Monthly Archives: August 2022

Fringe 2022: Just a few more!

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I left my final weekend mostly open because I didn’t know if I’d have much energy and enthusiasm left, but I ended up wanting to fit in more shows I’d heard or read about. And I don’t regret it. All of these are now closed, of course, but some may have future runs at other festivals or elsewhere.

The Bender – Corine Demas’ three-hander about a grieving middle-aged woman (Demas) and her short-lived relationship with a much younger trans man (Kai Hall) she meets through a poetry-reading group (“Open hearts, open minds”). The third cast member, Steven Darnell, plays another poet, and amusingly also plays all the hookups the couple find on dating sites. I liked that the playwright didn’t aim for a conventional ending with any of the characters together. Acacia Hall.

The Truth – Adam Bailey is a Fringe-circuit regular, from Ontario. His fast-paced solo examined the concept of truth through anecdotes from his own life, from LGBTQ2S+ history, and from addiction-recovery research vs addiction-recovery ritual, among others, and it was entertaining to listen to.

A Grave Mistake – The physical-comedy duo A Little Bit Off, with Amica Hunter and David Cantor, first hit Edmonton with Beau & Aero a few years ago, which was great, so I knew it would be worth going to the Gateway Theatre in the heat to see them. Their closing performance started with David explaining that Amica was ill and unable to perform, but that with some adaptations, Carly Pokoradi from Juliet: A Revenge Comedy would be filling in on book to give us a segment of the play, and then any remaining time would be filled with some “variety show” by other Fringe artists. So although I didn’t get to see A Grave Mistake in its entirety, I got to see a couple of brilliant artists do a suprisingly-good pick-up performance, with its highlight being the physical business of the swindlers’ seance. I also got to see some other amusing excerpts, similar to Late Night Cabaret bits, from Keith Brown, Paul Strickland, Ingrid Hansen with Nayana Fielkov, and – I’m sorry, I can’t remember who else. I would definitely go to see A Grave Mistake again. Yet this experience was a classic illustration of the ephemeral pleasure of being one of the people in the “room where it happens” for live theatre. Gateway Theatre. (And a note that sweltering-heat notwithstanding, I love that this venue is still being used, and is back to being a lottery venue.)

Pressure – Amanda Samuelson’s three-hander had a progress showing or staged read or something at Nextfest in the spring, but I didn’t get to see it then. I didn’t make it up to the new Roxy Theatre to see it this week until the last day of the festival, but I’m very glad I did. It’s the best new drama I’ve seen this Fringe. Sydney Williams plays the central character Grace, struggling with depression, anxiety, feelings of being an imposter as a playwright and as an adult, and residual hurt from being abandoned by her father. Grace’s sometime-partner Ricky (Meegan Sweet) and Grace’s mother (Sue Huff) don’t always know how to support her, and have their own conflicting needs, but mean well and worry about her. It was refreshing to see the mother-daughter interactions being so nuanced, without the mother being a caricature of misunderstanding or a villain – her support was more than tuna noodle casseroles, and it was satisfying to see Grace managing to reach out to her mother for help. I liked the scene-framing of negative snarky horoscope projections, and I noticed the different underscoring and lighting for therapist conversations and for negative self-talk vs the real-time conversations on stage, but I was occasionally a little confused about the time lapses and flashbacks between scenes. Lorne Cardinal Theatre at the Roxy.

Absolute Magic – Keith Brown’s stage-magic show, sold out at the Backstage Theatre, was a great way to wrap up the festival. He makes very good use of multiple closeup cameras to make close-up magic with cards and other small props come alive for a full room. I was pretty close, and I still have no idea how any of it was done, and I loved it. The performer had smooth, natural, consensual interactions with many audience members, not just the ones close to the table but some from further back in the risers. I appreciated that his methods of identifying audience members to invite participation didn’t assume gender. I liked his stories, which came out of shows he’d done and people he’d met, things he’d learned during the pandemic, and so on. They didn’t feel glib and a couple of them truly inspired me. Backstage Theatre.

I also went to the year’s last edition of Late Night Cabaret, a festive and joyful celebration of the Fringe and the artists and community. The more times I attend LNC the more I like it. I feel welcomed and included, and I love getting to sit and experience good music – including the preshow – and a fast-moving sampler of Fringe entertainment with shared jokes and short encounters with different performers. I also like having the salient details about each artist’s show posted on the video screen.

So, that wrapped up my Fringe 2022. I might see some holdovers later this week, but the last show laundry is done and it’s time to get caught up on the rest of life and start getting ready for Walterdale’s 2022-2023 season.

Highlights and improvements of the 2022 Fringe:

  • The expanded liquor-licensed area and the paperless-option ticketing systems introduced for last year’s small-scale festival worked great for this bigger event.
  • Same with the no-tickets single-transaction drinks ordering in the beer tents.
  • No paper handbills – I saw good and bad parts of this, but on balance I liked it.
  • Water dispensers around site
  • Community Care Team watching out for unhoused and vulnerable people who might be impacted by the festival
  • Ticket pricing displayed inclusive of the Fringe operations surcharge, so there are no surprises.

