It’s hard to find a connecting theme for the four productions I saw today, except that they were all done by familiar local artists.

Dick Piston Hotel Detective in Prague-Nosis was, as the title suggested, a classic noir tale with a hardboiled detective narrator (Lucas Anders), an assortment of suspicious characters (Mélissa Masse, Sarah Gibson, Dan Fessenden, Dave MacKay), and an atmospheric setting cleverly suggested by description, lighting, and a few set pieces moved around to suggest different locations in the seedy Lakeview Hotel. The published script, by American playwright/television writer Jeff Goode, offers scope for over-the-top humorous character portrayals but seems to have the consistent intricate plotting of a classic noir detective story. Director John Anderson has gathered a cast of clever character actors and talented crew, familiar from Walterdale Theatre productions. ASM Adorra Sergios displays title cards before each scene, in a series of increasingly strange hats. Playing in the Sugar Swing Ballroom (main floor) space, venue .

Rob and Chris / Bobby & Tina is an adaptation of one of my favourite plays ever, Collin Doyle’s Let the Light of Day Through. The playwright adapted it to a 60-minute musical format, along with composer/music-director Matt Graham. The original 2013 production of the play, with Jesse Gervais and Lora Brovold, portrayed the awkward affection and determination of a couple who experience an awful tragedy and … not get over it, but go on. The play is partly recollective, but they act out the stories to tell them to the audience, and it is very funny except when it’s awful. Part of the power of the original experience, for me, was not knowing what they were avoiding telling, until they told it. When I heard that Kate Ryan of Plain Janes would be directing a musical adaptation for the Fringe, I was excited, but also apprehensive. What if it wasn’t as good as I remembered the play? What if the experience depended on not knowing the outcome? But it is very good. It landed differently for me because I was watching for clues, but it was still powerful. The couple (Bobby + Tina when they meet as teenagers, Rob and Chris later) are played by Garett Ross and Jenny McKillop. They do just as well showing the awkward disconnects of a new relationship and a long-term one as they do showing the way that the couple develops a shorthand of shared understandings – the scene of trying to have a role-play fantasy when each of them thinks the other wants something else was hilarious, and the ways they imitate each other’s parents to amuse each other show clearly how they’ve been allied against both sets of parents for years. Graham’s music is suitably poignant and funny and affectionate, as called for, and the simple Fringe-appropriate set design (Trent Crosby) worked. Matt Graham plays the piano live. Venue 11, Varscona Theatre.

Mass Debating was also a musical and also at the Varscona. Trevor Schmidt wrote it and cast frequent collaborators Jason Hardwick, Cheryl Jamieson, Kristin Johnston, Michelle Todd, and Jake Tkaczyk, along with himself, to play junior-high-school debate team competitors. The universality and familiarity of the junior-high-aged themes (an early song focuses on each character’s worries of “Can they tell by looking?” ) were portrayed in a setting of mid-1970s Catholic schools, so the injustices were more overt and seemingly unchangeable than a contemporary context. Although the audiences know that things will get better, the characters really don’t. This dramatic irony provides not just humour but poignant compassion. Many of the unfairnesses focus on the institutional sexism of the society and that Church, and the way that both the boys (played by Jameson, Johnston, and Todd) and the girls (played by Tkaczyk, Hardwick, and Schmidt) express them in their interactions and behaviour. The thoughtless racism of the time was also shown in the segment where Ralph Washington, the Black competitor (Michelle Todd) was required to debate the Against side, on a resolution that racial integration has hurt Catholic education. Unlike Schmidt’s recent successful contemporary story about junior high school girls, Robot Girls, this one does not tie up the plot threads with happy endings. And it shouldn’t. That left me thinking. The music was written by Mason Snelgrove, and the accompaniment is recorded. Some of the announcer’s voice-overs were hard for me to hear clearly – not quite the Charlie-Brown-teacher “wah-wah-wah” but probably funnier than I knew about.

The drag comedy troupe Guys in Disguise have a new comedy, written by Darrin Hagen and Trevor Schmidt, called Microwave Coven. It’s also set in the 1970s, in a suburb, and it starts off with three neighbourhood women in fabulous caftans (Darrin Hagen, Jake Tkaczyk, Trevor Schmidt) preparing for a visit from neighbourhood newcomer Jason Hardwick. Hardwick is adorable as naive newlywed Mary Rose, in crinoline and blonde flip. The premise of this story is less realistic than the troupe’s recent productions like Crack in the Mirror and Puck Bunnies, but the characters are just as much fun. It’s also at the Varscona.