Reviews of three Fringe shows: more, Last Cargo Cult and Operetta

more. In this recession year, many performers are addressing themes of money, consumerism and apocalypse. Headlong Dance Theater's more. takes it a step further, asking what dancers would perform if the rules changed and they had nothing left but their bodies - if that.

The piece is a surreal, shifting landscape. Furniture is brought in, then the room is dismantled. A woman hobbles about in a walking cast, then takes it off and exercises her ankle with an elastic band. Tall branches are propped up around the room. Dancers crawl among tables and chairs and become part of the furniture. All other activity ceases for several long minutes while a woman microwaves, then eats, a frozen meal. A fence is assembled and large sections of the dance floor are torn up to reveal a green "field" below.

All the while, dancers perform random-seeming, repetitive movements, mostly to silence.

But in the end, when the furniture has been stacked in the corner and the dance is repeated - this time to music - it all makes sense. Nothing is necessary but the movement and the music.

Less here really is more.

more. is a darker, less dance-y piece than many Headlong has presented. But it is also as witty and imaginative as any of the pieces that have made them Fringe favorites.

- Ellen Dunkel

$25-$30. 4 and 8 p.m. today; 4 p.m. tomorrow; 7 p.m. Monday. Arts Bank at the University of the Arts, 601 S. Broad St.

The Last Cargo Cult. So, we've established that Mike Daisey is a polarizing figure. Audiences either think he's on to something or they throw things at him and leave his monologues en masse. True to form, last week he performed his best known piece here - How Theater Failed America - to several eviscerating reviews. This week, he premiered The Last Cargo Cult, about his visit to the almost currency-free South Pacific Island of Tanna, where once a year natives hold a nine-hour celebration of the history of America, including the parts where the "cowboy comes from the east with fire and sugar in his hands," and a dragon chases President Obama.

I think Daisey's on to something, but he sure takes his time getting there. It's easy to compare him to Michael Moore, not least because he's a gadfly, but in aspiration he's far closer to Spalding Gray. He's wounded, he wants you to understand him. To this end, instead of programs, ushers hand out cash, and at show's end, he pleads for the audience to return those dollars, proving you like him, you really like him. But a little Daisey goes a long way, and he's at his best when he steps aside (and while he's at it, wouldn't it be helpful if rather than describing the photos he took, he showed them?) to allow the vivid culture of Tanna to illustrate his vision of America's unholy contract with the almighty dollar.

- Wendy Rosenfield

$30. 3 and 8 p.m. today, 3 p.m. tomorrow. Suzanne Roberts Theatre, 480 S. Broad St.

Operetta. If 31/2 hours of stage mayhem - in Polish with surtitles - is up your alley, this is the play for you. The opening-night audience of this major Live Arts production seemed divided between jubilant enthusiasm and stupefaction. Witold Gombrowicz's international classic, under the direction of Michal Zadara, is a kind of Eastern European Hair, with lots of half-naked jumping around, trashing of the set, and men voguing to show off their muscles. It indicts both top and bottom of the socioeconomic structure and both right and left of the political spectrum.

Act One establishes the aristocracy's decadence and stupidity and sexual inadequacy while demonstrating the servility and consequent murderous rage of their servants. Act Two gives us Revolution: The workers rebel; "tear out their legs" is the much-repeated refrain, as a masked ball reveals that future fashion is a choice between Nazi uniforms and overalls with hardhats. Act Three gives us Post-Revolution: the predictable public trials, reformation and purging, everyone speaking through megaphones.

All the while, a young working-class woman who'd been pursued by the two aristocratic rivals, declares that she wants to be naked (a word repeated approximately 4,382 times). This is such a shocking idea, figuratively as well as literally, that the Count and the Baron are stopped in their depraved tracks. This causes them eventually to sing a song in Polish about catching butterflies that they attempt to teach the audience for a singalong; this goes on for approximately a week.

The metaphors are ridiculously obvious, the dialogue is both banal and repetitious (more like twittering: "I feel like taking a nap") and the music is pop jazzy and soft rock, both as dated as the play's issues. One of the central characters, a "fashion dictator" says in the third act, "Something has happened, but what?" Good question.

- Toby Zinman

$15, $25, $30. 3 and 7 p.m. today, 3 p.m. tomorrow at the Wilma Theater, Broad and Spruce Streets.