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Culture Stage

>>> Fringe Review: A Minor Mid-Career Retrospective

A MINOR MID-CAREER RETROSPECTIVE by James Judd. Factory Studio. July 5 at 1:15 pm, July 6 at 7:30 pm, July 7 at 2:15 pm, July 9 at 5:45 pm. Buy tickets. Rating: NNNN


At Saturday’s performance of NPR storyteller James Judd’s solo show, a medical emergency with an audience member stopped the show, so Judd only got to finish one-and-a-half, out of three, tales. (The audience member was fine.)

Judd completed the story out in the Factory courtyard, to lots of applause. That kind of chutzpah characterizes his approach to life. Fearless and full of manic energy, he seizes hold of a story and milks it for all its little ironies.

The stories we heard – the program changes during the festival – were about delivering an inappropriate book report in grade school and being trapped in a shark cage while scuba diving.

Those synopses don’t do justice to Judd’s stories, though. He embellishes them with big gestures, entertaining asides and his signature repetition of the phrase “I know” to add drama and self-awareness to each tale.

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