See you next year!

An evening of laughter at Fringe 2022

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This evening I took in three Fringe performances, all of which made me laugh a lot.

1-Man No-Show – Isaac Kessler’s performance starts before it starts, with the performer on headset walking through the audience talking to the technicians and to the audience members, and shifts smoothly into recognizing the large roster of other Fringe performers in the audience “And even Mark Meer!” and asking some unanswerable questions about the nature of theatre. “A swamp!” The “high art” promised is illuminated, and many other original and unpredictable bits had me laughing. There was a lot of audience input, and I couldn’t tell how much of the show was improvising responses and how much was something that happens every show. It made me want to go back and find out. One more show on Sunday, at the Yardbird Suite.

Jesus Teaches Us Things, a Dammitammy production, starts with Pastor Greg (Adam Keefe) taking attendance of the audience as if we are attending a children’s Sunday School class, until substitute teacher Jesus (Rebecca Merkley) blasts in to take over. Things happen very quickly from then on, including several unique adaptations of popular songs performed by Merkley (He will, he will, save you! / clap clap stomp to the tune/accompaniment of We Will Rock You, for example), a crafts segment, an ask-me-anything, at least two miracles and an exorcism, some brilliant ad-libs, and a response to Pastor Greg’s appeal for tithes and donations that involves overturning tables and some canon-consistent messaging about giving privately rather than showing off. Two more shows at the Sue Patterson Theatre, Campus St-Jean.

Underbelly is described in the program as a “surrealist physical comedy”. Nayana Fielkov’s odd character starts off taking a shower behind a discreet curtain, emerges to coax the audience into song without speaking comprehensibly, has a short-lived romance with a bathrobe, engages some other effects that were so convincing I was sure a second performer was going to emerge, and uses various other tricks and collaborations to tell a story. So much fun. Walterdale Theatre, last show Sunday 6:30 pm.

My schedule today includes our last performance of White Guy on Stage Talking (2:45 pm, Walterdale Theatre), and fitting in a few more to watch. Happy Fringing, all!

Quick notes on more Fringe 2022

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Epidermis Circus – Ingrid Hansen’s inspired physical theatre is kind of like object puppetry that takes advantage of various body parts that fit in front of a webcam/document camera. But more importantly, it is funny, delightful, and a little bit gross, an hour that flew by. Luther Centre.

Fags in Space – Before the curtain time, we see two characters (played by Sheldon Stockdale and Braden Butler) rushing around their living room getting ready to host a party. As the play starts they are responding to a question from an imaginary guest at their housewarming/Christmas party, “how did you two meet anyway?” The couple’s answers, acting out the key parts of the story along with all the bumps in the road (“that’s when he ghosted me”, “and then you were seeing Devin”, “It took me ages to figure out that you were studying astronomy and not astrology, and by then I had looked up our signs”), take up the rest of the play. Liam Salmon’s script has credible dialogue and enough resolution for a lot of happy sighs in the audience and a few tears. Walterdale Theatre.

Donna Carnivora’s Killer Party – This one also has an intriguing pre-set on stage before the show starts, including party hats in the front row and something else around the auditorium. I wondered what I was getting into. (In a good way). The performer uses a lot of flirtatious audience interaction, an occasional dash of French, a bit of music, and a lot of blood, to deliver a high-energy creepy funny performance. Walterdale Theatre.

Die-Nasty – This Fringe classic very-long-form improv runs each night through the Fringe, with some characters returning from previous years (Kristi Hansen’s Liz Nicholls, Mark Meer’s Fisher T Johnson gonzo journalist) and some of them new delights, especially Jesse Gervais’ Robin, the shirtless rollerskating recorder player. (Robin, like a sign of spring). Varscona Theatre.

I’ll Have Another – Rebecca Bissonette is credited as playwright, director, and a cast member in this three-hander about bridesmaids who don’t know each other, until they’re all stuck in a wine-cellar at a wedding and they start comparing notes about the bride. Ridiculous and satisfying. Sewing Machine Factory, 96 Street and Whyte.

The Heterosexuals – Johnnie Walker (Redheaded Stepchild) lives up to the tease of his Late Night Cabaret rant in a show that’s part satirical subversion and part insightful memoir about separating and integrating the “Johnnie” and “other-Johnnie” parts of himself, other-Johnnie being the grunge-loving heterosexual-passing part that got him through high school. Luther Centre.

Blueberries are Assholes – TJ Dawe’s tightly-connected monologue full of entertaining facts and oddities led to a surprisingly-insightful conclusion or challenge to the audience. Holy Trinity Sanctuary space.

