19th Aug 2010
San Francisco Fringe Festival: acting out of the mainstream
The San Francisco Fringe Festival celebrates the latest and greatest in alternative and non-mainstream theater. SF’s version is modeled after the Edinburgh, Scotland original, which began in 1947. SF Fringe is also the second-longest-running in the United States, and this year marks its 19th anniversary. Running from September 8-19, visitors can choose from over 250 performances of 43 different pieces.One of the frontrunners to check out is Paper Angels, which focuses on Chinese immigration to San Francisco in the early 1900s. The performance will mark the 100th anniversary of the immigration station on Angel Island. Another show by sketch troupe OPM (Opening People’s Minds), called Green Tea Party, takes a more humorous look at modern multicultural politics, but still with a good deal of bite.At the SF Fringe festival, audience members can expect to see experimental works with a few things in common. Since several shows take place in a limited amount of time, technical and set features are generally minimal. Casts are usually smaller, since many are travelling from around the world. Fringe theater performances also generally last about an hour, as compared to mainstream two-to-three hour shows, and usually showcase new scripts focusing on edgy material.A complete list of this year’s performances can be found here. There’s not room to highlight every show of the festival here, but there are several that you might find interesting. The Burnings focuses on three women in a mental asylum who band together against the head doctor. The Dark Season is a multidisciplinary piece inspired by Macbeth. In Joe’s Caf, music is used to examine the stories of guests at an all-night caf, and in The Weight Game, the lives of three women are examined as they attempt to find self-esteem and happiness in their own lives.