The fringiest thing about "The Melancholy Play" is that it is performed on a stage built for the previous Ensemble Theatre of Cincinnati show ("25: The Musical"), but it did have its own set, probably the only Cincinnati Fringe Festival show to have one (but we're only halfway through, so who knows what the next week will bring).
Being a production to showcase the Ensemble Theatre Intern Company, it has certain advantages, mainly in being in a controlled professional theater environment and everything that entails, not an empty storefront.
It also has a script (albeit an early-career effort) by Sarah Ruhl ("Eurydice," "Dead Man's Cell Phone"), one of the the top playwrights in contemporary theatre, about a melancholy young girl named Tilly that everyone in the play falls in love with because of her deep sadness. Her lover Frank goes so far as to collect her tears in a little bottle, they are so precious. Her therapist, a non-specific European who claims to have no emotions at all finds himself falling passionately for Tilly, as does her hairdresser Francis and Francis' partner Joan, a British nurse. When she suddenly finds herself happy, and getting happier all the time, her lovers become disheartened and melancholy to the point of turning into, um, almonds.
OK, so it's rather silly, but in a Kafka-meets-Oscar Wilde kind of way. That is, while the plot is absurd and allegorical, it's also sharp in its wit and wisdom.
Bottom Line: Likely to be the most conventional play of the festival. I'd recommend it, to be sure, but there are no remaining performances.
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