One of my favorite shows from last summer’s Minnesota Fringe Festival Bob and Reggie Go To Bed is being remounting and tweaked for four shows at Bryant Lake Bowl Theater. I’ll be there with some friends for the Thursday December 29th performance. I’d love to see some more friends and readers there as well. Here’s what I said about the show after seeing it on my first day at Fringe last August.
Comedy Suitcase presents Bob and Reggie Go To Bed created and performed by Joshua English Scrimshaw and Levi Weinhagen. I don’t know what I was expecting when I entered the theatre for this show but it wasn’t to see my love of silent comedy brought to life, live on stage. Bob and Reggie get ready for bed confronting obstacles that arise with the problem solving skills of Laurel and Hardy. Set in the silent world of a Buster Keaton two reeler, the duo blend physical comedy with a Keatonesque surreal humor. Inventive in the way it keeps building on it’s situations. The humor comes as often from the reveal as it does from their solution to the next snag in their bedtime routine. Just when you think it can’t get any crazier it takes a turn that made me think of Sherlock Jr. The similarities to the silents doesn’t stop at the type of humor but also in the fact there is no dialogue. Just as there was with the silent movies, there is a live score and sound effects, created on stage by Rhiannon Fiskradatz, who adds more than just accompaniment to the proceedings. The final performer in this four person show is Sulia Altenberg as the Tooth Fairy. Scrimshaw and Weinhagen are brilliant in their gag creation and execution. You have to be pretty smart to act this stupid. I only knew Scrimshaw from his work with the Mysterious Old Radio Listening Society and would never have guessed that a genius for this form of comedy was in his or anyone else in the 21st Century’s wheelhouse. This is the perfect show to take everyone and anyone too, old and young, the larger the audience the more fun it will be.
I already knew that one of the downsides of Fringe is that it’s impossible to see everything, there is always the worry of what you are missing. Tonight I discovered another downside, you can’t justify seeing things twice. That’s really frustrating in this case because I want to see Bob and Reggie Go To Bed with everyone I know. If this was not at Fringe and just a normal show on a two or three week run, I’d be organizing group meet ups to enjoy this show again and again. If you could see only one of the three shows I saw today it has to be Bob and Reggie Go To Bed. And so it earns the inaugural, highly coveted and just made up on the fly The Stages of MN Fringe of the Day Award! August 5th 2022 Post of The Stages of MN
FOUR PERFORMANCES ONLY
Thursday, December 29 and Friday, December 30, 7pm
Saturday, December 31, 2022, 5pm and 7pm
Price: $15/$12 in advance or with Fringe button/$8 kids, 12 and under
At the Bryant-Lake Bowl Theater in Minneapolis
For more information and to purchase tickets go to https://www.eventbrite.com/e/bob-and-reggie-stay-awake-tickets-466085713917
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