The 2008 Calgary Fringe is upon us. The festival is showing its growing maturity — it has developed into a cohesive event, rather than a disconnected scattering of shows here and there.

To begin with, all the shows take place in four venues in Inglewood. Most are within about three blocks of each other, so you can make an evening of going down to 9th Ave S.E. to catch a few shows over the course of the night.

The tickets are reasonably priced at about $10 each. You also have to pay a one-time fee of $5 that goes towards covering the Fringe’s overhead costs. Though this is not a new feature of the Fringe, the full price of the ticket goes directly to the artist, so you know you’re supporting individual artists in a direct way.

Admittedly, there is something about the whole Fringe experience I find irresistible: lining up at the door anticipating the next show; consulting the show lineup and circling this one and that as you map out your viewing schedule; and the exchanging of show critiques with fellow Fringe patrons waiting beside you.

I began my 2008 Fringe experience on Friday night by checking out a play by Fast Forward theatre critic Jeff Kubik called Use Me: An Undead Musical.

The premise is strange, though what’s even stranger is to know it’s based upon a real-life incident. It’s about a mortician who steals body parts from corpses. (Alistair Cooke, the deceased host of Masterpiece Theatre, had several of his body parts stolen and sold.) In Use Me, two corpses who’ve had body parts removed take the mortician to task about his mercenary actions. It’s at times funny, at times poignant. I particularly enjoyed the music and the engaging performances of the actors. It’s a well-written piece with plenty of poetic turns of phrase. (The play actually makes fun of the silvered tongues of poets, but I, for one, happen to love metaphorical language.)

My main complaint with the show is the venue. It takes place inside the old Garry Theatre, which is now a furniture store called From the Ground Up. If you’re unfortunate enough to sit near the back, and are short, like me, you’re guaranteed to miss a lot of the play, because so much of the action takes place on the floor. I found that incredibly frustrating. The stage needs to be higher, so those who aren’t in the first couple of rows can actually see the show. Saturday, I ventured forth in the early evening to catch They’re Just Not That Into Me at the Silverthreads space, a couple of blocks down from the old Garry Theatre. The space is small and feels like a dated hall in an old community centre. While the esthetics of the space are less than inspiring, the show is an absolute riot, especially for a female audience.

It is at times raunchy, at times crass, but funny all the way through. Playwright and performer Allison Lane walks the audience through her 12-step program to get over being dumped — and how to stop dating wankers — from getting drunk to rebound sex. Lane’s performance is completely authentic, and I’m sure resonates with many a woman who’s been in that situation.

My next stop was to see the late night showing of Amateur Night of the Living Dead, again at the From the Ground Up furniture store. This time, however, I had learned my lesson and made sure to sit in the front row.

The show is a series of stand-up comedy routines where one actor, Trevor Campbell, takes on the role of a comedy club host and all its guest performers, including Christopher Walken, Jesus Christ and Hitler. I didn’t find watching Campbell drooling from the mouth as a zombie or laughing and barking in German as Hitler very funny. That said, those around me were laughing hysterically, so maybe it’s just me. The one joke I did get was directed at a couple in the audience from Las Vegas. Campbell explained to them that Canadians are world-renowned for their politeness and that, if they ever come across someone yelling “fuck” at them when they’re driving their rental car, it just means “Foreigners Unaccustomed to Canadian Kindness.” Campbell also puts in a plug for supporting the arts and, specifically, live performance, as the show the audience sees is the last one the comedy club will stage, before it’s taken over by a Blockbuster outlet. The angle was unnecessary and a good example of extremely annoying “navel-gazing.”

Sunday, I started with a one-woman show from Minneapolis called Circumference. It’s in the gymnasium of the Lantern Community Church on 10th Ave. S.E. I enjoyed the venue. It feels open yet intimate, and even those in the back row have a view.

The play is about one woman’s battle with her body, and her desperate desire to be slim. Written and performed by Amy Salloway, the play re-visits her years in junior high gym class and her (thwarted) plan as an adult to get gastric bypass surgery.

Circumference goes 100 kilometres an hour, all the way through, with Salloway frantically switching from character to character. I found it too spastic for my liking, but it did have its touching moments. I’m sure many will be able to relate to the story of an obese person’s struggle against societal discrimination and the fight to even achieve self-acceptance.

A note on ticketing — a person can buy tickets online if they want to plan their Fringe experience in advance, or buy them the day-of at the Fringe’s main information tent set up along 9th Ave. A certain number of tickets also go on sale at the door a half-hour before the show. However, as people start lining up in advance, it’s important to get there early, otherwise you’ll miss out.

Next up for me was a performance at the Artpoint Gallery. It’s the venue that is the farthest out. Though you can see it from 9th Ave, it’s a somewhat convoluted drive to get there. Once there, however, it’s likely the best of the four — the space seems the most “theatre-like,” and the stage is elevated. The show I watched was called Pitch Blonde, and it’s my personal favourite of the Festival thus far. The play is written and performed by Victoria, B.C.’s Laura Anne Harris, who personifies the ’50s actress with a genius-level IQ, Judy Holliday. Holliday is suspected of communist ties during the McCarthy era, and she has to testify before the Senate. While doing so, she hides behind the ditzy blonde persona that made her famous.

