Gambling on the fringe – and winning
Calgary International Fringe Festival enjoys its third successful season
EVENT REVIEW
CALGARY INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL
August 31 to September 2
Various venues
On Friday, August 31, Calgary International Fringe Festival volunteers had just finished blocking off 9th Avenue S.E. in front of the Garry Theatre when the skies opened up, soaking patrons, knocking down banners and ruining posters. Tables and chairs set up for the street festival were drenched. Street performers and volunteers ran for cover. It wasn’t long before organizers gave up and cleared the street for normal traffic.
It was a depressing opening for the third annual fringe fest but, as it turned out, it was the only bad moment in the entire weekend. By Monday, nearly 2,500 theatre-goers had turned out to see fringe shows at three different theatres, and nearby pubs and restaurants were enjoying one of their best weekends of the summer.
THROWING THE DICE
Taking in the fringe is like going to a casino – one show may be a polished, professional production; the next might be amateur night. The shows – four local, four national and four international – are selected by lottery, and no effort is made to weed out the duds. It’s the basic premise for every fringe, so there’s no sense whining if you don’t like something. If there are certain similarities among shows from one fringe to the next, it is due to the fact that many performers tour their productions along the circuit that stretches across Canada. Casts are small, often with only one or two actors. Set designs are simple or non-existent. Like buskers, most fringe veterans try to keep ‘em laughing and avoid dealing with anything too intellectually demanding. It’s a formula designed to please a broad audience.
Along with a healthy number of local entries, the performers came from Australia, England and Montana. The visitors from abroad were the best bet, which shouldn’t be much of a surprise – if you’re going to make the trip overseas with your company you better have something of decent quality to offer.
INTERNATIONAL FARE
Nicola Gunn and the Desolation Angels Company of Melbourne, Australia came the furthest distance to attend the Calgary fringe, and audiences were glad they did. This one-woman show, The Elephant Club, was a good example of what can be done within the limitations of the fringe formula. Using voice, gesture and dance, Gunn plays all of the characters in this polished performance about Rhoda Brown, a painfully shy, underappreciated office worker. Like a modern day Walter Mitty, she imagines a much more romantic version of her life.
Quick Change Theatre from Manchester, England played to capacity crowds at Crump Manor with their fast-paced comedy The Men Commandments. Two young women offer their wisdom on the slippery business of "relationships" in the form of Commandments about how to handle men. It’s a funny and vulgar trip through the doldrums of single life to the Holy Grail of a relationship and the new problems that poses.
Updating absurdist theatre for the new millennium, Equinox Theatre of Bozeman, Montana has created a satire of bureaucracy and office routines. In Box introduces us to the Department of the Collective Subconscious, where they come up with ideas and feed them out into the minds of the public at large. Gradually, two employees begin to question the procedures and start using the system for more than mass marketing. It’s an Ionesco-like comedy that is part social commentary and part wacky romance.
Another take on romance was The Mysterious Mr. Love from Dreamsurf of Birmingham, England. Their production last year of Pinter’s The Lover was a festival favourite and, judging from the sell-out crowds, Calgarians remember them. It is based on the true story of an Edwardian con man who made a living by marrying lonely women and absconding with their savings, but this time around, the con man finds himself unable to leave his new "wife" as he had planned, leading to considerable soul-searching by both of them.
CANADIAN DARLINGS
Among the Canadian shows, there were also plenty of highlights.
Two companies provided shows of sketch comedy along the lines of Kids in the Hall or Monty Python. Why Not? Productions from Hamilton, Ontario are fringe veterans. Their show, The Imponderables, is a series of quick, short sketches about inane and nonsensical things satirizing the idea of Canadian content and parodying such sacred cows as the Group of Seven and Celine Dion. A little less polished but still a crowd-pleaser is Culture Pop, by local comedy troupe Hidden Insanity. This show takes on popular culture and nails it to the floor – movies, TV shows, commercials, news programs and popular music are all skewered.
Loose Moose weighed in with The Barbarian, their grand salute to pulp fiction, and a show that is based on Conan the Barbarian but can't be called Conan because of copyright issues. Nevertheless, with its campy sword and sorcery adventures, The Barbarian was right at home at the fringe.
The most memorable show, though, has to be Arachne Theatre’s quirky one-woman show Caffeine Ladies. Jennifer Roberts has turned her attention to those white-uniformed coffee-pouring, doughnut-serving ladies who spend 40 or more hours a week fulfilling our caffeine and cruller desires. Based on interviews with real caffeine ladies, Roberts presents several fascinating characters in a show that is extremely funny while still presenting a very human perspective on these ladies. This is a good example of building an exciting fringe show from an unlikely subject.
While the selection of the fringe is done by lottery, one company that should be included annually is Inside Out Theatre. Under the direction of Ruth Bieber, this novel theatre company featuring performers with disabilities presented Death By Assistance, a funny, feel-good show offering several short skits about the problems that arise from well-intentioned but uninformed folks. Each one is based on the experience of performers in the company. It’s a show that is rough around the edges, but it was a fringe crowd-pleaser.
Calgary's festival is nowhere near the size of Edmonton's, where over 100 shows take place over 10 days, but then there are no plans to aim that big. However, there is consensus backstage and on the street that this fringe has room to grow – Inglewood could accommodate more theatres and more shows, businesses along 9th Avenue were thrilled with the turnout and would be happy to see even more people next year. Judging by the success of this year’s event, it’s safe to say that the Calgary fringe is a permanent fixture on the local theatre scene. |
