By Rob Avila
Here are a few plays especially worth checking out at the San Francisco Fringe Festival, but premiering too late for review: For more, see “Knuckballin’.”
Exit Sign: A Rock Opera
SF musician and songwriter Carrie Baum’s autobiographical flight, glimpsed over the weekend, has some sentimental aspects but is frequently inspired, tuneful, heartfelt, and good fun. Showcasing a solid band headed up by Baum and her Gibson SG, two charming backup singers, and good acting-singing performances in the lead roles of a cool couch-potato father (a winningly down-to-earth Steffanos X) and his queer daughter (a sure and impressive Jamie Ben-Azay) on a TV-mandated mission to find “It” before an untimely death makes for one of life’s inevitable detours.
The Evelyn Reese Show
If Amy Sedaris were from Toronto, the town might not be big enough for her and Susan Fischer, whose character, the irrepressible Evelyn Reese, is a pitch-perfect social monster of hilariously garish proportions. At the same time, the skillful Fischer keeps her character solidly grounded in the most realistic idiosyncrasies; it’s hyperbolic but never anything but believable. And that’s what’s so terrifying.