Fringe Fest: Cancer! The Musical

Dancing lab rats, choreography featuring an IV stand and a pharmaceutical executive with a thing for bobble heads? Who knew that cancer could be so fun! With the future of the American musical as uncertain as always, [Cancer! the musical]—one of many such exclamation point musicals at the [fringe festival](http://www.fringenyc.org/) this year (see Bukowsical! And Slammer!)—is refreshingly funny and unpretentious, even if its chosen subject matter is cancer.

Co-created by Second City-Detroit alumnus Shawn Haddon and Tom Donnellon, M.D., a doctor who survived cancer, the show is pretty much what you'd expect from such a combination. The medical experience is delivered with a striking attention to detail and the plot is most notable for its moments of sketch comedy. Even if the traditional boy-meets-girl, boy-tries-to-save-girl romance could have been trimmed down a bit, the strange combination of cancer and musical makes for, crazily enough, an addictive show.

The story is ripped straight from melodrama, with convenient updates for a modern audience: the corporations are the villains and the hero's reward is a blowjob. The jokes are never long in coming and, even if the plot twists are predictable, they're always satisfying. The low budget fringe style of production also seems to fit this show just fine. The costumes and props wielded by the high-energy ensemble look like they've been ripped from a second-grade play, and that only adds to the humor of each scene.

Sometimes the fringe finds material that suits its seat-of-the-pants situation perfectly. Cancer! isn't a Broadway musical, in which expensive effects and former American Idols strut the stage. But it's witty, relevant and entertaining, which is often more than we can say for the former. It makes a point about the American medical "situation" and manages to stay away from preaching. Not too bad for a production stuck in a church auditorium.

8/21 @ 7:15pm

8/22 @ 8pm

([Our Lady of Pompeii], 25 Carmine St., enter on Bleecker St. off 6th Ave.)