More fringe plays. Better ones too!

Antoine Feval
This play, set circa 1896 London, was by Chris Gibbs, who had previously done “The Power of Ignorance” and it feels like he was channeling the ancestor of the character in the latter play. It wasn’t as funny, but it had a nice dry British humor behind it. He also took the ringing of a cellphone quite well. By “quite well” I mean he was so mean to the person whose phone rang three separate times that the person had to leave. And you’ve got to love a festival that enforces the “No Re-admittance” rule.
Besides that, I think this was my favorite of all the plays so far.

Beneath Solid Ground
This was a nice play. It wasn’t especially a comedy, but there were a lot of smart-alec characters. It appeared to actually be a drama, but it still kept me interested. There was character development and a search for deeper meaning in life. But lets face it. I’m not a theatre critic. I can’t give nice detailed explanations, probe metaphors, or compare to obscure works of Shakespeare. I did, however, like this play, and I would recommend it to a friend. Just don’t expect another Neil Simon.
And the other reason I like it might be that the main mover of events is a computer programmer. He’s really easy for me to relate to.