by ****1/2 (out of 5)
Get ready to see Randy Feltface as you’ve never seen him before.
And if looking at him is too much for you, just take his suggestion: “Close your eyes and pretend I’m a podcast.”
The purple puppet from Down Under is back at the Fringe for the first time in six years, when “Randy Writes a Novel” made the shortlist for Best Comedy Show in 2016. And he’s already playing to packed houses this August, blowing minds through an evolutionary intro piece that shows us proto-protozoa Randy, emerging from an egg; then swimming atop the stage as a fish. As properly improper Randy, he’s an extraordinarily endangered species of one, and he’s here to implore us: We need to save the world from ourselves. Running us through the ancient epic tale of Gilgamesh, all the way through the relatively recent onscreen antics of Liam Neeson, Randy reminds us how we’ve been repeating the same heroic stories to each other, century after century. Only this time, the archetypal singular hero cannot save the Earth. Not even a puppet. Oh, no. Randy wonders how we’ll ever come together as a community. We prefer arguments to solutions. And this “disagreement orgy” is slowly killing us all. If only there were a way to bring us all together. Besides “Sweet Caroline,” obviously.
Randy Feltface: Alien of Extraordinary Ability runs through Aug. 28, 2022, at Assembly George Square Studios (Studio Two).
