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The festival fusion of Freewill (Shakespeare) and Fringe

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Normally the Freewill Shakespeare Festival happens at the end of June, beginning of July, with two of Shakespeare’s plays running in repertory at the big amphitheatre in Hawrelak Park. Big crowds enjoying beer and popcorn, squirrels and thunderstorms, along with a professional company of about 12 actors performing in both shows. That wasn’t a good plan for 2021, so the festival pushed back to August and scaled back to two separate cohorts, doing small cast versions suitable for touring to community league spaces and large backyards. Macbeth is coming to my own community league in Ritchie Park on Saturday August 28th, at 2pm, for pay what you Will, for example.

Both of this year’s productions, directed by festival AD David Horak, started with previews outdoors at Louise McKinney Waterfront Park, and are now joining the Edmonton Fringe Festival for performances this week in a convenient overlap of two traditions.

Much Ado About Nothing is being performed in the tent in Light Horse Park known as Vanta Youth Stage. The cast of five (Troy O’Donnell, Ian Leung, Sarah Feutl, Christina Nguyen, and Fatmi El Fassri El Fihri) runs through a fairly traditional adaptation of the romcom in a bit under 75 minutes – traditional except for having the five of them play all the roles. So, for example, Sarah Feutl is great as the quickwitted loyal Beatrice taking pleasure in banter with her cousin Hero and with Benedick, but she also plays Claudio (Hero’s love interest) and the old Sexton taking down the criminal charges. There was also a framing of the five actors arriving at a tour destination under Covid precautions, cut down from a company of 15 for an unexplained reason, and deciding which play to perform. A few times through the performance the actors reminded us of this layer, making the character-shifts amusing rather than clumsy. The funniest shift was when O’Donnell-as-Leonato-the-accuser was confronting O’Donnell-as-Borachio-the-accused, eventually frog-marching himself away.

I saw Macbeth in the preview, but at the Fringe it’s playing in the air-conditioned space known as Old Strathcona Performing Arts Centre, just north of the streetcar tracks and new crosswalk on Gateway Drive. It’s a less conventional adaptation, using just three actors (Nadien Chu, Rochelle Laplante, and Laura Raboud), skipping over many of the details in favour of exposition (with a bit of editorial) delivered by one or another. It sticks to the Shakespearean text for most of the familiar scenes and monologues, but adds in some ukelele-accompanied songs at some of the most brutal moments (Banquo’s murder, Lady Macduff’s murder) for a bizarre touch. Raboud is disturbingly good in the title role. Laplante plays Lady Macbeth and Malcolm among others; Chu covers King Duncan, Banquo, Macduff, etc.

Before the narrative started, the three performers occupy themselves in bouffon fashion, picking out a new leader from the audience, affirming the choice, then chorusing that their time’s up, nothing personal, but your leadership has come to an end, and then moving on to another selection. This was entertaining at the time and seemed to lead in to the action at the start of the play with Duncan being replaced by Macbeth and then being tormented by the idea of not being able to pass on the crown to his child.

At the end, the young Malcolm is crowned King of Scotland. The bouffon voice appears again reciting something about the cycle continuing. Suddenly I realized that in my whole long acquaintance with this play, since studying it in Grade 12, seeing two Stratford productions while living in Ontario, and more recently productions of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, Theatre Prospero/Thousand Faces Festival, Akpik Theatre’s Pawâkan Macbeth, and The Malachites, I have always thought of the end of the play as getting back to normal, a sigh of relief for the rightful ruler on the throne and an assumption that the new regime will be wise, kind, and stable, a time to shudder and shake myself for the end of the nightmare brought about by two people’s ambition. It had honestly never occurred to me that I don’t know nearly enough about Malcolm and his advisors to assume a happily-ever-after. Just as when a self-serving government has been voted out or overthrown, or when public-health measures and community co-operation are getting a pandemic wave under control, we cannot congratulate ourselves and walk away.

And maybe I’m not the only one who needs to hear that.

Saturday inside the Fringe, and out.

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For me, it was the second Saturday of Fringe.  Our show The Big Fat Surprise closed Friday night (with another sold-out house!) so Saturday I was washing show laundry, then celebrating the parking-space win, catching some shows, lending another artist some of my furniture for a prop, eating festival food (still love that Lunchpail grilled cheese with fresh chips and classic vegetable sticks), checking in at the Lost and Found, serving drinks in the North Tent, talking to friends, and going home in the rain.

