Day 2 was another day that got better as it progressed. Here is the play by play.
Some good voices and some moments were present, but they did not buoy up the 75 minutes of run time. One of the best written numbers in the show, delivered by a drag-queen Gluttony (why a random act of drag was needed in this show is something I will never know), seemed to belong to a different production.
Things immediately looked up with The Last Rock N’ Roll Show. In this show, a magazine music columnist, having tendered her resignation, reflects on her career choices, and the nature of criticism while writing her last review, a review on the very first rock concert she ever attended.
The reflections raise a few interesting points, but nothing too earth-shattering. All of this, after all, is just filler around what is essentially a 55 minute rock performance. But the music is pretty good, and the time goes past quickly. For what it is, it’s a good show, and it’s always refreshing to see all kinds of performance at the Fringe. In this case, that performance is purely musical. So if you’re not so much a theatre person, or if you just want a break from the theatre and some decent music, give this show a go.
Third show of the day was the Tiki Bikini Paradise Party A Go-Go. This show put a smile on my face and kept it there for a full hour. Paying tribute to the Frankie and Annette Beach movie genre, this is pure fun and energy. The choreography was TIGHT, and every actor gave every moment their full commitment. What I loved most, though, was that it paid tribute to the cheesiness of the genre without setting itself above it. There was no sneering cynicism here; the show is celebration more than send-up. Just straight out celebration and good time. It’s fluff, and it’s really good fluff.
My 4th show of the day was a production of La Duchesse de Langais, a short 1-man show by Michele Tremblay in which the aging drag-queen, La Duchesse, on holiday in Paris, gets drunk and recounts her rise to glory and snow, painful fall.
Done “straight” this is a classic character study. This production, however, takes a risk with the material, and it pays off. Rather than staging the show as a 1-man performance, this show uses three different actors, each playing one of three alter-egos of La Duchesse.
The script’s lines have been deftly assigned to each of the aspects of the character, at times turning monologue to chorus. And it works, making the subtleties of the text more visceral, but without hammering away the subtlety or depth of the character.
I closed off my day by taking in Operating Impervious, which was a fun ramp through gay stereotype, closeted celebrity, and corporate cults. The cast does their best in providing a committed delivery of a rambling and unfocused script. There are moments of excellent energy and timing, and some good silly laughs to be had. The laughs are at their best when three or four characters are having cross conversations, as all the performers are excellent at snappy banter.
Unfortunately, the writer seems to have lost control of the material and what should really have been 45 minutes of tight comedy turns into a 90 minute expanse in which moments of hilarity bubble up sporadically like bubbles from a bog. I got the real impression that the writer had become enamored of his own work, thinking “oh, and then I’ll have this happen” too often. The momentum starts and stops and gags and jokes get repeated until they lose their original humour. I did have a number of good laughs here, but they were too sporadic.
If the material could be cut down to the 45 minutes, I feel this would have been a much more engaging show.
First, Cellar Hotel, a musical in which God and her virtues run a hotel, and the Devil and hi 7 sins look after the bar. There is some real talent in the cast, but they are doing untalented things. The script is unfocused, the sound seemed off, the choreography was executed without precision, the ending comes out of nowhere, and the point is unclear.
Some good voices and some moments were present, but they did not buoy up the 75 minutes of run time. One of the best written numbers in the show, delivered by a drag-queen Gluttony (why a random act of drag was needed in this show is something I will never know), seemed to belong to a different production.
For a show of about heaven and hell, I felt like I was in purgatory.
Things immediately looked up with The Last Rock N’ Roll Show. In this show, a magazine music columnist, having tendered her resignation, reflects on her career choices, and the nature of criticism while writing her last review, a review on the very first rock concert she ever attended.
The reflections raise a few interesting points, but nothing too earth-shattering. All of this, after all, is just filler around what is essentially a 55 minute rock performance. But the music is pretty good, and the time goes past quickly. For what it is, it’s a good show, and it’s always refreshing to see all kinds of performance at the Fringe. In this case, that performance is purely musical. So if you’re not so much a theatre person, or if you just want a break from the theatre and some decent music, give this show a go.
Third show of the day was the Tiki Bikini Paradise Party A Go-Go. This show put a smile on my face and kept it there for a full hour. Paying tribute to the Frankie and Annette Beach movie genre, this is pure fun and energy. The choreography was TIGHT, and every actor gave every moment their full commitment. What I loved most, though, was that it paid tribute to the cheesiness of the genre without setting itself above it. There was no sneering cynicism here; the show is celebration more than send-up. Just straight out celebration and good time. It’s fluff, and it’s really good fluff.
My 4th show of the day was a production of La Duchesse de Langais, a short 1-man show by Michele Tremblay in which the aging drag-queen, La Duchesse, on holiday in Paris, gets drunk and recounts her rise to glory and snow, painful fall.
Done “straight” this is a classic character study. This production, however, takes a risk with the material, and it pays off. Rather than staging the show as a 1-man performance, this show uses three different actors, each playing one of three alter-egos of La Duchesse.
The script’s lines have been deftly assigned to each of the aspects of the character, at times turning monologue to chorus. And it works, making the subtleties of the text more visceral, but without hammering away the subtlety or depth of the character.
I closed off my day by taking in Operating Impervious, which was a fun ramp through gay stereotype, closeted celebrity, and corporate cults. The cast does their best in providing a committed delivery of a rambling and unfocused script. There are moments of excellent energy and timing, and some good silly laughs to be had. The laughs are at their best when three or four characters are having cross conversations, as all the performers are excellent at snappy banter.
Unfortunately, the writer seems to have lost control of the material and what should really have been 45 minutes of tight comedy turns into a 90 minute expanse in which moments of hilarity bubble up sporadically like bubbles from a bog. I got the real impression that the writer had become enamored of his own work, thinking “oh, and then I’ll have this happen” too often. The momentum starts and stops and gags and jokes get repeated until they lose their original humour. I did have a number of good laughs here, but they were too sporadic.
If the material could be cut down to the 45 minutes, I feel this would have been a much more engaging show.