by Terrance McArthur & Chelsea Jones
It is Rogue Festival time again! This year’s festival takes place from February 28-March 8 in the Tower District of Fresno, CA. This is the first of many show reviews coming over the next few days! Before Rogue opened, we published several Rogue Festival Performer Preview articles, as well as an article about Rogue itself.
You will be able to find all of our coverage in our Rogue Festival category, and more info including some performer press releases on our Rogue Festival event page over on KRL News and Reviews. You can purchase tickets on the Rogue website.
Confessions of a French Interpreter
Review by Terrance McArthur
Do you speak French? if you do, you will enjoy Confessions of a French Interpreter, because Natacha Ruck is French. If you do not speak French, you will enjoy Confessions of a French Interpreter, because Natacha Ruck is a French interpreter. She travels far and wide, translating questions from reporters to French filmmakers, and translating answers.
In 2024, Ruck came to the Rogue Festival with You’re Good for Nothing … I’ll Milk the Cow Myself, a portrait of three generations of women in her family. This year, she focuses on the joys and frustrations of her work. 
On the positive side—She gets to travel. She works with people she admires, French celebrities of the film world. She is a budding filmmaker, and she gets to learn from the best.
On the negative side—To translate unobtrusively, she has had to hide behind couches. Words that look the same in English and French do not always mean the same thing, and literal translations can lead to embarrassing misunderstandings. Some of the people she admires turn out to be not as nice as she imagined. American journalists always ask questions that boil down to the same thing—Where do you get your ideas?
Ruck interacts well with her audience, asking them what French words and phrases they know, chatting afterwords with other French-born showgoers, assigning questions to be asked. She is kind and gentle, telling of how she once had to come to the defense of an interviewer when a filmmaker veered into inappropriate behavior. Spending time with Natacha Ruck is an enjoyable experience.
The final performances of Confessions of a French Interpreter are Friday, March 7, 7:00 pm and Saturday, March 8 at 2:00 pm, at the Spectrum Art Gallery, 608 E. Olive Ave. Tickets are $10. See this show, s’il vous plait (That means Please.).
The Ins and Outs—Sides of Teaching
Review by Terrance McArthur
Remember the Pixar/Disney movie Inside Out, with the internal emotions of a girl turned into characters? Imagine, if you will, what would the characters be like inside a teacher? That is the idea behind the Rogue Festival show The Ins and Outs—Sides of Teaching.
Join Anger (Jayne Day), Anxiety (Renee Newlove), and Joy (Sara) in a fun(?)-filled year teaching Junior High. Neon-blue-haired Sara is chipper, upbeat, and embraces each situation with a positive attitude, until the problems and disappointments of the year cause her to change into another emotion that doesn’t care anymore. Jayne, crowned with a flame-like wig, blows up at every situation, spewing profanity as she storms across the Spectrum Gallery play space (Note to parents: This is not the Disney version. It is adults-only.). Renee, as Anxiety (a character borrowed from the 2024 sequel Inside Out 2), sees doom and disaster in every moment.
The trio deals with problem students, problem parents, problem administrators, holidays, and student death. Images and videos are projected above the performers to introduce the timeline of the action and add interaction sequences in the classroom.
It’s loud, intense, frenetic, funny, disturbing, hits home for anyone who has taught in the schools, and eye-opening for parents. Sara, Renee, and Jayne are to be applauded for adapting Disney into something Dizzy.
The final performance of The Ins and Outs—Sides of Teaching is Saturday, March 8 at 5:00 pm, at the Spectrum Art Gallery, 608 E. Olive Ave. Tickets are $10. Attendance is not mandatory, but it is strongly recommended.
Brian’s Beard Improv
By Chelsea Jones
Returning to the Rogue stage this year is Brian’s Beard Improv, a Bakersfield-based longform comedy group that has been around for a decade, and in the past year started an equally hilarious and unhinged Fresno chapter! Y’all are gonna want to run to see this one, as their most recent show the first weekend of Rogue was *sold out*!
As is the nature of improv, every show is different. They take suggestions from the audience at the start of each sketch and roll with it. They create an improvised story as they go, using the words, places, and things that the audience suggests, mixing it in with their own quirky ideas (their first Rogue show involved some of the actors becoming peacocks who may or may not have been under the influence of something). I have seen this group perform multiple times, both at Rogue and at their monthly performances, and each show is a surprising treat.
Their Rogue show is different from their non-Rogue monthly gigs because it mixes both their Bakersfield and Fresno improv groups. This means each night is extra jam-packed with silly personalities. Jokes are often a bit PG-13 in nature so this show is “adults only.” I recommend seeing them more than once, bring a friend, and grab a drink inside Veni’s to enjoy with the show.
If you can’t get enough at the Rogue, their Bakersfield group has monthly shows in Bakersfield at Star’s Playhouse, and their Fresno group has monthly shows at the Vista Theater at the Fresno Music Academy on Wishon. You can check out their Instagram account @briansbeardimprov for more info.
You can catch Brian’s Beard at Veni Vidi Vici, 1116 N. Fulton St., Fresno, on Friday March 7 at 8:30 pm, and on Saturday March 8 at 8 pm. Each show runs 45 minutes. Tickets are $10.
Prescription Blues
Review by Chelsea Jones
Prescription Blues is a powerful one-woman show about Layla, an aspiring blues musician in her 30s, navigating the pressures of a mundane job and past heartbreak. Set in a small town, the performance uses the blues to explore her emotional journey of self-discovery, healing, and the metaphorical meaning of “coming home.”
This short play is written and performed by Mira Yarkova, an independent theater artist from Ukraine. A laureate of several creative reading theater competitions, Yarkova’s previous works include directing promenade theater-style plays like Almost Maine (2023) and Love/Sick (2024) at LCC International University. The play is directed by Victoria Dobkina from Balarus. Yarkova and Dobkina premiered the show in February at the Žvej? R?mai Culture Center in Klaipeda, Lithuania. It is a treat to have these international artists visit us in Fresno.
Prescription Blues combines music and narrative to create an intimate and poignant exploration of Layla’s character. The play is not a musical, but uses blues music as a sonic backdrop throughout the story. With themes of love, loss, and personal growth, Prescription Blues is an intimate, emotional experience that will resonate with anyone who has experienced the healing power of music.
This Rogue Show is located at Spectrum Art Gallery, 608 E. Olive Ave., Fresno, and has two more performances left: Friday, March 7 at 5:30 pm and Saturday, March 8 at 8 pm. Tickets cost $9. The show has a running time of one hour.
Tickets to all shows can be purchased on the Rogue Festival website.
If you love theatre, be sure to check out Mysteryrat’s Maze Podcast, which features mysteries read by local actors. You can find the podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Play, and also on podbean.
Check out more theatre reviews & other local entertainment articles in our Arts & Entertainment section. You can also find more theatre coming up on KRL’s Local Theatre event page.
0 Comments