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Orlando Fringe Festival reviews: Gay persecution and the great outdoors

By Matthew J. Palm, Orlando Sentinel The Tribune Content Agency

Updated May 13, 2026 5:56 AM

Here are Orlando Fringe Festival reviews of “The $#!t,” “Mark Vigeant: Out There,” “The Pink List,” “The Suitcase-La Maleta” and “Then, Eve.”

‘The $#!t’

Matti McLean is trapped on the toilet in “The $#!t” (Ten10 Brewing, 60 minutes), but the titular material is equal parts biological and emotional.

McLean frames his show as two stories in one. There’s the truly tension-filled ordeal of a shared toilet that won’t flush (if you’ve been there, you know that anxiety), coupled with the history of a relationship that goes from lovers to exes to a special sort of friendship.

Clad in a fluffy white bathrobe and athletic socks, McLean is an affable teller of tales and his show is peppered with humor and emotional truths. It could use a bit more perspective from the lover-turned-ex-turned-friend but McLean draws a convincing sketch of the unseen man.

And the show is stocked with a fun, if too loud, soundtrack of everything from Kylie Minogue to the theme to “Masterpiece Theatre.”

“The people who last are never the ones you expect,” McLean says - just one of the kernals of truth in this entertaining trip to the bathroom.

‘Mark Vigeant: Out There’

Mark Vigeant, star of last year’s funny “Best Man Show,” returns to the Fringe - but this time it’s via the great outdoors. In “Mark Vigeant: Out There” (Yellow, 60 minutes), he plays Larry, an engineer who has chucked his career to make a name for himself with online videos showing his prowess as a survivalist. So he’s dropped off in the Alaskan wilderness with a bow and arrow, tarp for a tent and starts recording.

Director Joanna Simmons makes sure there’s a lot of silly fun here, with rubber ducks, forest leaves, fireflies and other props employed by the audience. Vigeant has the knack of endearing himself to the audience, even as a less-than-endearing character, and his ideas - like imitating an aroused moose - are designed for maximum comic appeal.

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But am I thinking too hard, or is there something deeper under all the fun? The snippets we hear of Larry’s life point toward the toxic trait found in so many today: It’s always someone else’s fault. Larry wants fame, but it feels less about hard work and more about the luck of going viral for doing something outrageous - even if it means approaching a bear.

“I just want to feel like somebody,” he says - but even his mantras sound suspiciously like they were borrowed from old Destiny’s Child lyrics. Is this good-time clowning-around show really an indictment of the worst aspects of the modern ego?

To quote hapless Larry, “Survival is no joke, man.”

‘The Pink List’

Michael Trauffer brings a sobering history lesson to the Fringe with “The Pink List” (Brown, 60 minutes). Real-life accounts of the persecution of gay men in Nazi Germany - a persecution that continued for years after the war - are used to inspire this fictionalized story about one man’s journey.

As the show opens, Karl (Trauffer) is on trial for bringing a man back to his apartment in 1957 West Germany. “For people like me, the war isn’t over,” he says.

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Interestingly, the story is told as a musical. The songs have mixed results. Some are organic to the moment, others somehow break the intimacy of the spoken-word storytelling and feel as though they should be in a bigger show.

But the material is consistently compelling, the fact its drawn from truth jaw-dropping, the presentation finely polished, and Trauffer is a most sympathetic instructor on this oft-overlooked shameful piece of history.

‘The Suitcase-La Maleta’

Words have power, and Gio Quezada knows how to wield them.

“I am angry, terribly sad and terrorized, all at the same time,” she says in her show “The Suitcase-La Maleta” (Orange, 50 minutes).

Quezada is exploring the immigrant experience in the current political climate. The set-up is her character is meeting with an unseen therapist, Dr. Johnson, because of her anxiety. But the words that flow from Quezada like a torrent feel far more real than this bit of stagecraft.

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One of her most striking segments is on the value of a green card; how a “piece of paper” can’t define a person - or guarantee safety anymore.

As directed by Jorge Bazalar, this isn’t the flashiest show you’ll see at Fringe. But Quezada is passionate, sympathetic and articulate. And you feel the emotion when she speaks of living in uncertainty and fear.

“Is living in this country still worth it?” she wonders. It’s a powerful question.

‘Then, Eve’

Billie Jane revives her powerful “Then, Eve” (Renaissance Theater, 60 minutes), which was part of the 2025 Winter Mini-Fest.

Since then, Jane has pleasingly tightened her narrative - maybe too much in one instance; a shocking revelation at the crux of the story rushed by with barely a breath at a press preview. But the comic moments land better, the pace is steadier and the poignancy of the situation shines brighter.

Jane gives us an origin story for Eve that’s set in the Garden of Eden - but does not involve a rib. Her story is one of transformation and living authentically. Some will deduce the point of the story early on; that doesn’t diminish its power in the least.

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Jane is a smart writer, dropping truths among quips and pointing toward how the animal kingdom is a haven for metamorphisis, from snakes shedding their skins to caterpillars becoming butterflies. And as a performer, she understands the cadence of sentences, the importance of emphasis. Smart, funny, engaging, poignant and the best (and most succinct) prayer I’ve heard lately: It’s Fringe paradise.

mpalm@orlandosentinel.com

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