Postcards From the Fringe

Was it magic? Mentalist Alain Nu's show, "Circus of the Mind" -- one of many offered during the Capital Fringe Festival -- may leave you wondering. The festival continues through July 30. (Mark Finkenstaedt - For The Washington Post)

THE EDDIE LOUNGE SHOW Friday at 5:30, Sunday at 10:30, Tuesday at 7:45, Wednesday at 10:15 and July 29 at 10:15. At the Warehouse Next Door. $15.

Dating in the Next Millennium: Same as It Ever Was

Anyone who doesn't see dating in the District as theater of the absurd hasn't been out there lately. The singles scene in our transient city is a ludicrous mix of ambition, sex, politics and moving vans, so it's natural that the game of love finds its way onstage. Playwright Callie Kimball sets her new comedy, "May 39th," in Washington, circa 3006. She combines futuristic fantasy with a plus ça change philosophy, her play adding up to a hopeful vision tinged with dark humor.

Kimball's characters, Louisa and Sam, meet online at a virtual-reality bar, then make a low-tech leap: "They decide to meet in person, which is kind of risky for them," she says. "They have a one-night stand, and the next morning they have to get to know each other."

Kimball -- who writes a blog called Luckyspinster.com -- says she had long wanted to write something futuristic. In "May 39th," her imagined future is a technologically enhanced version of the present. "The technologies we have, even though they tend to isolate people, they also really make people connect," she explains. With a millennium's worth of techno-glut, could it really be so different?

The future, according to Kimball, is a place filled with clones, where a country called Japandia is on the warpath in Asia and a fast-food chain (Mac Universe) continues to exert economic dominance. But when it comes to the human heart, the landscape looks strikingly familiar.

Kimball says forging connections is a major reason she's participating in the Fringe Festival -- to meet other artists who will collaborate on new projects and explore new worlds. As for her play's message, Kimball declares: "There's always, always hope. No matter how bleak things seem, there's always hope."

-- Christina Talcott

MAY 39TH Friday at 5, Saturday at 9, Thursday at 6, July 28 at 9 and July 29 at 8. At the Touchstone Gallery. $15.

What Do You Know -- the Joke's on Cheney

"Get that pan of doo-doo out," director Dolores Gregory commands one of her actors during rehearsal for a scene that opens with a constipated Army colonel squatting and grunting over a box. The young man mimes carrying the imaginary bedpan offstage.

It's the first working run-through of "Freedom Fries," one of five 10-minute scenes in "You Don't Know Dick," a thematic collection of satirical skits by five area playwrights, each inspired directly or indirectly by Vice President Cheney. Soon, the first broad joke kicks in, setting the tone for what Gregory calls the "kind of twisted" sketch: The officer instructs his son, a green but gung-ho military recruit, to help his father wipe using not toilet paper but -- wait for it -- pages from The Washington Post.

Written by Audrey Cefaly and spoofing a surreal Defense Department photo-op, the unsubtle "Fries" is a bit of a departure for the award-winning dramaturge, who describes her usual fare as "Southern, feel-good, Beth Henley-type stuff." Along with Gregory (a former freelance critic for this paper), Cefaly is a member of Playwrights Gymnasium, a local theater-writing workshop that founder Gregory only half-jokingly describes as "graduate school on the cheap." Several months ago, the group started brainstorming ideas to put on during the fest.

After tossing out the initial idea of power and identity -- too "generic" and not "fringe-y" enough, according to member Mary Watters, whose "Morning Has Broken" imagines Cheney confronting daughter Mary's girlfriend -- the group seemed to settle on the perfect theme: nuns.

Then the veep accidentally shot a lawyer in the face while hunting. The dramatic potential of a man Watters believes is torn between his "inner conflict" and the "outer wall" he presents to the world was too good to pass up.

-- Michael O'Sullivan

YOU DON'T KNOW DICK Saturday at 3, Sunday at 10, Tuesday and July 28 at 6, and July 29 at 8. At Flashpoint's Mead Theatre Lab. $15.

The Measure of the Woman

Height. Wealth. Home. Clothing. Popularity. Breeding. Strength. Power.

Penis size.

A man's worth can be measured. A man's worth can be compared with that of the man standing next to him. He is better than his best friend. He is not as good.

Come, sit before Frank and Bill a while, and they'll show you. Give the two, friends since childhood, 13 rounds to take each other down, convincing you -- judge and jury -- of their relative superiority. Acting as referee of this verbal boxing match is the pale but lovely girl in the bathing suit. She has known these guys for ages. She also knows, tragically, how much can be lost to competition.

