Still more Fringe: Three faves and a puzzler

The Cincinnati Fringe Festival ends its two-week run on Saturday night. But in the final three days, there are nearly 70 shows scheduled. You still have time to see some pretty fabulous productions.

There are several other buzzworthy shows that I have not seen yet, but are on my schedule, including Erika Kate MacDonald’s “Ice Candle,” Kevin Thornton’s “Please Call Me Cupcake,” Sean P. Mette’s “Furlesque” and “Homegrown Theater’s “Boo-boo.”

But here are some thoughts on three of my favorites so far and one that, despite lots of problems, still has me thinking.

“My Left Teeth,” written and directed by Paul Strickland.

Playwright/director Paul Strickland is, among other things, a storyteller. And from what I’ve seen of his work, he seems to have a penchant for tales about people who live at outer edges of society. They’re not certifiable. But they’re quirky and have comfortably settled into slightly alternate universes than the rest of us.

In “My Left Teeth,” Strickland has recruited two fine local actors – Miranda McGee and Annie Kalahurka – to spin his yarns. It is, he says, the first time he hasn’t been a part of telling their stories himself.

The play has a simple framework. An elderly woman has died. She’s an eccentric loner. And, as a neighbor and a niece converge on the home to sort out her affairs, the only thing the learn is how little they know about the woman who one knows as Yvonne, the other as Peggy.

The heart of the play is a series of monologues as McGee and Kalahurka act out the stories Peggy/Yvonne shares on a VHS videotape she has left behind for whoever finds her.

In the course of these nine short tales, Strickland paints an extraordinarily lovely and melancholy portrait of Peggy/Yvonne, as the two women now call her. The writing is exceptional, little gems that are pithy and clever and downright poetic.

Those of us who have seen his work before already knew Strickland was a smart writer. But bits of this script are downright masterful. And McGee and Kalahurka are good matches for his writing. They don’t try to overpower his writing. They wrap themselves in it and relish every word as much as we do.

It’s easily the best show I’ve seen so far.

We Did It, Girl!” by Kevin Crowley.

It’s often said that we don’t talk about the issue of race enough. Kevin Crowley’s play will make up for some of that.

I don’t know Crowley’s process for writing this play. But it feels like he started out by collecting every conceivable stereotype he could find that blacks and whites have of one another. Then he created an oddball dramatic device just logical enough to accommodate all the humor he was determined to exact on those stereotypes.

For those who pay a lot attention to racial conflict, there probably won’t be many race-based surprises in Crowley’s script. But that doesn’t mean it won’t be harrowing at times. Or shocking. Or absolutely hilarious.

Crowley and co-star Torie Wiggins’ characters meet on a blind date they arranged through a website called Christian Hookup. Alice is African American. And because of her date’s name – DeShaun – she presumes he’s black as well. But DeShaun is white. And very geeky. (He’s wearing an argyle sweater vest.)

We’re off and running, as the two wade their way through all manner of racial jousting. There are jabs and gags and insults. There’s even a moment where it looks like DeShaun might get the hookup he hoping for.

Crowley is a coldly needy lothario. He thinks he gets it, but is hopelessly tone deaf to issues of race or romance. But it’s Wiggins who rules this show and the didn’t-see-that-coming final scene that inevitably leaves the audience screaming and gasping with laughter.

Wiggins chides DeShaun in her best angry-black-woman mode. She’s indignant. And smart. And she sings. It’s all wonderful.

I suspect that seeing these two interact with any material would be rewarding. But director Reggie Willis adds to the mix as well. Most of this show is, after all, a couple of people sitting around at tables trading barbs. Willis makes sure the material that could get sluggish remains consistently clever.

“Cessna: A Drama Noir,” by Mike Hall and Joshua Steele.

True story. A few days before Christmas in 1982, a small plane came hurtling down into downtown Montgomery. On board were several FBI agents and an embezzler who promised to help them track down some of the money he’d buried when he lived in Cincinnati. All aboard the plane died. The money was never found.

For most of us, it was an unfortunate accident. But to Joshua Steele and Mike Hall, the inveterate Cincinnati showmen who were part of the teams that created unhinged comedies like “Hot Damn! It’s the Loveland Frog!” and “Don’t Cross the Streams: The Cease and Desist Musical,” the crash was just more fodder for their overactive imaginations.

Before long, they concocted a plot revolving around backroom deals, otherworldly curses, characters who aren’t what they seem to be – and, thanks to director Greg Procaccino – a dark and moody suggestion of conspiracy.

It probably helps to have a jazz trio led by pianist Steve Goers, too. The opening music – and Mark Williams’ lighting – is so evocative of an earlier age that, within 15 seconds, you expect to see a puff of cigarette smoke followed moments later by a trench-coated Bogie.

Alas, Bogie doesn’t appear. But in his stead, we meet Hall as a long-suffering detective, Mindy Heithaus as a va-va-voom – a friend’s description – femme fatale, Carter Bratton as a local cop and Michael G. Bath as a slew of roles, including the embezzler.

It’s a testament to Hall and Steele that, by the end of the play, you want to know what really happened on that plane, even if the answer has nothing to do with reality.

Like many Fringe shows, “Cessna” could probably use a little tightening, a little refining. But they’re small quibbles. Despite every bit of skepticism you can toss at it, this show is fun and mysterious and well worth the hour you spend with it.

“The Unrepentant Necrophile,” by The Coldharts.

In recent years, The Coldharts have been one of the most consistently excellent out-of-town groups at CincyFringe. They’re still super. But this time, they’re presenting one of the Fringe’s most problematic shows.

The title – “The Unrepentant Necrophile” – should give you ample warning that you’re wandering into touchy territory. The plot is just what the title promises, about a mortician (Katie Hartman) who falls in love – or perhaps it’s just lust – with a recently deceased man. Instead of preparing the body for burial, she begins a frenzied affair with it.

Obviously, there are a few emotional hurdles audiences need to cross with this one. For some, it may be too high a hurdle. But Hartman is an intense and incredibly compelling performer, the sort of actor who can convince you to accompany her nearly anywhere.

Working with Nate Gebhard as the recently departed – and also the show’s drummer – and Nick Ryan as a rejected co-worker, Hartman and company fill the story with all manner of humor, including one scene where the dead man manages to play the drums from his supine position on a gurney. And while dead.

But the performance I saw was plagued by all sorts of issues. Some were beyond the performers’ control, like the incessant beeping of a lift outside the theater and the shouting of the crew that was working on it.

But others problems were definitely their own. And just as definitely fixable. The volume on Hartman’s fuzzy, punky guitar – this is billed as a rock opera as well – made most of her lyrics impossible to understand, let alone even hear. Other times, Hartman spoke so quietly that, once again, you had no idea what she was saying.

And there was so much fidgety business on the stage – a constant moving of drums and shifting of set pieces – that it took away from the tight focus that is usually a hallmark of Coldharts’ productions.

It was dark, too, and not just thematically. The stage lighting was so dim that it was hard to see. That may be the mood they want to create. But it doesn’t help with seeing the show. And the one time there was a lot of light was when Hartman mounted her prey and started swinging a hanging light back and forth. It was an interesting effect, I guess. But once again, it made things even harder to see.

I have a lot of faith in The Coldharts. I really hope they shape this into an impactful show. Some audience members have expressed admiration for the work. But for my money, the current show is an intriguing dramatic study waiting to be expanded into something more.