Fringe day nine

This is my second last report on the Fringe for 2013. Though I will be seeing three shows tomorrow, I likely will not do a formal review of them since only one day of the festival will remain by that point and I will want to get to bed before 3am.

I had a fantastic time at the Fringe, breaking my goal of seeing 40 shows. I think the final count is 42 or 43 or something like that. I think in future I might not go quite so hard core, though I am tremendously happy to say that the overall quality of the shows this year was high.

So, I hope everyone will go out there, see Fringe shows, and make donations to help keep the festival running strong into its next 25 years.


Kuwaiti Moonshine

Written and performed by Tim Murphy, Kuwaiti moonshine tells the story of Andy, a thirty-five year old physical Ed teacher from Ottawa, working in Kuwait. As the show opens, we find Andy in a Kuwaiti prison cell, having been arrested for alcohol trafficking.

The show then looks back at the various beginnings that eventually led Andy to his predicament, including a sustained side story/back story about one of his guards.

The show as a whole lacks a sense of focus. Asides take too long, and I found my attention wandering as the narration did the same.

Murphy never really manages to make me care about his characters, and has trouble sustaining the second character that he portrays, a French Canadian by the name of jean luck with an ill sustained access. While the end of the show does tie up the narrative thread introduced, it lacks a sense of completion as the characters end point is one of emotional and spiritual resolution though the narrative had been more about events than internal journey.

Not recommended.

Handle With Care

Part of the Kids' Fringe programming, Handle with Care explores ideas of environmentalism with a sense of fun and whimsy. Using various forms of puppetry, the performers (taking on that sort of child-friendly persona that you get on TVO programming... in a good way) play out a series of vignettes covering topics such as littering, deforestation, and water pollution. These serious topics are addressed with a sense of playfulness, never preachy, creating an entertaining platform from which additional discussion can be derived.

The puppetry is engaging and a joy to watch, and the puppet stage, in the form of a shipping crate with various drawers and doors, is a wonder in itself.

The audience in attendance was young and vocal at time, but fully into what was happening on stage.

Recommended. Also, if you are an educator of 4-10 year olds in the GTA, you may want to contact the company: http://tangledwebtheatre.com/ to see about a performance.

 
A Glance at the Chinese Performing Arts
 
Not what I expected. More of a recital of the kind you would do for appreciative family and friends. Some of the older performers were excellent, but a children's fashion show with such illuminations statements as “Tibetans enjoy dancing in long sleeves” provided an unfortunate low point.

Looking after the fact, it seems that they have different programming on each of the performance slots, which I am disappointed by. The description mentioned "Chinese dance, Kung Fu, and Beijing Opera weaponry" but the performance I attended was solely dance.

Not recommended.

Squat

Billing itself as a Canadian hipster musical reminded me a bit of toxic avenger, in energy though perhaps not as much in wit. Actress playing Melissa is excellent and the entire cast gives it their all.
For all the bravado of being Toronto centric, the plot is a simple battle of the bands plot. The dialog is snappy and entertaining, but replies a bit too heavily on shock value and nasty insults. Still, its nice to indulge in schadenfreude and bitchiness from time to time.

All in all, the show is a fun and ribald ride. There are not many tickets available still for this - you must line up two hours ahead to get a on at the door ticket.

Recommended for a wicked ride.


Radio thirty

A hit at past fringe shows, this is a strong piece, well crafted and performed, exploring the moment where the mistakes and pressures of a life come to a head and the implosion begins.
My issue with this show is that the protagonist as presented doesn't give us any redeeming or particularly likeable qualities, so that when his end comes, it just feels like overdue justice for a generally nasty person.

Despite this shortfall, it is a good performance, and script, and so gets my recommendation in that it good theatre.

Recommended.

Day Eight

Dabda

Dabda, a dance piece, began with some missteps, but recovered beautifully.

It opened with a short projected (and not well made) film to establish a time period and premise for the piece. Use of film at a Fringe show in this way annoys me. If I want to watch a movie, I'll go to one of the many excellent movie festivals. However, it ended up being short, and not really used again as a device.

The second misstep was that, after firmly establishing a setting of the 1940s, and a subplot of a possible child abduction, neither element is clearly revisited for the duration of the piece. The dance style is firmly contemporary and the costumes are vague enough to be likewise. Better to just have a short establishing number to introduce the company and some elements of internal conflict.

Happily, from a beginning that had me ready to dislike the production, each number progressively won me over. The dancers (I saw the understudy cast, so I can only imagine that the usual cast would be as strong or stronger) were uniformly excellent, though a personal standout for me was Chirstopher Duarte, who had a stand-out presence and expression. His energy was always out to every extremity and he fully inhabited every movement.

The music selection was superb, and properly cut and mixed. The choreography was full of drive, variety and mood, and the company consistently rose to the occasion. I found many of the group moments visually rich and interesting, and some of the larger number completely engrossing.

By the end of the performance, I was won over. Shows like this make me so very happy that the fringe opened itself to dance a number of years ago.

Recommendation: See this show!


The Oak Room

A winter blizzard, a closing bar, a stranger at the door with a story to tell. With the feel of a camp fire tale, the tale plays out. Story is important in this piece, as, much like the thousand nights and one night, storytellers tell stories of story tellers. Unlike the thousand nights, however, the drive is perhaps to something more sinister than survival.

The frame narrative of the show sets things up a little too slowly for my taste, sacrificing pace for mood. As the tales progress to their inevitable and beautifully inescapable conclusion, I felt that the tension needed to ramp up more fiercely than it did.

That said, each actor does a fine job in contributing his tale to the overall story, and in the end, the production leave you satisfied.

Recommended.


