Curious Theatre Branch touts its annual Rhinofest as “Chicago’s longest-running fringe festival,” and that’s been true for the longest time. But in putting together edition number 27 this year, coartistic directors Beau O’Reilly and Jenny Magnus may have inadvertently broken the streak. Although it’s hard—and maybe foolish—to set rules for an event as inherently various as a fringe festival, every one I’ve ever heard of is moderately to completely wide open. Some have juries, but many don’t—including the original and biggest of them all, the Edinburgh Festival Fringe.
The Runaways Lab Theatre’s Jail(Fri 9 PM) is also politically inclined: a 40-minute visit with an inmate at Auburn Correctional Facility, the New York prison that pioneered solitary confinement. Cowriter Logan Breitbart is effectively sullen as the inmate, but Jail really doesn’t say much other than that modern punitive policies are self-defeating. It’s most powerful statement comes at the start, when Breitbart appears in a hood that at once recalls both the head of a rhino and the infamous photos from Abu Ghraib.
Through 2/28: Thu-Tue, times vary; see website PropThtr 3502 N. Elston 773-492-1287rhinofest.com $12 in advance, $15 or pay what you can at the door
