Fringe Festival 2009, Part 1

Spiral Dive: Episode Two (8.5 out of 10)
Style: Traditional play
Fantastic, but I think you should only see it if you’ve seen Episode One already. It would be too hard to follow otherwise. The actors are very good, able to portray multiple characters and make it easy to tell them apart. I especially liked the pilot from Montreal. Only one downside; forgive my language, but I think this blew its wad too early. They had a vivid description of an aerial battle that I think would have been better later in the play. It was too close to the start and I hadn’t really gotten into the show yet.

The Occulist’s Holiday (8 out of 10)
Style: Traditional play
Stewart Lemoine once again does a nice play. It isn’t that memorable, but it has a good story. The characters are interesting and they develop quite a bit. I want to go to Switzerland now.

The Maltese Bodkin (6 out of 10)
Style: Traditional play
This is an early David Belke work, first performed in 1991. He wasn’t quite the powerhouse he is now, but he had good fundamentals. I did enjoy this, but I think I would have liked it more if I knew Shakespeare better. But you only really need experience in that to recognize characters, and it isn’t a requirement to get the full entertainment value. However, it really helps to know MacBeth.