Continuing on with Day 4 of our annual pilgrimage to the Hollywood Fringe Festival, part 2 will cover the two shows that took up our late afternoon.
TITLE OF SHOW: Snatched . . . Stories from down there
VENUE: Asylum @ Studio C
REVIEW: I missed this show at last year’s Fringe. Unfortunately, it was not worth the wait, and left us feeling quite a bit uncomfortable. While we did enjoy the musical interludes in the story, over all it didn’t connect with us. Loree Gold may be a good storyteller, but after hearing her story, it didn’t leave us feeling challenged, or enlightened or even emphatic. It simply left us feeling like we had sat through a painful vanity piece that was more for the benefit of the performer than the audience.
RECOMMENDATION: This one is painful – Skip it.
TITLE OF SHOW: Conversations ‘Bout the Girls
VENUE: Dorie Theatre at the Complex
REVIEW: Everything that the previous show was not, this one was. We loved that the story was set in a lingerie store, and told as if she was training a new employee on the different types of bras and the particular breasts they were made to fit. Incorporating stories about various women that had breast cancer, and their choices for reconstruction or not struck a particular chord with us, as we have lost friends to this particularly hideous form of cancer, as well as have friends who have overcome it. Sonia Jackson was a natural storyteller who has crafted a very personal while still universal piece about this disease. It was wonderfully directed by Jessica Lynn Johnson, the queen of Fringe solo shows.
RECOMMENDATION: If you or a loved one have suffered from breast cancer, you owe it to yourself or to them to See it. There is one remaining performance on June 24 at 1 p.m. We definitely recommend that you catch this show.