On Monday at the Fringe both shows I caught were comedies. Comedies with lovely original music and clever lyrics and amusing choreography and movement. There are a lot of funny people around this festival.
Scoobie Doosical is an original musical by Rebecca Merkley, a tribute to the well-known 1970s cartoon television about the ghost-debunking gang and their Great Dane. Merkley’s company Dammitammy Productions did something similar a few years ago with River City: The Musical, parodying the Archie comic-book characters.
Live accompaniment (Yvonne Boon and Robyn Slack) enhances the lyrics both goofy and touching, and the impressive singing voices of cast Cameron Chapman, Bella King, Natalie Czar, and Andrew Cormier. Cormier plays the villain Professor Gigglepuffs (“Riggleruffs” in Scoobie’s dialect) with a flair evocative of Frank N. Furter in Rocky Horror (Picture) Show – and also plays Velma. Czar plays the villain’s sidekick/cat and also plays Daphne. (Imagine some wig-quick-changes). Chapman and King play the Shaggy and Scoobie characters, building on the source-material expectations to create lovable caricatures. The plot was also reminiscent of the source material, confusing at first but all falling into place with happy and fair resolutions. Stage 4 Walterdale Theatre, selling quickly.
Die Nasty is “an Edmonton comedy institution for 30 years” according to their program blurb. At the Fringe, the long-form improvised soap opera has an episode every night that takes place at the Fringe, with some familiar characters and some archetypical ones. The night I saw it, it was directed by Peter Brown with live music by Paul Morgan Donald, and there were 16 performers on stage, including guests Joel Taras and Jake Tkaczyk as well as Stephanie Wolfe, Jacob Banigan, Kirsten Throndson and other ensemble members. Characters I remember from previous years included Kristi Hansen’s version of Liz Nicholls, this time skating off across the grounds with Jesse Gervais’ Robin Fairweather, the tin-whistle-playing Edmonton institution. I particularly appreciated the acknowledgement of this character’s mixed reputation, and I think other audience members did too. Mark Meer’s Hunter S Thompson-esque podcaster wasn’t in the episode I saw, but his gum-chewing colleague Kalyn Miles was. The Mormon elder missionary (Jason Hardwick) was successful in converting hot dog vendor Fat Frank (Gordie Lucius), and for some reason this involved switching the missionary’s white dress shirt and nametag with the hot dog vendor’s apron. Murray Utas made an appearance (as portrayed memorably by Jake Tkaczyk). When given the directorial challenge by Brown to speak about his secret wishes, we find out (in an original musical solo then enhanced by a dancing ensemble) that Murray would really like to leave paperwork behind and perform his own Fringe autobiographical solo piece, complete with embodying three characters, the young Murray, the woman who coaches him, and … I’ve actually forgotten who the third one was, because I was laughing so hard at this point.) Die Nasty continues every night at 10 pm at Varscona Theatre, Venue 11. You do not need to have seen previous episodes to enjoy it.