Show: 7
Category: Clowning / Comedy / Solo Show
By: Linnea Bond
Created by: Linnea Bond
Location: Barker Center for Dance
Summary: A hilarious and heart-wrenching solo show about medical procedures, heartbreak, and the wonder of human existence.
Highlights: As advertised, this one ripped my heart out. But not literally, like what happened to touring artist Linnea Bond when she was diagnosed with two benign but fast-growing tumors, one on her brain stem and one behind her heart. As good artists do, she's turned an unimaginably painful experience into a thing of beauty, and a way to connect with the world. The show is structured as a timeshare presentation, complete with power point presentation, but what she wants us to buy into is human existence. As she describes the things that could happen (open heart surgery, infections, the person you love abandoning you), it doesn't sound very appealing. But by the end you're all in, and somehow the laughter at the way she tells her story in an absurdist clowning way has turned into tears at the unfathomable beauty of life. For someone who had severe health issues, Linnea's performance is incredibly physical, running around the stage, changing clothes, using silly puppets, traipsing through the audience. This is a well-honed professional show and she perfectly delivers, somehow getting us to laugh at her pain, until the breakthrough and the reveal of whom she's really trying to sell brings it all home. This is the kind of show that Fringe is made for, and so beautifully done.