Fringe reviews 8/5: Baseball story is a heartbreaker

Sousepaw: A Baseball Story

First, get on Wikipedia and read up on left-hander Rube Waddell. He pitched like a demon from about 1900 to 1910. This heartbreaking play puts Waddell in a Texas hotel, on the eve of what he believes will be a comeback. He has asked the Reptile Girl from a local circus to come visit him. These two bereft souls express an epic, if tragically doomed, hope for better things. James B. Kennedy and Ariana Venturi are outstanding, with a palpable chemistry. Jonathan Goldberg's script is a small jewel. I would see it again and again. More show information.

Underneath the Lintel

It's the really crazy ones who believe they are perfectly lucid and make us believe it, too. Pat O'Brien gives a convincing portrayal of a librarian whose only mania, at first, is that he takes library rules too seriously. A Baedeker's Travel Guide has been returned 123 years overdue -- "And in the overnight slot, no less! Appalling!" -- and he cannot let it go. One clue leads to another, and soon the librarian has found proof of the existence of God. It's a fascinating rabbit hole, and O'Brien is brilliant as he leads us on. More show information.

Son of a -----!

Although Levi Morris' "Son of a -----!" suggests something foul-mouthed and frank, it turns out to be an earnest, tender coming-of-age story by a self-admitted mama's boy. He's a 24-year-old man with part of a 50-odd-year-old woman living inside of him, he tells us. Morris and Elizabeth Behnke, who plays his mother, dance, mime and bound across the stage as they deliver memories from a fractured childhood. The show, whose atmospheric music is played by cellist Kathleen Watson and pianist Sarah Gillund, is a little long and loose. If it wins us over in places, it's because of its humor and big heart. More show information.

Tempests

Something's Gone Wrong at the Dreamhouse

It's opening night of the Fringe Festival, and the nouveau-Beat cum punk musical/poetry/spoken-word group Scream Blue Murmur is in from Northern Ireland. Maybe it was jet-lag. It's impossible not to like these people -- they are earnest and sincere in their displeasure at the human suffering caused by injustice, war, racism, cruelty and economic disparity. But there is something slightly "precious" in this collection of songs and spoken-word ragings "against the machine." Even required audience participation in this multimedia hootenanny could not light their fuse or thaw a Minnesota audience's reluctance to really get loose and participatory. More show information.

Ten Reasons Why You'd Be a Bad Porn Star

Surrounded by sex toys and aids, including lube, jelly and cucumbers, writer, comedian and activist May Lee-Yang delivers a long-form Dave Letterman-style list on why a short, plump, thoughtful Hmong woman would not make it in the porn industry. She offers some strong cultural criticisms with her cutting adult humor, including on the emasculation of Asian men in western movies, and the lack of a word for sex in Hmong. If "Porn Star" is often hilarious, it's because her humor is so insightful. More show information.

A Little Bit of Vegas