Destination: Vegas – Same team as last year’s Destination Wedding (playwright Trevor Schmidt, cast Kristin Johnston, Michelle Todd, and Cheryl Jameson) but different characters – these ones a mismatched team of grocery-store workers who take a trip to Las Vegas together rather than lose vacation days. Various complications and dangers ensue. And although much of the story is told in retrospective narrative, it’s never entirely clear how it ends up. Westbury.

A Life, With Surprises (and Songs) – This musical memoir by Brian Ault might be flying under your radar, but is worth making time for. It was charming, humble and funny (like the performer), and also included several of Brian’s original songs from different genres. There is one more show, Saturday afternoon. Acacia Hall.

I saw Crack in the Mirror again – because it’s subtle as well as funny. And I’ve been to Late Night Cabaret a couple more times too, because I love the sense of community. And it’s almost time to head to the site again and see a few more shows people are recommending – 1-Man No-Show and Jesus Teaches Us Things, to start with.

White Man on Stage Talking has one more performance, Saturday at 2:45 at Walterdale.

Starting the Fringe 2022

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Crack in the Mirror – This Guys in Disguise show is set at a late-1970’s Women’s Group meeting in a suburban home. Strident divorcée Ruth (Jason Hardwick) shows up at Melanie’s (Trevor Schmidt) finger-foods and wine event with earnest brochures and speeches about Gloria Steinem, but both of them are disappointed when nobody else comes except for the older, naive, Ginger (Jake Tkaczyk). I once heard Trevor Schmidt speak at a script reading and he said in his writing, he favours choosing kindness when possible – that there’s still lots of scope for conflict and interesting stories with characters who don’t set out to be mean to each other. And I didn’t realize it at the time – I was laughing too hard – but Crack in the Mirror is a good example of that. Varscona Theatre.

Meatball Séance – John Michael of Chicago’s solo show is infused with so much manic awkward energy that the themes of loss at its heart didn’t bring it down. Lots of audience participation bits, always with an option to decline. Sue Paterson stage at Campus St-Jean.

Mules – Directed by Kevin Sutley and with a good cast of actors from U of A Augustana (that’s the campus in Camrose), I bought a ticket for this because of the playwrights, Beth Graham and Daniela Vlaskalic. It was dark, it was twistedly funny in parts, and it managed to evoke some really disturbing things without actually showing any of them directly. It is a longer play (90 minutes), but I was really engaged with what was going to happen with these characters, played by Miracle Mopera, Kyra Gusdal, and Frank Dion. Walterdale Theatre.

Late Night Cabaret – I don’t make it to this Fringe midnight event very often, because I usually need some sleep more than I need a variety show with an amazing house band (Zee Punterz), amusing hosts from Rapid Fire Theatre, and glimpses of many of the Fringe artists and phenomena that I hadn’t yet had time to catch up with. But in the scaled-down masked-up Fringe of 2021, I managed to score one ticket to the limited run of Late Night Cabaret and when I walked in to the Backstage Theatre that night, its perfect blend of nightclub energy and community acceptance was something I hadn’t known I’d been missing. Last night’s hosts were Joleen Ballendine and Joey Lucius of Rapid Fire and the guest performers included Ingrid Hansen (Epidermis Circus), Tymisha Harris (Josephine, Josie & Grace) and Rachel Comeau (Josie & Grace), and Johnnie Walker (The Heterosexuals). Backstage Theatre.

White Guy on Stage Talking – I am stage-managing this, an innocent operations production with Jake Tkaczyk and Meegan Sweet. Like Tkaczyk’s previous innocent operations work, it includes a series of images and explorations devised on a theme, many of them topically pointed, excessively silly, or just absurd, and never takes itself too seriously. It’s fun to show audiences the things the performers and other creative contributors have been building. Walterdale Theatre.

This year’s Fringe has kept some of the innovations we first saw last year. The option to do paperless ticketing, and the move to one-step sales in the beer tents instead of the old get tickets here, give tickets there ritual. The bigger liquor-licensed area covering the old South Beer Tent and the whole of McIntyre Park (Gazebo Park) which eliminates a lot of the crowding/bottlenecks. The “no handbills” rule was easy last year as reducing the interactions between artists and patrons on site felt appropriate, and it eliminated a lot of paper. This year I think it’s more of a challenge – performers do need to engage to sell their shows, and it’s probably harder when there’s no tidy way of taking a card to wrap up the conversation. I’ve seen performers wandering in costume and wearing billboards and T-shirts with their QR codes.

The gravel parking lot (formerly Farmers’ Market parking, rebranded a few years ago to Theatre District parking) has increased in price to almost $20 for a full day, which will change my strategies a bit. Lots of my favourite food vendors (the wood fired pizza, the grilled cheese people, Fat Frank’s, the spaghetti in a cone, and the green onion cakes) are back, along with Native Delights (bannock burgers!) and something I need to try based on recommendations, BF Korean Chicken. Some people are wearing masks – more indoors than out, more performers than guests. There has obviously been some festival planning to eliminate pinch-points and bottlenecks and other non-intentional crowding, which is helpful in many ways other than reducing covid transmission.

Happy Fringe!