Past Event
Thursday, June 29, 2017, 9 p.m.
SD Fringe Festival: The Complete History of Theatre (abridged)
79 Horton Plaza, San Diego, 92101
Cost: $10
In Matt Thompson's 50-minute chronicle, William Shakespeare, Sarah Bernhardt, and Constantin Stanislavsky come together (no one says how). They pseudo-lecture and leap from Sophocles to the "Scottish Play" to six characters in search of Pirandello. The piece is often funny, and sometimes quite (thanks to the antics of Patrick J. Duffy). But it's also extremely self-conscious -- often stopping and asking "where to from here?" -- which deadens the pace. Overall the production is loose, and the performers could use more rehearsals for the speed and in-the-moment inventiveness a showe like this requires.