I immerse myself in Fringe while the festival is on, after being preoccupied with show prep and publicity for weeks ahead of time, so it sometimes astonishes me that other important things are happening this week outside of the Fringe bubble.  New babies were born.  Couples got married.  Birthdays were marked on Facebook and off.  Students prepared for the next grade, the next diploma, the next degree, the next challenge.  A whole Summer Olympic Games happened and I didn’t watch or read any coverage at all or knit anything for the corollary Ravellenics celebration.  The Old Strathcona Farmers’ Market shared the crowd and the parking spaces like an ordinary Saturday.  And last night I stepped into the Fringe North Beer Tent wondering about the music I was hearing, and I discovered they were using their new monitors and good speakers to share the CBC feed of the Tragically Hip’s last concert of their last tour, from the Rogers K-Rock Arena in Kingston Ontario.   While the Fringe went on outside, vendors and street performers, artists handbilling their last few shows, the High Level Trolley shuttling to downtown full of people – the tent was full of shared recognition of the Tragically Hip and of their lead singer Gord Downie, whose announcement of terminal cancer prompted the band’s decisions to tour one last summer and then retire.  I lived in Kingston for many years, and I saw the Hip’s first concert in that venue in 2008.  The CBC live feed and the social media streams reminded me how important they were and are to Kingston and to Canada and to music.  Go in peace, Gord Downie.  And Gord Sinclair, Rob Baker, Paul Langlois, and Johnny Fay.

By the second weekend of Fringe, I’ve heard lots of other people’s recommendations of what to see.  And although I try not to think of anything as a must-see, because there would be so many that I’d always feel disappointed, the recommendations helped me choose three good shows yesterday and pick up some more tickets for today.

The Fall of the House of Atreus – A very clever comic take on the ancient Greek tragedies of Euripedes, from Jessy Ardern as playwright and Corben Kushneryk as director and designer, the same team that created last Fringe’s Westbury-stage delight Harold and Vivian Entertain Guests.  Fellow BFA Acting grads Graham Mothersill, Sarah Feutl, and Morgan Grau are the Chorus telling and enacting the connected tragedies of Euripides, with all the vaguely-familiar characters – Pelops, Atreus, Iphigenia, Orestes, Clytemnestra, Helen and Paris, etc.  Simple costume elements and hand gestures helped to keep track of who was who, and found-object puppetry added interest to different ways for characters to be killed.  The energetic performers embraced the material and found humour in the grim tales.  The pace was good and it looked like fun for them as well as for the audience.  It’s now closed.

Little Orange Man – Ingrid Hansen’s charming solo show also presents gruesome stories in a very funny way, in this case through the unique voice of a girl of ten or eleven, recounting her grandfather’s Danish folk tales and recruiting the audience’s help for a dreamscape quest.  It’s held over, so after a last show tonight at 8 pm it should move easily from King Edward Academy to the larger room of the Westbury.

Nighthawk Rules – Collin Doyle’s and James Hamilton’s ten-year-old script was directed by Taylor Chadwick in Theatre Network’s new space Roxy on Gateway (the old C103).  Comfortable wide chairs around a shallow thrust stage make the venue’s legendary summer heat more bearable, as do the cold drinks on sale at the venue.  Chris W Cook (3…2…1, Criminal Genius, Sequence, Bronte Burlesque)  and Christopher Schultz (Wish) play old friends approaching 30 and floundering in their party-bro lives, Schultz’s character trying to live up to his new girlfriend’s expectations about settling down, and Cook’s character trying to hang on to the old camaraderie of drinking games and all-nighters.  I had thought already that Chris Cook was good at bringing a mix of naïveté and good intention to vulgar characters, so he was well cast in the role of Dick, and Schultz’s character Barry seems competent and grown-up only by comparison to his buddy.  I had a great deal of sympathy for the girlfriend (Ellie Heath) until we met her and she talked about her boyfriend completely as a project she had invested time in developing in order to satisfy her perfect-wedding goals, quickly flouncing out again with threats to Barry about cleaning up the apartment and getting rid of the loser friend.   The story was very funny and the resolution of some of the problems delighted me with its unexpectedness and credibility.  Nighthawk Rules has one more performance today at 4:30 pm.

I’ve got a few more drinks to pour, a few more tickets to use, a few more Festival snacks to consume, and then it’s over.  That was then, this is (still) Fringe.

Fringe Day Two: five more shows

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Turns out that on a day I’m not volunteering and our show isn’t on, it’s easy to see five shows and still stop in at home for a snack and a shower partway through.

The first one I saw yesterday was Beware Beware, new work by David Walker, featuring Thomas Barnet and Sarah Feutl, all young local artists.  It was a fairly straightforward drama about two friends, each with some current trouble on his or her mind, meeting up for late-night drinks at a campfire site in the river valley.   Both characters were interesting to watch and credible troubled people.

Next was Flora and Fawna’s Field Trip at the Varscona, which was adorable.  Flora, Fawna, and their new friend Fleurette (Darrin Hagen, Trevor Schmidt, and Brian Dooley) play three little girls who have started a more inclusive alternative to Brownies and Guides.  The show is framed as the orientation meeting for the audience who are prospective members of the group, and the fun starts as the costumed cast members hand out materials to the audience in line outside the theatre.  There was a little bit of audience participation, and a lot of laughing and awww-ing.  The three cast members each plays a child with distinct quirks and awkwardnesses, and the interactions among the friends (“we don’t even exclude people for being too bossy” says Fawna (Trevor Schmidt) with a sidelong glance at her friend (Hagen)) were very funny.  Brian Dooley was particularly charming as a young Francophone glad to be included in her new neighbourhood even though she doesn’t quite understand what’s going on.  The uniforms of tunic, tights, beret, scarf, and badge sash were appropriately awkward.

