RIDICULOUS (Jennifer Blaine): 2018 Fringe review

 

RIDICULOUS, Jennifer Blaine's 16th original solo work for the Philly Fringe, is out-of-character in that she is "playing" herself rather than other characters.
RIDICULOUS, Jennifer Blaine’s 16th original solo work for the Philly Fringe, is out-of-character in that she is “playing” herself rather than other characters.

Jennifer Blaine is a familiar Philly Fringe performer, traditionally in one-woman, multi-character shows a la Lily Tomlin and Tracey Ullman. Her 2018 Fringe offering RIDICULOUS, by contrast, is standup comedy of a personal, political and feminist nature that is graced by Blaine’s engaging performance, but hindered by its ridiculously long one-and-three-quarter-hour runtime. To say that Blaine doesn’t have enough good material to do that long a show is neither surprising nor a knock: It’s why Jerry Seinfeld and Chris Rock almost never perform for more than an hour.

Blaine tries to fill the time/break up the waves of one-liners with audience-participation games. In the most successful of them, she and a fellow mom discovered the stalkers lurking in the lyrics to popular love songs (Lionel Ritchie’s “Hello,” Blondie’s “One Way or Another” etc.). But she saves her best bit — a story of sexual awakening involving her childhood Siamese — until almost the very end.

You’ll never look at a Q-tip the same way again.

[L’Etage, 624 S. Sixth St.] September 14-23, 2018; fringearts.com/event/ridiculous-3/, jenniferblaine.com

One Reply to “RIDICULOUS (Jennifer Blaine): 2018 Fringe review”
  1. I’m wondering if this woman was at the same show as me?!?! The show was well under 90 min (started late to hold the house for latecomers.). Jennifer Blaine was hysterical, provacative, endearing and smart, and the audience was completely engaged. In fact, Jennifer left us all wanting more!
    Perhaps this reviewer forgot to take her meds that day….

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