Image courtesy Red Knight Productions/Capital Fringe

By DCist Contributor Rachel Kurzius

Witches channels Monty Python’s quick-quips in armor with the bare-bones goofiness of improv.

This is Red Knight Productions and writer/director Scott Courlander’s third venture into their fantasy world of Medieval Story Land, a place of trolls and poisonous giant slugs. It’s also a bad place for mothers. Witches is technically part of a trilogy, though you don’t need to have seen the first two plays to hop into the action. Both witch Beatrice (Kathryne Browning) and the aptly named Narrator (Stephen Mead) have a tendency to provide voiceover for the play’s action, to hilarious effect, and adeptly catch the audience up to speed.

The Red Knight (Christopher Herring) wants to visit his love, Fanglett (Katie Courlander), who lies in a magical coma; only a magical site prevents poison from overtaking her. Bumbling witch Gragloria (Mary Agnes Shearon) kidnaps her, and is horrified to find out that she may have killed her in the process. The Mother of Mothers (Renata Plecha), while wearing a fabulous outfit from costume designer Mary Wakefield, uses her more advanced magic to wake Fanglett. But don’t take her healing as a sign that she’s channeling Glinda.

Why satirize the Medieval period? Well, why not? Knights and witches generally make for a good combination, because both display such campy bravado. Witches is no exception. Everyone adopts vaguely British accents. Courlander makes sure the naïveté of Fanglett never comes off flat, and she is not the damsel-in-distress she first seems. You know a show is working when you’re genuinely bummed The Narrator is the recipient of a silencing charm, because he’s so damn funny when he speaks. Mead’s on-point physical comedy almost makes up for it.

When the show tries to make broader points about the merits of motherhood, it comes off saccharine. Luckily the show prefers to stick with a steady stream of jokes.

Witches plays at the Dance Place: Brookland Artspace Lofts Studio. The final performance is:
Saturday, July 25 at 3:45 p.m.

See here for more of DCist’s Fringe 2015 reviews