This was my favorite show that I saw at Fringe this year. It was a site specific show held at Leu gardens. Sandi Linn played the part of Professor Levi instructing a class of Invertebrate Biology 101. Sandi actually works at Leu gardens teaching similar lasses to school children as her daytime job. She wanted to present a show that was a bit edgier than her day to day classes.
In this show professor Levi presented real live insects to the crowded Fringe audience. Invertebrates make up over 80% of life on earth. You could tell form her presentation that the professor had a true love of insects, particularly the most venomous and frightening. When in undergraduate studies she was the only woman in her class. She was teased and told she should pursue an occupation more suitable for a woman.
On a field trip with classmates and a professor, she wanted no part in the lewd campfire banter so she retired. She was startled awake with the drunken professor forcing himself on her. She got even when she discoverer a huge nest of these cockroaches and mistakenly dropped them all over her sleeping professor. She had a terrarium full of hissing cockroaches that she massaged with her hands to make them hiss. She walked the room so we all could hear and flinch.
The moral that threads its way through her presentation is that insects only will attack if they are threatened. Though she was the best student in her class she was passed over for promotions. Strangely the unqualified student who was promoted over her also was attacked by thousands of insects. he swatted at then which only made then angry. Over time she had to settle on teaching for as she said those who can not do, teach.
We got so see glowing scorpions, tarantulas, venomous grasshoppers. centipedes tape worms and of course hissing cockroaches up close and personal. The show was educational and horrifying.