Musical Mondays: Striking Out and the beauty of the Fringe

I first went to the world famous Fringe Festival in Edinburgh in 2015. Famous for its absurdity in both size and content, the Fringe is something that is very hard to appropriately describe but these stats from the 2018 Fringe start to paint the picture. This year, there were  56,796 performances of 3,548 shows in 317 venues across Scotland’s capital city. That's insane. Factor in the fact that a there are tons of free shows and pay-what-you-want shows, and you can start to get an idea of the wonderful absurdity. When I went, I saw a performance of Pippin by a group from Oxford University, multiple stand-up comedians, and a musical called Ushers that markets itself as a "front of house" musical. What stood above all of those, though, was Austentatious—the Jane Austen inspired improv troupe.

Suffice to say, I finally made it to the Fringe NYC this year and had to pick something that sounded up to the absurdity I remember in Scotland. It didn't disappoint and neither did my selection of shows.

Striking Out (A Gay Baseball Musical) tells the story of the first straight man who wants to play professional baseball but has to hide who he truly is—can straight people even play sports? Yes, it was absurd, but it was aware of its absurdity in the most wonderful of ways. Out of The Annoyance Theater in Chicago, this was absurdist comedy in the vein of a musical, and it really worked.

I would be remiss if I did not mention there were actually a lot of very clever sports jokes in the musical—references to Knicks owner James Dolan, James Harden's beard, and Odell Beckham Jr.'s hair were all clever enough that I had some really genuine laughs. Combine that with the baseball team, the Chicago Otters (obviously there are plenty of in-jokes and references to the gay community as well), playing the same path that the Chicago Cubs played in their 2016 World Series winning run, and it was obvious that this was written by someone who knew both sports and musical theater. That had a special spot in my heart.

It would've been a fun, fairly forgettable time until the ghost of Babe Ruth came out. I'm sorry, I should say the ghost of Babe Ruth came out dressed in drag with rather fabulous make up and sang a song that included perhaps my favorite line I've heard in a while: "If life throws you a bad pitch, then swing your bat like a bad bitch." The completely unexpected appearance, the performance that was so thoroughly extra in the best way, and the hilarity of the lyrics in the song really had the musical hit its peak.

Striking Out was funny, it was dumb, and it was absurd. It was theater in a fairly small room, and it was exactly what it needed to be. It gave me that same "Fringe" feeling that I hadn't had in a few years—the feeling of weird chances being taken, small theater, and absurdity. Thank you, Ghost of Babe Ruth.