Some of the fun of seeing plays about the past that are part of the annual summer Fringe Festival in New York is that you can literally chase history over the sidewalks of the city. Fringe fans use the festival program and city maps to see whichof the 197 plays they can see almost back to back. Sometimes, if the play and subway times match, you can see three plays in one day.

I picked two history dramas in the Cooper Square area of the city, five blocks apart, and caught one hour long play at noon and a ninety minute play at 2. The trick? Move fast!

Chagrin
LaMaMa Theater
74A E. Fourth Street
New York, N.Y.

You remember the child geniuses.  They were the ten- and eleven-year-old kids with extraordinary mental powers that the media loved.  They read the novels of Hemingway at four, were piano prodigies at eight, invented things at twelve, and went to college at fifteen.  You read about them in newspapers and magazines and saw them on television.  Everybody was startled by their mental powers and fearful that they could never lead a normal life.