Five-star fringe

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This article was published 20/07/2022 (792 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival has returned after a two-year absence and Winnipeg Free Press reviewers have been there to share their insights on the festival’s 113 shows. All those reviews are now available on the Free Press website, but as the festival enters its final weekend here are 10 reviews that earned five-star accolades from the Free Press fringe team.

BEFORE BREAKFAST: AN OPERA IN ONE ACT

Naomi Forman Productions

WAG — Muriel Richardson Auditorium (Venue 12) to Sunday

The fringe can be a dog’s breakfast: a mix of the caviar stirred in with Cheetos and popcorn. It’s all tasty but sometimes you want something rich and just a tad rarefied — and what could be better than a one-act opera at the WAG?

This 45-minute two-hander (for one voice) elongates an early Eugene O’Neill monologue, perhaps an early attempt at Mary Tyrone in Long Day’s Journey into Night. The singing from Brandon soprano Naomi Forman is supreme, every word and gesture coherent and note-perfect; her youthful silent partner (Naomi’s daughter Anne Forman) is also a revelation.

The usual O’Neill gloom — alcoholism, unfulfilled dreams and unhappiness — are rolled out, but the music is so dynamic and interesting, it is understandable that after the composer and librettist (Thomas Pasatieri and Frank Corsaro) retooled the piece, it enjoyed an uptick in new performances. The blocking is questionable on occasion: lot of singing being directed towards the side of the stage, which makes dramatic but not technical sense. But it’s a small plaint. This is a high-octane injection of high art into our lives for much less than the price of eight chicken wings in the fringe park. ★★★★★

— Lara Rae

 

DADDY’S BOY

Erik de Waal

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 5) to Saturday

Erik de Waal has built himself a solid reputation as a storyteller, but Daddy’s Boy feels like another level in his craft. Few words are wasted as he weaves together tales about growing up on the family farm, and protests (of a sort) against apartheid in his native South Africa. But the bulk of the narrative is revealed in stories surrounding his relationship with his father, who battled for years against Parkinson’s disease. These reflections form a beautiful affirmation of life with serious emotional heft.

It is a memorable feat when a storyteller can hold an audience’s rapt attention throughout an entire production. De Waal excels in this medium, earning both laughter and tears throughout the 60-minute performance; there were few dry eyes left when the lights came back on. ★★★★★

— Matt Schaubroeck

 

FIELD ZOOLOGY 201

Shawn O’Hara

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 5) until Sunday

Brad Gooseberry is not like any field zoologist you have ever met, but his Victoria-based creator, Shawn O’Hara, clearly knows the field. Armed with this knowledge in his back pocket, he is free to let his comic alter ego run riot.

Anyone with an appreciation for a well-rounded sketch character — one who is also skilled in prop comedy, great one-liners and fabulous Q&A improv — will enjoy this comic safari over its too short, one-hour, joy-filled excursion. It’s hard to bottle lightning twice and to return with an even funnier sequel to Field Zoology 101, and that warrants an additional one star to the review. ★★★★★

— Lara Rae

 

JULIET: A REVENGE COMEDY

Monster Theatre

King’s Head Pub (Venue 14) to Sunday

How do you successfully reinvent some of the world’s best-known stories and most celebrated characters? By unravelling them completely, of course. Vancouver’s Monster Theatre offers a rip-roaring revue of William Shakespeare’s renowned works and the female characters he’s damned to an eternity of death and suffering.

Juliet has plunged a dagger into her heart thousands upon thousands of times in the 425 years since her star-crossed tale was published. What if, for once, she decided not to die? The effervescent Lili Beaudoin takes the title character on an hilarious time- and space-travelling adventure to discover an alternate ending, collecting a cast of equally doomed lady comrades — all played by the supremely talented Carly Pokoradi — along the way.

The fast-paced show is peppered with expert callbacks and deft fourth-wall breaking. It’s clever commentary on the rough treatment of women by a lionized male author (played by Ryan Gladstone). Juliet: A Revenge Comedy is an example of the new heights that can be achieved when we rethink tropes as old as time. ★★★★★

— Eva Wasney

 

EPIDERMIS CIRCUS

Snafu

PTE Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17) to Sunday

Imagine Shari Lewis’s soul got possessed by David Lynch.

Victoria-based performer Ingrid Hansen doffs the Cousin Itt hairstyle she wore in The Merkin Sisters alongside Stéphanie Morin-Robert at the fringe a few years back. But she still wears that show’s dark, deadpan humour in this 75-minute puppet piece that boasts not a single conventional puppet.

As the title suggests, Hansen uses parts her own body parts to create puppets, most frequently her hands, in the case of two-hander Florence McFingernails, but a more challenging bit of anatomy in playing raunchy comedian Lenny the Boob. (“I gotta get something off my chest.”)

