Had nine people in the audience yesterday -- that's four performances of three, three, nine, and nine, bringing me to a grand total of twenty-four. Hardly auspicious, but the tour's served its function, which is to start transforming the show from a *reading* into a *performance*.
I've written previously about my struggle with complex sentence structures, and even though that rapid-fire delivery has become something of a calling card for my shows, the main work I've done on this tour is simplifying my delivery. One of the main issues that my editors jumped on was my fondness for "soft punches" -- to deliver a punchline, then immediately undercut it with another punchline. That kind of reflexive, self-deprecating humor is a big part of what the show's all about, but it plays weak on stage, and I've been chopping away at it.
I've always been finding that there's many parts of the script in which punchlines can be entirely replaced by expression or gesture -- and I find it ironic that, even though this is the least physical show I've ever done, reviews have still been commenting on the physicality of my performance.
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So the Festival's done, and sure, it was both disorganized and critically understaffed -- I received my venue assignment late, never got a tech, did at least one performance with *no* volunteers or staff on hand -- but I can't think of the last time I had this much fun.
The out-of-towners have always been cloaked in mystery, appearing and disappearing softly and suddenly with flickers of genius, the rock stars of the Fringe circuit. Having the opportunity to be around them for a week has been one the coolest, most exciting times of my life since -- well, since last year's Fringe.
Make sure to check some of 'em out in Minneapolis this August. They deserve it -- and we deserve them, too.
I'm off to perform in another preview, as part of Joe Scrimshaw's show at the Bryant-Lake Bowl. Feel free to swing by and say hi. If I can tear myself away from this for long enough to actually work on the preview, that is.
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