On the fringe

Tonight, we attended a play staged as part of the New York International Fringe Festival. [There are Fringe festivals all over the world now, the largest of which is the Edinburgh Fringe, the original inspiration for the New York one. The Adelaide Fringe is the apparently the second-largest in the world. Who knew?] Sarah and I have seen our fair share of plays in New York, most of them very good. But it'd been over a year since our last one, and I'd forgotten how fun it is to enter a small, dark theater where everything is painted black, and watch real people perform on a stage. Theater acting can be exhilarating to watch -- I'm always a little nervous to see if someone will flub his or her lines. When two characters have a conversation or a confrontation, and the actors perform with nuanced rhythm and drama, it's better than watching most cinematic action scenes, by far. This sounds obvious to people familiar with theater, but I suspect there are millions of people who hold motion pictures up as the paragon of entertainment. I do not necessarily agree.

Tonight's play was a bit of an uneven affair, unfortunately. The first act was poorly written and poorly performed, but after intermission, the play picked up speed and became quite enjoyable. Also, one of the characters pulls out a pistol in the second act, which always makes for high drama. When someone waves a semi-automatic handgun around on stage, you just know it's going to go off at some point. In fact, I think it's a playwright's duty; once you introduce a gun, you owe it your audience to write a scene in which a character uses it. [It's one of the unofficial rules of screenwriting too, except I can't attribute it to anyone because I don't remember where I read it.]