Washington City Paper reviews “The Showcase Showdown”

By Glen Weldon
July 10, 2010

We’ve chided the SpeakeasyDC folks in this space before – gently, and never less-than-admiringly – about their ringer status.  For years now, they’ve been the trust-fund babies of Fringe, what with their built-in local fanbase, deep(ish) pockets, their mutant ability to sell out shows without working up a sweat and, yes, their reviews, which dependably land on the Fringe-Metacritic scale somewhere between “fawning” and “fellating.”

They’ve got laurels, is my point, and the impulse to rest on them must have been powerful strong. After all, the Speakeasy formula would seem to encourage repetition; certainly last year’s Sin Show – seven storytellers taking on the Seven Deadlies – wasn’t appreciably different than their previous Fringe outings, or indeed their weekly shows, unless “a bit longer” counts as different.

There’s also the fact that the stories these performers tell have been workshopped to hell — painstakingly shaped, honed, crafted for maximum effect.  Which, if you think about it, is about un-Fringey as it gets.

And that’s probably why this year’s outing, with its slap-dash gameshow bells and whistles (the bells, at least, are quite literal) feels so heartening.  The storytelling’s just as strong: Witness Sheldon Scott’s portrait of himself as a young overachiever, which he stuffs with rich language that should sound written, but never does; or Jessica Solomon’s note-perfect, finely detailed evocation of 1992. It’s also just as varied: Solomon seems to be just discovering the beats and laugh lines of her story, while the wounded, faux-exasperated tone Mike Kane employs to relate a tale of cat-napping seems more calibrated – but just as funny.

But the low-rent, low-fi, low-brow Price is Right gimcrackery in which they’ve couched the stories?  The contestants from the audience? The golden-throated announcer (B. Stanley, who’s more Gary Owens than Johnny Olson/Rod Roddy, really)?  The glamorous prizes (read: Shake n’ Bake)? The  louche host (John Kevin Boggs, who bats a perfectly respectable .500, in quip-per-laugh ratio)?  The interstitial vintage commercials (seriously, that Old Spice spot is just disquieting)?

It’s all filled with awkward pauses, blown cues, strained laughter, panicky performers, and flop sweat.  It’s cheesy and exciting and kind of awkward, and watching it you can’t miss the fact that these people have stepped outside their comfort zone, that they don’t know quite what’s going to happen, and that wherever the evening ends up, you and they are gonna discover it together.

SpeakeasyDC: Welcome to Fringe.

See it if: Your favorite pricing game is Cliffhanger.

Skip it if: Your favorite pricing game is that shitty golf one.

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