I’m reviewing seven plays over the course of the 2011 Capital Fringe Festival, in collaboration with DC Theatre Scene. Get your Fringe button and join me!
There is no pie in A Piece of Pi.
I feel it’s necessary to point this out, because after all, there are clowns. So one might expect some pie-throwing with a show title like that. Or some mathematical musings on the nature of pi. But, there are neither. What you will find are three clowns having a hell of a time, and you will too. No really, you may actually be pulled up on stage for a contest of iron… will. Be brave!
Members of the Bay Area’s Pi: The Physical Comedy Troupe launch themselves across stage in leaping acrobatic feats of hilarious daring worthy of their clown college degrees. There’s “MONSTER STRONG” Jon Deline, whose fuzzy muscles are impressive but perhaps best appreciated when shimmying his coin belt,spry and wiry Andrew P. Quick with his snappy juggling skills and scary balancing act, and the vulnerable sad-eyed quirkiness of Bruce Glaseroff, the kind of clown that peers out at you from a velvet painting.
This trio is perfectly in tune with each other, and they have to be – with this level of tumbling and stage fighting, one false move could mean a broken red nose or worse. Whatever the medium they employ – crude sock puppets, maniacal horseback racing, crass alchemy, damn fine bellydancing – they’re completely committed to beating themselves up for your amusement. There’s no deep message here, no existential experimental angst, just laughter.
As one of the founding editors of We Love DC, Jenn’s passions are theater and cocktails. After two decades in the city, she’s loved every quirky, mundane, elegant, rude minute of her DC life. A proud advocate for DC’s talented drinks scene, she’s judged the Corcoran Gallery of Art’s ARTINI contest, the DC Rickey Month contest, the Jefferson Hotel’s Quill Cocktail competition, and is a founding member of LUPEC DC. A graduate of Catholic University’s drama program, she toured the country as a member of National Players, and has been both an actor and a costume designer before jumping the aisle to theater criticism. Writing for We Love DC restored her happiness after a life-threatening illness, and she’s grateful to you, dear readers. Send your suggestions to jenn (at) welovedc (dot) com and follow her on Twitter.
