BEST May 39th EVER

On Thursday, Em, Phillip, Suz and I went to see May 39th, one of the Capital Fringe festival shows. I had originally thought the play was called something along the lines of "The Big Orange" because the playbill featured a big orange, but it turns out that the actual title is a date that doesn't exist. Anyway, what had originally intrigued me about this play was the tag line, which was "1000 Years From Now, Dating in DC will Still Blow Chunks", so much so that I neglected to even look at the correct title of the play.

So the volunteer tokens got cashed in and off we went, fringing our Thursday night away. The premise of the play is the awkward morning after encounter between a guy and a girl in the year 3006 in DC. They wake up in the same bed, and have to try to figure out where things will go from there in the crazy 3006 world of logging in, purple exemptions, clones, and pods. Despite all of these futuristic things, the essence of the awkward morning after remains. The internal struggle to either let yourself fall for someone in a city that is focused on not making concessions for anyone or anything, the desperate need for some alone time to sort things out (why aren't you leaving?!?!), etc.

And of course, the playbill with the orange is explained by one of the very best lines in the show, "I brought you oranges. I don't do that for just anyone".

Now this alone would make it a pretty interesting play, but at the very end, there is a huge twist, a twist that I didn't see coming. It surprised me, and at the same time made me very sad.

Having said that, you should really go see this show if you have a chance to. Happy Fringe!