Next up was Zanna, Don’t! by Three Form Theatre, a light musical by Tim Acito which played Off-Broadway about 10 years ago.  It’s full of pop culture references and uses all the familiar tropes of high school stories, in some kind of parallel alternate universe where same-sex relationships are the norm and heterophobia is a thing.  Music Director Mackenzie Reurink directed a small instrumental ensemble, and some of the singers were hard to hear or understand over the accompaniment.  Sarah Ormandy’s portrayal of bossy Candi was especially funny.  Mark Sinongco, who I last saw in Putnam County Spelling Bee, was the eponymous Zanna, and Adam Sanders (Full Monty) and Madeleine Knight were the scandalous opposite-sex couple.

Dogfight is another musical by a young local company, in this case Linette Smith’s Strathcona Alumni Theatre.  Chris Scott and Emmy Kate Whitehead play the leads. I’m going to see it again later in the week and I’ll have more to say about it then, but if you are interested in seeing it you should buy your tickets early, as the uncomfortable seating in Strathcona High School often sells out.

Last on my schedule for the day was Butt Kapinski, a solo show by Deanna Fleyscher from Los Angeles.  The performer takes the audience with her into creating a film-noir world, full of cliches played out in unexpected ways.  The performer, a hardboiled private eye, chooses audience members for the roles needed in the story, from murdered bodies to residents of various districts in the dark city, mostly cast cross-gender.   And now I guess I can finally say that I was on stage at the Fringe.  The show was cleverly crafted and satisfying, and I’d like to go back if I can find room in my schedule.

The Rimers of Eldritch – disturbing glimpse of small town life

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There is an improvisational-theatre narrative format known as a Spoon River, in which a set of monologues by residents of a small town tell the story of how an event on the town affected each of them.  The improv performers sit or stand facing the audience, and when it’s done well, the story unfolds with an interesting set of characters showing several viewpoints on an important event.

My first impression of The Rimers of Eldritch, the Lanford Wilson play directed by Jan Selman and performed this weekend by the second-year BFA Acting class at University of Alberta, was that the ensemble taking their places on various levels of risers and chairs, facing the audience without much interaction with each other, was about to perform a Spoon River.

I saw immediately that they were going to be speaking about a significant event, because one of the first identifiable characters was a Judge (Morgan Grau) swearing in a witness to a trial (Celeste Tikal as Nelly Windrod, a woman in work trousers contrasting with the other female performers in skirts and dresses).   Throughout the performance we have occasional glimpses of trial scenes, but we gradually piece together the truth of what happened as we see small-group scenes set before, during, and after the climactic night.

The ensemble of 12 plays about 17 characters.  Working out who they are, how they’re connected, and what’s significant in each of their conversations was like the pleasure of reading a murder mystery, the kind where everything mentioned in passing becomes meaningful.  Martha Truit and Wilma Atkins (Carmen Nieuwenhuis and Sarah Feutl) are a pair of older women discussing everyone and everything as they sew and fold linens, with a judgemental limited view.  Corben Kushneryk is Harry Windrod, a frail old man who insists he saw the crime, but I soon decided that he too was an unreliable narrator.  Kushneryk did a great job of conveying his character’s physical and mental frailties without caricaturing.  Kristen Padayas’s character Eva was a young girl with a physical disability, protected by her religious mother Evelyn (Natasha Napoleao), naive, joyful, and isolated.   Her only friend is Robert (Bradley Doré), a slightly older boy dealing with a family tragedy and some identity issues.   Other inhabitants of the failing US midwest town include café owner Cora (Jessy Ardern), Walter (David Feehan) a young man whose presence in the café leads to gossip, and the Johnson family of farmers, parents Peck and Mavis (Jordan Sabo and Jessy Ardern), restless daughter Patsy (Natasha Napoleao), and her casually cruel older brother Josh (Morgan Grau).  Various other townspeople are added by double-casting and simple costume shifts.  Many of the stories are about an unsavory homeless man, Skelly Mannor (Stuart McDougall), who lurks about the stage as about the town, in a hunched-over unnerving way.  McDougall plays the character with a slight Irish-like accent, which puzzled me a bit but added to the impression of him being a misfit in the town.

Near the end of the performance, I formed the theory that maybe the only reliable narrator in the whole performance was Skelly Mannor, whom most of them are ignoring or vilifying.  And that theory seemed to work.  Nobody else in the town really finds out the truth about what happened the night Skelly Mannor was shot, and mostly they don’t seem to want to.  And there aren’t any obvious positive outcomes or character developments from the set of events either.  People’s lives are just going to go on, messy and unhappy, trying to find comfort and cutting out people who don’t fit in.   It was disturbing and real and I liked it.

The multiple casting gave many of the ensemble members the opportunity to create characters of different ages and viewpoints, which was fascinating to watch.  I look forward to seeing what else this ensemble does over the next few years, together at U of A and separately in local productions.