Hansen employs technology and video projection to provocative, cinematic effect, incorporating weird objects (her use of a doll’s head may induce nightmares), unsettling audience participation, apocalyptic imagery, and the occasional erotic frisson. At the end of the show, Hansen mischievously suggests bringing someone who’s never been to the fringe before to check out her show to get a taste of the festival. She’s not wrong: Epidermis Circus is everything a fringe show should be. ★★★★★

— Randall King

 

SOMETHING IN THE WATER

S.E. Grummett

MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2) to Sunday

The brilliance of this 60-minute show is on display right from the witty title. The “something” in the water is a sea creature, with which S.E. Grummett, an amazing non-binary performer from

Sasktaoon, forms a bond (literally) — but also what bigots say when confronted with things they don’t understand becoming ubiquitous.

In this case, that’s the rising desire of youth to escape the prison of gender essentialism. With savvy use of overhead projections, stuffies, Ken and Barbie dolls and short videos, this extraordinary human gives a comical masterclass on feminism, bullying, gender dysphoria, and otherness. This plea for inclusiveness is so needed and topical right now, but the comedy avoids polemics.

It is full of inclusive audience response and zany props, and is adult without being dirty. I laughed out loud frequently and went home and cried, because if this person had been around when I was a child, I would not have wanted to end my life. ★★★★★

— Lara Rae

 

CIVILIZED

By the Book Productions

ONE88 (Venue 23), to July 23

If you haven’t already, put this performance on your must-see list. Actor John D. Huston resurrects a government bureaucrat from 1907 —the Laurier era — for this hour-long performance that is a far greater and more comprehensive history lesson than many of us (past a certain age anyway) ever learned about Canada’s treatment of Indigenous people.

This drama is gripping, fascinating and extremely difficult at times. Performing a script by fringe mainstay Keir Cutler (Teaching Shakespeare), Huston’s performance is bang-on. He will make you believe that, yes, this is probably how the government justified this dark part of Canadian history.

Civilized brings to life parts of our past that we are still trying to reconcile. It is based on true historical reports and writings, and the way it’s told is digestible and engaging. This play should be shown in schools, workplaces, old folks’ homes and anywhere else people will see it. ★★★★★

— Shelley Cook

 

HORSEFACE

Alex Dallas Productions

The Clock Tower — Portage Place (Venue 3) to July 24

Veteran English comedian Alex Dallas — who has called Canada home since the 1990s and whose name you might recognize from the comedy troupe Sensible Footwear — is absolutely sensational in this razor-sharp one-woman show that takes on everything from manspreading to #MeToo.

Meticulously written and performed by Dallas, Horseface is a memoir of her encounters with men throughout her life (she’s in her 60s now): handsy professors, train manspreaders, A-list fondlers, first-date flippers (you just have to see the show), pornography-cataloguing fathers.

Dallas is furiously funny in her observations and insights — delivered with that signature dry British wit — but she’s also a master of the one-two punch, swinging from hilarious to harrowing. The most powerful moments of the show are at its sharp edges, where Dallas really gets to the heart of what it means to be treated like prey in a world full of wolves. ★★★★★

— Jen Zoratti

 

JOSIE AND GRACE

PKF Productions

PTE Mainstage (Venue 16), to Sunday

This sure-fire fringe hit highlights the who-knew friendship of legendary American singer-dancer-activist-spy Josephine Baker and Hollywood film actress Grace Kelly, a.k.a. Princess Grace of Monaco. The 90-minute musical from Orlando, Fla., is one of those shows that whizzes by.

Tymisha Harris (last seen here in Josephine) and Rachel Comeau turn out powerhouse performances as the singer and actress, respectively, with Tod Kimbro’s play creating effective counterpoint between their individual dreams and desires amid an unforgiving world of racial segregation.

Comeau’s mesmerizing transformation — from struggling starlet plagued by doubts and insecurities to ice princess duped into an empty marriage of royal protocol and infidelities — chills to the bone. Equally compelling is Harris’s portrayal, as she gathers her “Rainbow Tribe” of adopted children and belts out her numbers for all she’s worth.

A few opening-night tech glitches took nothing away from the production, beautifully directed by Aradhana Tiwari, which includes luscious period costumes, character wigs and bling aplenty. Bring Kleenex for the show’s final scene — it packs a punch. ★★★★★

— Holly Harris

 

CHASE PADGETT: LUCKY BREAK

Chase Padgett

PTE Mainstage (Venue 16) to July 24

Winnipeg fringe fans are the beneficiaries of Chase Padgett’s emotion-packed pandemic adventures.

The American musical storyteller, who lives in Vancouver these days, has been a fringe fixture at the PTE Mainstage for years with hit shows such as 6 Guitars and Nashville Hurricane, as well as 2019’s more personal Heart Attacks & Other Blessings.

He has more of his own tales to tell in Lucky Break, and Padgett ably meshes reflections about caring for his mother after her hip surgery with the anxieties over performing on Alter Ego, the strange Fox talent show and his disappointment with theatre’s forced shift to social media — “millions of views, zero impact.”

While he re-enacts some highlights from his Alter Ego performances in the hour-long Lucky Break, Padgett is at his best distilling his thoughts about the show, American politics and parental problems into satisfying poetry and rap. ★★★★★

— Alan Small