles, swear celibacy and murder a man a month in a midnight ritual. The play was written in 1994 by a quintet of lesbian artists, but it proves to be a durable work. It's like "Heathers" but raunchier and more anarchic. But farce, ironically, needs careful polish and crack timing, which are antithetical to the Fringe process. More rehearsal time before the September showcase should help "The Secretaries," but I hope it'll get a full production by next spring.

By far, the most common sight onstage at the Fringe is mediocrity. I caught nine other shows, and while some were better than others, none of the nine had that spark of inspiration that make a play feel urgent. Only one was outright lousy, and a few passed the time. But I've got a high threshold for theatrical boredom. How must the average theatergoer feel? After 14 years of FringeNYC, audiences look fatigued. While waiting in line for tickets, one Fringe-goer told me that he was tired of "cruddy shows by college kids." At another show, the girl sitting next to me wondered if the Fringe "is played out" since it wasn't any better than Off-Off-Broadway's regular season. Two middle-aged women kvetched about the uninformative catalogue; a gay couple (like me) wished for more imagination and flair from the stage.

Anyhow, audiences are excited to escape from the empty gloss of Broadway and the inflated ticket prices of Off-Broadway. As another NYCFringe season closes, interest remains high. So what's the solution? How does the Fringe become more focused, more creative, more vital to New York's arts scene? That's a question we'd love to answer; let us know if you have one. Until then, I'll be back next year.