Review: ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND at District Fringe

There are many different reasons to see a live performance. You might love a performer in it, love the story, love the theme. You might be an appreciator of talent, you might like a spectacle, or you might just want to get out of the house. If you go see a show at District Fringe wanting to be awed by flawless performance and picture-perfect production, you’re entirely missing the point. For that, there are never-ending and never-changing runs of Frozen on Broadway. But if you want to see real, raw, and fun performances that you can’t see anywhere else, if you want to see some of what’s happening in the art world at the ground level, then this is just the spot for you. 

Each performance in District Fringe’s three-weekend-long catalog is a local DC creation, including Are You Out of Your Mind? This cabaret duo about the struggles, ironies, and mishaps of modern life offers nothing more than what it is: fun.

There is no lesson or life-changing moment. It’s not a polished production, and that’s exactly what makes it good. Are You Out of Your Mind? is a delightfully baggage-free hour filled with joy.

Creator Oren Levine’s songs are about life. All of it. He writes about growing up, facing fears, making good decisions and bad ones, finding love and losing love - the grand and the petty. The latter is where he really shines. My personal favorite was a song that related the tale of a marital spat. It was titled I Ate the Last Banana. 

Levine plays the piano live and accompanies local singer, Barbara Papendorp. Between tunes the two of them trade quips and guide transitions in true cabaret style. Casual audience addresses and a small theater make it extra intimate. Watching them is like going back in time. Not to an old-fashioned performance, but to a dinner party, where any guest might get up and take a turn providing the “entertainment” with a haphazard song, poem, or skit (a tradition we’ve sadly lost).  

Or even farther back in time to childhood. Think of watching a toddler play, unselfconscious as they narrate a silly and quite literal song about whatever is happening that day in Legoland and I defy you not to smile. 

Are You Out of Your Mind? has a similar effect. Levine and Papendorp put their whole selves into the performance. They make mistakes, forget lines or miss notes, and laugh right through it. They exercise rhythm, rhyme, and wit. This is true live theater with high spirits and a low budget. It’s great fun and at $15 a ticket and a one hour run time, it’s an absolute bargain. Why not check it out? Why not support local artists who love to laugh and sing. It’s sadly difficult to find and it’s good for the soul to hear it. 

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