Seeing It Might Be OK immediately after Painted drew my attention to some obvious similarities between the shows:
- Personal stories that are positioned as being from the actors, focusing on moments of personal challenge and/or pain.
- Collegiate age performers, many of whom I have seen onstage at CCM.
- Visually arresting images throughout.
While Painted definitely had elements to recommend it, It Might Be OK is one of the shows of the festival for me. Why?
It finds a style, a language of its own in the combination of pop songs and dances to create a topology of twenty-something psychology. There is a much a greater variety of personal stories, and It Might Be OK doesn’t attempt to create easy parallels between these personal experience and society-wide tragedies.
And, of course, the umbrella sequence is the most visually arresting image that I’ve seen this festival so far.
It’s reare to see a show with a cast this big maintain their energy throughout a full show–It Might Be OK is a great example of a fringe show that’s successful on every level that it attempts.