I’m Not Playing is a rarity among the virtual Minnesota Fringe Festival offerings in that the video is very high quality. Clearly shot with an HD camera and very well lit. Unfortunately, like many Fringe offerings the audio is not great. I’m not sure if we are not supposed to hear what is happening at times or if sound has just been poorly captured. The installation is comprised of a single static shot, characters move in and out of frame. The story is about four roommates Dev, Jeremy, Jess and Caitlyn. Jeremy and Jess have just broken up the night before and the narrative is about the roommates efforts at facilitating Jeremy and Jess’s communication. The description says you can view it from a different POV which might help us to make sense of everything including long segments when nothing is happening on screen. If it can be viewed from different perspectives there must be a game to figuring out how to do it because it isn’t obvious or explained and I couldn’t figure it out. The POV I saw it from was “The Living Room” If there are indeed others like “the Bathroom” or “Jess’s Room” it might make the project more worthwhile. You definitely have the feeling you are missing something and you are not sure if this is one piece of a puzzle or if it’s just been inadequately produced.

As frustrated as I was by low and unintelligible dialogue when the presentation ended I went looking for other POV’s. That says something about what this group of performers presented. I suspect there are other cameras set up in different areas and the cast moves between them in real time so that you never have the full picture until you have seen all POV’s. That is a brilliant construct. The audio issues could be intentional because you’re not in the location where the dialogue is clear. If that is what’s happening here, then these are probably the first performers I’ve seen yet that figured out a way to do this virtual Fringe effectively, except of course the part where they maybe didn’t do that or did but didn’t make it clear how to see the other POV’s. I’d love to hear the answer to this question and if there are other POV’s, be pointed to them and I’ll gladly amend this review. At this point it’s a miss, with the feeling it might be a hit.

UPDATE: It’s a hit!!! Thanks to facebook comments from Derek Lee Miller, I was able to view the other POV’s and it was as I hoped, cameras set up in other locations all in real time. The trick to the viewing is that the Living Room is the only view available at the beginning, after it cuts from Jeremy’s instagram video other buttons appear above the video with other locations. Aside from the “Living Room” there is also “Dev’s Room” “Jess’ Room” “Whiteclaw” and “The Bathroom” which is the last room to become viewable. Once you’ve watched two or three you’ll be able to tell as you view the other rooms when you can slide the bar along and skip ahead. Put altogether I found this one of the most effective uses of the virtual experience. It probably owes more to film than it does theatre but it grabbed my attention and held my interest through five separate POV’s. the audio issues I mentioned earlier for the most part are eliminated by the different video streams, though the “Living Room” does have a sound issue in that a lot of Jeremy’s conversations you have to strain to make everything you should be catching.

Stuck in an Elevator With Patrick Stewart is another recorded show from a previous Fringe Festival, in this case 2013. If you’re a fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation you should find this very entertaining, if you are not a fan you probably will as well. Much like The Scranton Strangler: An Office Musical as enjoyable as the video of this is, it does make you long to see it in person. I hope this is something I’ll get a chance to see performed live some day. The play takes place at a Science Fiction Convention between the first and second seasons of ST:TNG. Patrick Stewart has gotten word that they are moving forward with the second season and in all likelihood will be exercising their option on his 6 year contract. Because of this he will have to turn down the lead in Richard III on stage, a role he has always wanted to play. In this foul mood, and seeing ST:TNG more as a curse than a blessing he loses patience with the fans lining up for autographs and the questions they ask him, eventually storming off. He ends up in an elevator with Daniel, his biggest fan. As the title foreshadows, the elevator gets stuck. Patrick over the course of their entrapment learns the true meaning of Star Trek from Daniel.

What is really smart about the script is the way it weaves true autobiographical information into the play. The parallels it illustrates between the fandom and escapism that Patrick at first ridicules with the way he coped with similar situation when he was young. More than once Stewart judges the books by their covers and makes assumptions about the people who are Trekkers only to be surprised by the realities. He tells Daniel he should read more than stupid tie-in Star Trek novels only to be surprised to learn that he read A Tale of Two Cities not long ago. There are many other examples like this and playwright Brandon Taitt does a skillful job of working all of these little aha! moments into the dialogue naturally. I was surprised by a subtlety I did not expect from such a high concept play that is only one hour long. There is quite a lot going on in this play, it’s entertaining and funny, but there is also some real food for thought, but it wisely lets that breathe rather than hammering it home. George M. Calger plays Patrick Stewart and he does a good job, but I felt there was room for a closer interpretation. It’s always difficult to play an extremely famous person. A impression is not the right approach, but I do think you want to try and capture their mannerisms and vocal work as closely as you can. It felt like some of those subtler mannerisms could have helped the illusion more. Brandon Caviness plays Daniel and he does a really nice job. He embodies the Fanboy, but shows us the person underneath that is all too easy to dismiss, he’s a fully rounded out character, again a tough thing to pull off in a short play. I really recommend this one.

Super Patriots! is a program consisting of 2 short plays written by Carl Danielson. The first play focuses on Senator Joseph McCarthy and is manly staged with cutout photos of Mccarthy and other politicians. It is a satirical play which while presenting a fairly accurate account of the early 1950’s “red scare” and the rise of McCarthyism also draws parallels to the current state of politics and the “orange scare”. At around 10 minutes it is an entertaining and engagingly thought provoking piece of theatre. Part 2 is “Doughface” about President James Buchanan. This 10 minute short isn’t quite as successful, partly because it has 4 performers acting together in a Zoom session. I know it’s one of the few tools we have to still try and present theater in this time of Covid-19, and this works as well as Zoom performances do. “Doughface” while not as successful as Part 1, is still worth your time and like the play on McCarty, it draws some very strong comparisons to today. These are definitely worth your time, Part 1 being a more effective theatrical presentation in these days of social distancing. Both are humorous and based more on fact than you might think, some of the more outrageous sounding bits are actual quotes.