PART OF THE BETTER LEMONS ARTICLE: EPIPHANY EPIPHANY EPIPHANY AT THE FRINGE, PART I: FOUR SOLO SHOWS

WINNER BEST SOLO PERFORMANCE & ENCORE: UNDER THE JELLO MOLD

UNDER THE JELLO MOLD by Jennie Fahn

Jennie Fahn is another master storyteller, though very different from David Rodwin – less hip, less edgy, more in the female Jewish comedy tradition of Joan Rivers, though very much her own person. (She actually reminded me most of Chandler Bing’s girlfriend Janice on Friends.) The day I saw her perform, the A/C had gone out, and the Ruby Theatre at the Complex was packed to the brim. While producer Tom Cavanaugh distributed fans to the audience, it was still going to be a task to keep interest in her show. But Jennie had no problem with it, she had the audience laughing and hanging on every word from the start, as she weaved her tale about her deeply eccentric (to the point of actual cuckoo-ness) mother, and how Jennie dealt with her, both in life and in depth. It is very rich material, and I assume that there’s an 80-90 minute version as well. Judging by her huge success here, I certainly think there’s an audience for such an evening. My only advice would be to loosen up a bit and relate more to the audience, to the here and now. But maybe she does in other circumstances. When the A/C is out on a hot day in LA, the here and now may be something to keep at bay.

There is a myth going around that being a part of Fringe means that a certain degree of amateurishness is involved – wait, what? Oh yes, I spread that one myself, earlier in this article. Well, while this can be the case – and yes, I have had to walk out of a few shows that had gone off the rails – it is certainly not so here, where we are once again in the hands of a wonderful storyteller working with sublime control of her material.

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