"Never Swim Alone" is a play that asks, according to director Bradley Moss, "How far are you willing to go to win at all costs?"

A darkly shadowed comedy that debuted in Canada during the early '90s, Daniel MacIvor's work has been given a provocative update for the Fringe Festival: Frank and Bill are played by women.

"I think with women it's just more articulate as to 'Holy [expletive], that's what [men] really are when you get right down to it -- we will destroy our own friends' lives just to further our own safety, our own livelihood, our own wealth,' " says Moss, artistic director of the Edmonton theater company staging the play.

And don't worry, despite certain revisions, the essence of the original production is preserved. Crotches are still grabbed, size is still made to matter.

-- Ellen McCarthy

NEVER SWIM ALONE Friday at 10, Saturday at 6, Sunday at 8, Monday at 10 and Wednesday at 6. At the Canadian Embassy. $15.

The Lunatic Fringe

It seems that even the fringe has a fringe element, which is to say that a few of the festival's offerings promise to be either daringly original, riveting as train wrecks or some terrifying combination of the two. In any event, a visit to the following is strictly at your own risk.

FROZTY THE ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN A corn cob pipe, a button nose and an uncontrollable bloodlust meet in this tale of a beloved wintertime figure made evil by a botched science experiment. Oh yeah, it's a rock musical, too. Saturday through July 30 the Woolly Mammoth Theatre rehearsal hall. $15.

LA CORBIÈRE You know how, during World War II, the Nazis filled a boat with French hookers, intending to deliver them to love-starved troops, but then the boat sank? Nope, we didn't either. Still, we're intrigued, not least because this site-specific production was still looking for a site at press time. Thursday through July 30. $15.

UNMAPPED Choreographer Daniel Burkholder and musician Jonathan Matis may well be the hardest-working men in fringe business. The pair will attempt to stage 24 consecutive one-hour improvisational dance extravaganzas (Kiefer Sutherland, eat your heart out) on Friday and Saturday at the Warehouse Theater main stage. $15 buys a 23-hour pass; the 24th hour requires a separate $15 admission.

RIDING THE DRAGON: RAW AND BAREBACK Three gay men ponder the dangerous appeal of condomless sex in the age of AIDS. Vivid public service announcement or theater of titillation? You be the judge. Sunday through Wednesday at the Warehouse Theater main stage. $15.

AN EVENING WITH GEORGE BURNS So, when an oft-caricatured celebrity dies, what is the statute of limitations for impressionists? Find out for yourself when Alan Devalerio makes an ill-advised decision to conjure up the cigar-smoking centenarian. Friday through July 29 at the Goethe-Institut. $15.

VAUDE RATS Two questions to ponder: 1) How often do you get to see a ukulele operetta? 2) Is there a reason for that? K. Brian Neel's musical creation posits a romance between a dwarf and a vaudevillian (of course!). Sunday through July 30 at the Warehouse Theater main stage. $15.

BEAUTIFUL FREAKS AND FEATS OF WONDER And if that's not enough, the name of the production team is Cheeky Monkey Sideshow. Want more? The salute to old-timey sadistic thrills promises sword swallowing, a bed of nails and a not entirely PC-sounding "gender-bending half-and-half." Sunday through July 29 at the Warehouse Theater main stage. $15.

POP UP DANCES Surely the first terpsichores to unabashedly claim VH1 as an inspiration, the artists of Momentum Dance Theatre plan to just, well, show up at places around town and start dancing. Where can you find them? At that celebrated venue "Various Locations," of course! Free (if you can find them). Check the festival's Web site for news of sightings.

JILL KILLS VOLS. I & II Meet Jill, the love child of Quentin Tarantino and Dear Abby, a pistol-packing relationship expert with a penchant for gunpowder conversion. Expect a revenge fantasy of which Uma Thurman would be proud. Saturday through Tuesday at the National Building Museum. $15.

POE AT THE WILLARD Lucky you, oh tourists from Peoria who happen to be vacationing at the Willard Hotel. Edgar Allan Poe is staying there, too. Well, actually Poe doppelganger David Keltz is staying there, performing a show about Poe, who once stayed in that very hotel. Well, actually it was the predecessor to the Willard on the same site. Oh, forget it. Sunday at the Willard InterContinental Washington Hotel. $15.

-- Scott Vogel