Fringe reviews: Streetcar Named Durang, The Play About the Coach, Entertaining Mr. Sloane, Way Up High

Attention, all theater-lovers: Don't miss this one! Eye-moppingly funny, and clever to boot, Tina Brock's Idiopathic Ridiculopathy Consortium has found exactly the right Fringe material (three entertaining scripts by Christopher Durang) and exactly the right cast (Chris Fluck, RJ White, Gerre Garrett, Betsy Herbert, Ethan Lipkin, Laurie Norton, Bob Schmidt, Mark Schroeder - and her own fine self).

In the first, "Desire, Desire, Desire," A Streetcar Named Desire (Desire Desire) seems to be going along hilariously, with Blanche all languid and neurasthenic, just filled with desire desire desire, having waited six years for her sister Stella to return with that lemon coke. Stanley bellows "Stella!" periodically. Then, suddenly, Maggie the Cat shows up, Stanley turns into Brick and - well, you get the idea. To give more away would deprive you of your fun, but be on the lookout for O'Neill.

The second play, "The Actor's Nightmare," begins when an innocent bystander has to fill in for Edwin Booth (who's been in a car crash). As it slides from Noel Coward's Private Lives to a mishmash of Beckett plays (Checkmate is the best title), Bystander is wearing a Hamlet costume. Once he finds himself playing Sir Thomas More, things can only end badly.

The last, "A Stye of the Eye," skewers Sam Shepard's plays - just about all of them - with some Mamet thrown in. But wait! Is that Agnes of God I see? Or is it Equus? Or Amadeus? Nah, it's Mamet.    - Toby Zinman

The Play About the Coach.This one follows the tradition of Fringe shows addressing the sports arena, but with a difference: It has a dark side. Its New York-based actor-playwright Paden Fallis portrays a coach in the final minutes of trouble.

He has taken his state school to a new level of hoops history - March Madness - and a 14-point lead has shrunk to a basket's worth. What to do? Yell at the athletes ("Knock it off with the smiling out there!"), melt down at the ref, muse through clock-stops. "Why do we always recruit white kids? We're not Stanford!"

In a small black-box room on Brandywine Street, some of this may have fallen flat because we were only five in an audience that represented an entire stadium - too few to give Fallis a ball to dribble, so to speak, and pass off as his monologue proceeds. I thought some of it was funny. No one else was laughing.