[Now in its second year, the New York International Fringe Festival takes over Manhattan's Lower East Side Aug. 19-30. More than 144 productions hailing from across the country and around the world will take part in the Fest, which occupies nearly every viable theatre space in the vicinity. As a way to keep up with the onslaught of offerings, in the days preceding the Fest, Playbill On-Line hopes to spotlight several unique or intriguing productions.]

Something Something Uber Alles at the Kraine Theatre, beginning Aug. 19

Something Something Uber Alles tells the story of a New Yorker (played by Assurbanipal Babilla) who's ordinary in every way except for his strange resemblance to Nazi fuhrer Adolf Hitler. Finding himself the subject of adulation by a Hitler-worshipping cult, the man is at first aghast but slowly decides to come to terms with the hand that fate dealt him.

Something Something Uber Alles was written by Babilla and debuted earlier this year at The Emerging Collector. Babilla, artistic director of Purgatorio Ink, is originally from Iran, where in the 1970s he was one of the country's leading avant-garde directors. When the fundamentalist revolution erupted in 1979, he fled to America. He has since written and directed plays in Los Angeles and New York, and toured his work to Poland, Boston, Baltimore, Seattle and Portland, OR.

Something Something marks the directorial debut of Ink company member, David Cote. Cote, with the company since 1993, is the editor of OFF, a magazine highlighting the downtown community and recently toured in Richard Foreman's Pearls for Pigs. Previous Purgatorio works include Dog Spelled Backwards, Suddenly Something Recklessly Gay and Othello And The Circumcised Turk at such venues as La MaMa, PS 122 and the Vineyard. Most recently Purgatorio presented Babilla's Born Again Killer or Dead Women Talking at NY's KGB as well as, part of NY's First Annual Fringe Festival.

Something Something Uber Alles opens Aug. 19 at The Kraine Theatre, for more information on the Fringe Fest call (212) 420-8877, for tickets call (888) FRINGE NYC.

-- By Sean McGrath