Corpus Matris

Corpus Matris is a traditional Indian dance performance by Paromita Kar celebrating subversive female figures from Indian mythology.

I found it very well performed, but also found that I was lacking the context in which to properly appreciate or engage with it. Because I am not (and I assume most of the Fringe audience is not) versed in the mythology, or the dance form presented, I was really hoping for help entering into the pieces. A guide or interpreter to help me understand what I was watching would have helped me have a deeper appreciation, I feel. While the program indicated that efforts were made to keep in mind the Canadian context in which it was performed, I found that I needed more hand holding. Without such a way into the piece, the result was that it felt more like a museum piece that the vibrant dance form that I truly suspect it is.

Recommended if you have an interest in classical Indian dance or like to expose yourself to other cultures. You will appreciate it more if you are more versed in the form.

Love is a Poverty You Can Sell 2

This cabaret act is inspired by the cabarets of the Wiemar Republic, and takes place at the Bite bar, at College and Bathurst. The performers are generally good, with the female performers generally outshining the male. Stand out moments, however, come from Natasha Negovanlis with a haunting rendition of Youkali, and Christian Jeffries touching perfomance of Lili Marlene. The storytelling skills of MC duo Ryan Anning and Scott Dermody also deserve a special mention as their telling of "The Bürgermeister and the Blades" was by turns amusing and chilling.

The performance is in two acts and I found that while Act I was enjoyable enough, the company really hit its stride in the second set.

Recommendation: Show up early for a meal and stay for the show!

Fringe Day Seven

Here

This production tells the story of a second year dance major who, over the summer, suffers a broken leg after a car accident and is forced out of dance. If focuses primarily in her growing interactions, I fall short of saying relationship, with an aspiring file student. That is, he is aspiring to be a film student.

While there are some moments of interesting structure in the mix of dance and script, interesting use of projections, the play overall suffers from a lack of focus. Over its ninety minutes it tries to cover too much ground. The characters don't develop well, and moments of conflict and resolution seem to come from no where.

There are interesting concepts, (a dance during the main character's attempt to solicit a donation from an alumna is powerful) but overall, no cohesive whole seems to be served.

This show is an exercise of people still learning their craft, and is not out of place at the fringe but there is no satisfaction after the ninety minutes put in as an audience member.

Not recommended.

AV Sideshow.

This production is an odd duck. It purports to draw its sensibilities from the sideshows of the 1920s and 30s, featuring beaded lady and conjoined twin acts. In its realization, however, it draws more on "Cabaret" than "Canivale", even including Kander and Ebb strains from Chicago. This is sadly detrimental, as the outdoor performance area works actively against any kind of intimate feel.

The 45 minutes are full of strange monologues that evoke a sort of pretension usually reserved for parodies of beat poetry, and if it trying to be over the top, it doesn't quite get there. Mostly, it is a lot of sound of fury, but of little significance.

The choreography is interesting, and the cast is talented. They are just working with awkward material ill suited to the venue. Had the production drawn more on the side-show, "step-right-up", hawker sort of feel that its name and advertising implied, I think a much stronger experience would have been provided. As it stands, there's a certain amount of diversion provided, but it is certainly side dish, and not main course.

Recommendation: If it's playing while you're in the alley, let it divert you while you have a beer, and drop some money in the case. However, don't go out of your way to see it.

Men seeking men.

MSM: Men Seeking Men

This dance performance started off well, with an interesting, if challenging premise:  a movement deconstruction of online male personas and desires towards other men.

An early moment sets a strong opening: Two men read the transcript of a Skype conversation about hooking up for a foot fetish fun time while other members of the company perform in response to the dialog.

Unfortunately, the piece quickly becomes as repetitive as the dance beats underplaying the evening, and the focus is lost. What starts as a piece (I think) about the emptiness of online connection, seems to turn into a empty piece about ... I'm not sure. By the end of the hour, I feel it just as likely that the piece is about dance club hook ups as anything else. This interpretation is not weakened by the presence of a live DJ on stage, lit just enough to be distracting, but not interacting any appreciable way with the action happening in front and around him.
 While some numbers give interest, others move into the realm of self-indulgence. A moment comes to mind in which the company walks as if on tight ropes, while screaming.

Hot, shirtless men gyrating for an hour, but ultimately unsatisfying.

Recommendation: Tepid.

Threads

Tonya Jones Miller wrote Threads based on the stories of her mother's life. In it, she plays an American woman who, 1968 travels to Saigon to teach English.

What follows is an exploration of the experiences that led up to her travels, and that followed, and how they tie together.

The story is well crafted, and engaging. Miller's performance is a little slow to get going, but she soon establishes and maintains the audience's attention and interest. I felt she came up a little short in some of the moments in the piece, remaining outside story teller, rather then committing more fully to the moments of tension and heightened emotion in the piece.

Understand, solo works are hard to pull off, and this is a very good piece. With a little more craft in the production and direction, and a bit more polish to the performance, this could be truly excellent.

Well recommended.





God is a Scottish Drag Queen

Not much to say here. This show is a stand up comedy act with Mike Delamont appearing as the titular character. The set runs the full hour and delivers strong laughs over and over again. Delamont has a fantastic control over his character and audience. A tremendous ride!

Recommendation: Strongly in favour for a laugh that will make your face ache!

A King's Heart

Then spoke the prophet of the muses saying unto the creative team:

And you have abandoned my commandments, which I did lay out for you, and thus you have created a show that is an abomination in my eyes! For my laws were written for you and they were:

"Thou shalt show the story, not tell it"
"Thou shalt not use the phrase 'uncircumcised Philistine' more than twice in a single scene"

Recommendation: Run, run like you are being chased by an army of angry Amorites!