Review of Curt and Laura Used to Be Good at Gymnastics and Stuff @ Gremlin Theater

http://www.fringefestival.org/2012/show/?id=2378

A great opening show for my 2012 Fringe Festival.  Run, don’t walk – no, skip! – to see it.  Curt and Laura are just plain fun together, and there is a tender affection in their humor toward their younger, awkward selves that is warm and engaging.  I think everybody in this  audience had been picked last on the kickball team and – based on the universal groan when it was mentioned – failed one or more portions of the Presidential Fitness Test. I particularly enjoyed Curt’s story about being the only boy on the school newspaper, which made him (of course) the de facto sports reporter His description of his friend’s post-game hockey photograph made me wish there was a high school Pulitzer. That he’s been carrying around that description in his head, in words, is a remarkable testament to memory and storytelling. The story that grabbed me most from Laura was her final one, about the Women’s Self-Defense Class, but possibly not for the reasons she wrote it.  The approach of the instructor to “protecting” women from denigrating speech – to make them call each other names so that the words would have less power over them – made mo so angry that I couldn’t find Laura’s predicament funny.  At some point, I want Laura to have her “pull-up bar moment” as well.  As long as she’s not too hydrated.  Yes, these are inside jokes. Go. See. The. Show.