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Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban

The Ball and Boban
The Ball and Boban

Noah Bremer as Mr Boban.

it wasn't always like this...
it wasn't always like this...

Kimberly Richardson, Galen Treuer and Robert Haarman carry 'Mr. Boban' Noah Bremer.

Dead Girl
Dead Girl

"You've got a light bulb out" Megan Odell as The Dead Girl.

boban for mn artists
boban for mn artists

Noah Bremer as Mr. Boban

politicians
politicians

Vanessa Voskuil, Kari Kelly and Kimberly Richardson as 'The Politicians'

Please Don't Blow Up Mr. Boban | Media List


Statement

Most Outstanding Experimental Theater Production of 2005 - Mineapolis Star Tribune.


Noah Bremer, Jon Ferguson and The Live Action Set present:
‘Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban’
presented as part of the 2005 Minnesota Fringe Festival…
at the Soap Factory.

‘Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban’ is a highly visual and physical, site-specific clown show playing at The Soap Factory in SE Minneapolis. It is the story of Mr. Boban, his war-torn bistro, and the struggle to keep his lights on. Based on an English newspaper article about where to eat in a Baghdad, this much-anticipated collaboration between Noah Bremer, The Live Action Set and UK theatre director Jon Ferguson, will be comic & tragic and hard to forget. Featuring a cast of seven highly skilled physical performers including:


Noah Bremer
Kari Kelly
Robert Harman
Megan Odell
Kim Richardson
Galen Treuer
Vanessa Voskuil


This project is supported by the Minnesota State Arts Board and The Soap Factory. Noah Bremer received an Artist’s Initiative Grant from The Minnesota State Arts Board to work with mentor, Jon Ferguson, an experienced clown and physical theatre director from England to create, direct, and perform a clown show. The Soap Factory is providing residency space for research & development, rehearsal, and performance.

Jon Ferguson describes this project as, “a collaboration of four parts: the story, the performers, the space, and the audience. It will be created by the entire company; the actors, the designers, the technical team and myself, during the rehearsal period, throughout June and July, at The Soap Factory. At the centre of this story is the universal figure of ‘the clown’. This character/figure is within all of us. He is innocent, he is the eternal optimist. And within total darkness he will find light.”

‘Please Don’t Blow Up Mr. Boban’ can be seen eight times at The Soap Factory during the Minnesota Fringe Festival 4th – 14th of August. Venue address and show schedule below:


Schedule:
Thu 8/4 8:00pm
Fri 8/5 8:00pm
Sat 8/6 8:00pm
Wed 8/10 8:00pm
Thu 8/11 8:00pm
Fri 8/12 8:00pm
Sat 8/13 2:30pm
Sat 8/13 8:00pm

Tickets:
At the door
Or in advance:
Uptown Tix
(651) 209 6799
www.uptowntix.com

Photo:
Mike Neuharth

Reviews

MUST SEE!
Shows of this complexity, bravery and ingenuity are usually imported by the Walker Art Center. With "Mr. Boban," a richly layered piece of comic/tragic performance art, this local collective has single-handedly elevated what it's possible to give to Fringe Festival audiences. Noah Bremer is the centerpiece of this tale centered around a fun-loving restaurateur and others in a small town in the midst of war. The show is at turns slapstick funny, abstract, physical, emotional and metaphorical — always riveting, always surprising — in what patiently unfolds into a character-rich tale about a community surviving and struggling to live normal lives at time of war. I've never seen a more brilliantly constructed ending to a Fringe show.
- Matt Peiken
Pioneer Press

Noah Bremer and Jon Ferguson team up with local genre blenders Live Action Set to create a work that should be immediately be given an open ended run. Inspired by a news article about a news article about a Baghdad café, this collaboration features Bremer as the charming and innocent owner of an unfortunate eatery located within a war zone. The multi-talented cast juggles roles as besieged towns-people, sound-bite-wielding politicians, a conflicted soldier, a rebel, and a grieving mother. Funny, moving, and sometimes even terrifying, Mr. Boban provides an intelligent and provocative response to the violence of our times.
- Caroline Palmer
City Pages

5 STARS
There are so many reasons I love Live Action Set, and this show contains all of them in spades. Another sold out show. If you want to get a seat, come early. They try to get in everyone they can but half the audience can end up being in the standing-room only category. But we were all on our feet applauding them at the end - for a long time. Any way you can see it, though, you should. Flat-out amazing. Heartbreaking and funny all at once. The dance and physical performance work is unmatched. They just keep getting better and better. I was puzzling over where the outrage was about the senseless constant death of the current war in this year's Fringe offerings. It's here. Another show that I very much want to see again, another show very much worth the extra effort to see. I'm not going to have to convince anyone to see Live Action Set after this show. This one not only puts them on the map, it puts them in the ranks of the best of the Fringe. Thank God, they're here year round so we can see more.
- Mathew Everett

5 STARS
"A Life Altering Experience" by Vera Mariner: Not only did this show raise the bar for Fringe shows of the future, it raised the bar for all theater in the Twin Cities and beyond. There are only a few theater experiences that count as life altering for me and this IS and WAS one of them. Having had the experience of creating a show from a kernel, or in this case, a gem of an idea, I can completely appreciate the brilliance of how this piece ebbed, flowed and subsequently arced into a completely magnificent work of art. Everyone -cast members, directors, soundscape creator and designer(S) poured their huge hearts and selfless souls into a timeless story that comprised phenomenal movement and acting. I declare this kind of work a new art form: One that should be held up as highly as any other we cherish. Undoubtedly, BEST OF FRINGE, 2005!!! (Posted on Aug. 13)

5 STARS
"Beautiful" by geoff wold: I'm sure I can't add anything that hasn't already been said about this show. But I have to try anyway. AMERICA NEEDS TO SEE THIS PLAY! Not because it is a statement for or against war. But because it gives a human face to a way of life the mass media seems to refuse to acknowledge. Beautifully staged, the setting/sound/lighting weave seamlessly with the content, and actor/creator/dancers/directors do a superb job. Yes, I'm gushing. There is a good reason. Thank you Live Action Set. (Posted on Aug. 11)

5 STARS
"Wow..." by John Armstrong: The raw emotion in this show is mind-bending. The instant you step foot into the soap factory, you are transported into a completely different atmosphere, one full of hope amidst a wasteland of war. SEE THIS SHOW! (Posted on Aug. 13)