Harris makes smooth transitions from character to character and scene to scene, and she adopts Holliday’s high-pitched, New York dialect very convincingly. I particularly like the use of historical audio clips in the production, and the emotional journeys throughout the piece.

Following Pitch Blonde, I returned to the Lantern Community Church to see a couple of short suspense dramas staged by the Roguespeare Players called Wildwood Park and The Lurker. I had high hopes for these ones, but I found the product somewhat disappointing. Though they had great, film-noiresque lighting, and a moody style, I found the actual stories, and associated acting, didn’t quite live up to the billing. (KR)

• Pizza Girl and the Dark Enigma (Brittney Nicole & Co) — There’s a certain Ed Wood-like charm to Pizza Girl and the Dark Enigma. The lead actors are inept and the script is a lacklustre mishmash of clichés that would make any Hilary Duff vehicle look like Nabokov’s Lolita. It feels like a bad junior high school theatre project. Unfortunately, everyone involved is an adult — most of them from Mount Royal College’s theatre arts program, which just makes this abomination inexcusable.

The plot is an absolute mess of angst-ridden teenage stereotypes and the dialogue is complete dreck. One of the many duds dropped throughout the play is when Smithy (Jason Brooks) finds out that Melody (playwright Brittney Cressy) lost her parents at 13, and remarks, “Wow, I lost my parents when I was 13, too…. It’s like we’re destined to be!” Excuse me while I gag.

The plot and script are bad enough, but the unprofessional, unfocused cast is an insult to the audience and reflects badly on a Fringe festival trying to establish itself. The set — two cardboard trifolds covered in amateurish graffiti — is constantly being wobbled or knocked over by the cast. The only actual transition onstage is when one of the actors wraps himself in the cardboard set while shaking it.

The only small saving grace is Sarah Bernstein’s few moments onstage, as she actually has a sense of comic timing and delivery. Unfortunately, with the uninspired direction by Kelsey Schimpf and the hackneyed script by Cressy, whatever talent everyone else has is absolutely wasted. (JM)

• Princess and the Pea Brain (Tin Foil Cup Creative, Lantern Church) — Veggie puns, Spice Girls references and an idiot man-child prince help to make Princess and the Pea Brain one of the most outright enjoyable performances of the festival. Tin Foil Cup’s fractured fairy tale is a madcap comedy that gets the adults and older children laughing, but can’t keep the younger ones from staring at their shoes.

Like the best children’s comedies, every character is clearly defined and performed larger-than-life. Princess Turnip is often the straight-woman to the odder cast of characters around her, which include the moronic Rudy (Jonathan Purvis), the wacky Green Weirdo (Evan Rothery) and the witchy Queen Aubergine (Pauline Brunnen). Rothery’s Weirdo is a special delight. His movement is all high stepping and jutting elbows, which is further accentuated by his naturally lanky frame, adding an extra level of quirkiness.

Neil Fleming’s script, his first for children, is strong. The general flow of action was good, although there were some odd transitions. Unfortunately, the young ones in the audience seemed to be more interested in the free bottles of water they were given outside the performance. Many of the jokes went over their heads, although the older children enjoyed it quite a bit. Outside of the amazing stage combat (especially considering how small the Lantern Church’s basement is), the younger kids just didn’t have the attention span necessary to get into it. Despite that minor problem, the Princess and the Pea Brain is still an enjoyable show for people who may not be willing to check out the more dramatic and experimental fare that Fringe has to offer. (JM)

• Christian Meth aka Amateur Night of the Living Dead (Obscene But Not Heard) — Comedy clubs are a hit-or-miss experience. One of Calgary’s leading sketch comedy troupes, Obscene But Not Heard, tries to replicate this club experience with Christian Meth aka Amateur Night of the Living Dead — and succeeds more so than they probably wanted to.

Local comedian Trevor Campbell tries to be edgy and push the boundaries, but in the age of South Park and Family Guy, he needs to bring out his A-material. His first real bit is his best: an overlong musical ode to hecklers called “Get Cancer and Die.” After he blows his load with that, everything goes downhill. From the geeky “top three” list-making comedian Harry Clark to his performances as Jesus and Hitler, it all feels like a lame attempt to get a few shallow yuks out of the audience. The supposedly legendary Hitler performance is probably the worst of the lot — it’s just a sad impersonation of Hitler speaking in German and getting angry.

The best bit of the night is when he takes to the stage as Guy Gravestone, the world’s only zombie comedian. Taking the typical eye-rollers that most comedians seem to find funny (“What’s the deal with airline food?”) then turning it on its ear from a zombie’s perspective is intriguing and entertaining. Unfortunately, that, too, wears thin after awhile, and the audience is left with a shambling corpse just grunting and wheezing pathetically in between hackneyed jokes that everyone’s heard before. (JM)