Navigating Fringe is all about managing the clock

Fringe Fest is such a hefty undertaking that the occasional snafu is inevitable. A Hard Day’s Night, for example, was listed in the program with a running time of 60 minutes, an inaccuracy addressed by signs in the Just Off Broadway Theatre lobby updating that to 90 minutes, making life a little harder for anyone planning to hit another event the same night (or causing someone to skip the play entirely). Meanwhile, a press pass was about as valuable as a steerage ticket. At two separate shows last Friday night, the critics who had arrived were asked to wait 20 minutes before finding a seat. “We might sell out,” the Fringe volunteer at Off Center Theatre offered by way of explanation. We stood quietly, like dateless kids at the homecoming dance.

Fortunately, both shows that night at Off Center were worth a little inconvenience.

Red Death, a chamber opera based on an Edgar Allan Poe tale, lived up to some early hype it had generated. You don’t need to be an opera fan to appreciate Daniel Doss’ moody score and Bryan Colley’s lush libretto, and the action — directed by Tara Varney and choreographed by Amy Hurrelbrink — was lean and tightly focused. Nathan Granner gave rich voice to Prince Prospero, narrator and ill-fated reveler. Devon Barnes offered a haunting, expressive performance as his servant, though her two-ton vibrato challenged her pitch at times.

Also at Off Center was Bill Rogers’ latest script, Dangerous to Dance With, which stocks a Missouri farmhouse with broken associates of the Stepp family. Harris, the playwright patriarch, is the meanest of the lot, and much of the conflict stems from his twin dependencies on alcohol and double-dog-dare-you stunts. The part seems written for Victor Raider-Wexler, who last weekend stepped into Harris like a new skin. Kelsea McLean landed some nice moments as his niece Jill, a porn actress with some sexual hang-ups.

Many of the shows at Fringe had never before been fully produced, and two premieres at Just Off Broadway Theatre provided reminders of how a strong cast can bring out the best in a script.

Jesse Ray Metcalf’s coming-of-age comedy (Virgin.) treads familiar ground as it follows schoolgirl Mary Sue (Kenna Hall) on an irreverent quest to lose her virginity. Complicating things is a metal chastity belt, installed by Mary Sue’s overzealous PTA mother (played by Ellen Kirk with brilliant control and a Stepford smile). Matt Leonard was exceptional in each of his roles, alternating between Mary Sue’s aw-shucks father and the hunky welder who might be able to solve her problems. Director J. Will Fritz made the most of the script’s surprising one-liners, packing laughs even into the scene changes.

Actress Melissa Fennewald, endearing as Mary Sue’s earnest friend Lou Lou, was caustic and reactive as the protagonist of Vicki Vodrey’s new show, A Hard Day’s Night. But even she couldn’t always compensate for larger issues in the latter, which peeks at a quirky family that builds shrines from Disney memorabilia and the ashes of dead pets. Bloated conversations and bald dialogue in the second half dull what should be a razor-sharp edge, and audience members at Sunday’s performance visibly flinched at a skin-crawling climax. Vodrey’s script mixes the offbeat and the sincere in ways that show promise — enough that you hope she won’t shelve this script.

If you opted out of Friday’s overlong Hard Day’s Night, you might instead have found yourself at Sing, Sing, Sing, a surprisingly rich a cappella show. It started a couple of minutes late, but no complaints; the extra time was welcome for anyone who had navigated around the Fiery Stick event on Pershing Road, the WeekEnder at Crown Center Square, nearly full parking and construction inside the mall (including a blocked-off third-floor hallway and some stairwells), and a slow elevator.

And what a pleasure this show turned out to be. Four women and four men, dressed in different combinations of red and black, harmonized to an eclectic repertoire of Gershwin, classical, pop and gospel, with choreography by Christopher Barksdale, musical direction by Anthony Edwards, and directed by Paul Orwick. Included were a moving “Ode to Billie Joe,” a spellbinding “Gospodi Pomilui” and even the Yes song “Your Move.”

That 50-minute show allowed for travel to the Fishtank, where Randy Noojin brilliantly inhabited the voice and spirit of Woody Guthrie. In his one-man Hard Travelin’ With Woody, which he also wrote, he brought the singular musician-writer-artist (playing for mine workers on strike — the audience) fully to life. Talking about the Dust Bowl and the Depression, about the rich and the poor, Noojin’s Guthrie didn’t deliver a history lesson but rendered the man and his era with three-dimensional immediacy.

Those staying at the Fishtank for Bad Auditions at 10:30 headed straight back to the ticket line and then queued up to go back in, where they saw actors warming up onstage, their antics providing clues to the comedy to come. Kevin King, of Whim Productions, said he more curated the show than directed it — it was largely improvisational. And the cast — a quick-thinking, funny and talented ensemble, including Meredith Wolfe, Stefanie Stevens, Ben Auxier and Brian Huther, Tara Varney, Matt Sweeten, and Seth Macchi — met the challenge. Variations from show to show are excuse enough to go again.

On Saturday, Woodbine Willie made for a serious start to a day spent at MET. In his moving portrayal of a soldier in a World War I trench, the U.K.’s Frank Spackman has built a character around the poetry of the Rev. Geoffrey Studdert Kennedy, the Great War Anglican priest, poet and army chaplain nicknamed Woodbine Willie. The one-man play, derived solely from Kennedy’s words, contained little action but was effectively poignant.

In contrast, Alan Tilson gave a hugely physical performance in Poor Lear, his refreshing redo of King Lear as a homeless Iraq war veteran. The odds and ends that this Lear tossed from his grocery cart were probably a stage tech’s nightmare, but every prop bolstered the show. (Just beware moving objects if you’re in the first row.) And Tilson’s portrayals of the king — as well as the Fool, Regan, Goneril and Cordelia — captivated.

(Speaking of Shakespeare, are you Shakespeare-phobic or lacking background on England’s royal past or maybe just forever hungry for the Bard? In Timothy Mooney’s Shakespeare’s Histories: Ten Epic Plays at a Breakneck Pace, seen Monday, his colorful and concise monologues on the historical plays combine famous Shakespeare text with an animated CliffsNotes take on English royal lineage that transfix, leaving you entertained (and feeling smarter.)

At day’s end Saturday, The Piano Store Plays rewarded curiosity with absurdist twists on theater conventions. Every line in the three witty short works packed humor, insight and unpredictability. With excellent performances by writer-director John Clancy and Nancy Walsh (and an assist from local actor Kevin Fewell), the show was a very satisfying nightcap, the kind that makes you thirsty for another Piano Store — and Fringe — pour.