THE LID (Pat Finnerty & BRAT): 2015 Fringe Review 8

The Lid fringe review
THE LID ensemble: Jess Conda, Pat Finnerty, and Ali Wadsworth. (Photo credit: Thom Lessner)

You can always expect the fringiest of the Fringe from BRAT Productions, and you get it with Pat Finnerty’s scrappy, raw, original rock-n-roll cabaret piece THE LID. Starring as the “Leed Character,” singer/writer/musician Finnerty laments “I don’t know what it means” (and out of character, as himself, quipped at the opening-night performance, “Thanks for coming to rehearsal!”). As promised in the program notes, this is art “that doesn’t take itself too seriously.” There’s an eight-piece rock band, two knock-‘em-dead backup singers (Jess Conda and Ali Wadsworth), faux British accents, flying money, a feigned blow job, a ubiquitous toad, exasperated references to high tech and social media, and the eponymous Lid (Brian Langan, in a fabulous glitzy glittery silvery costume designed by Kevin Jordan).

Fans of BRAT and Scanton-native Finnerty packed the venue, so if you too are a fan of true-fringe alternative performances, be sure to get there way early, or you’ll have a long wait in the slow check-in line, be relegated to a seat behind one of the enormous view-blocking columns, and miss all of the on-stage action and video projections, or spend at least two-and-a-half hours standing. But the bar is open before, throughout, and after the show, so at least you’ll have a welcome place to stand (though a young audience member seated next to me complained that he paid $4 for an over-priced can of PBR). [Underground Arts, 1200 Callowhill St.] September 4-6, 2015; fringearts.com/the-lid.

 

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