Reviews to help you through the hit-or-miss loveliness that is the Calgary Fringe Festival

Best of Fest Winner

Posted by Kathleen Renne in Fast Forward Fringe Blog

Grim & Fischer has won the Best of Fest at this year's Fringe Festival!

The show, done entirely in mask, is a highly professional production with an amazing sound design.  The masks are these huge, bulbous heads that, actually, are strangely appealing.

Briefly, Grim & Fischer involves the Grim Reaper as he comes calling on Mrs. Fischer to take her to her appointment with Death.  Mrs, Fischer, however, has other plans.  She isn't ready to die and outwits "Grim" using such things as a whoopee cushion and a bathroom scale.

It's a funny, delightful, creative, artistic show with some moments of real pathos.

Because of its win, Grim & Fischer will have an extra showing on Saturday, August 6 at 1:00 at the Alexandra Centre.

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Add comment      more in Theatre     |     posted Aug 4th, 2011 at 4:33pm

Music on the Orient Express

Posted by Kathleen Renne in Fast Forward Fringe Blog

MUSIC ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS

Jacqueline Suzanne’s Bistro

 

August 2, 2011

 

I don’t play guitar, and I’m not a guitar aficionado, so this review comes with that provision in mind.  However, as far as I can tell, Victoria-based Colin Godbout is a superb musician.  His fingers travel the entire length of the guitar’s neck with ease and fluidity.

 

He calls his show Music on the Orient Express because it features music from composers who lived along the fabled train’s route from Paris to Istanbul, composers including Beethoven, Liszt and Chopin.

 

The theme is instantly seductive, because just mentioning the name “Orient Express” brings with it a certain allure and mystique.  If the truth be told, the theme is probably more exciting than the actual … Read More

Add comment      more in Theatre     |     posted Aug 4th, 2011 at 4:26pm

Houdini's Last Escape

Posted by Kathleen Renne in Fast Forward Fringe Blog

HOUDINI’S LAST ESCAPE

Alexandra Centre

 

August 3, 2011

 

Wow!  Houdini’s Last Escape is a super-polished, professional production.  And word has obviously gotten out because, last night, Fringe staff had to put out extra chairs to accommodate the crowds.

 

The show offers a biographical sketch of Harry Houdini, arguably the most famous illusionist / performer the world has ever seen.

 

Houdini’s Last Escape is framed like a vaudeville show.  Instead of carrying on with his usual routine, however, Houdini (Christopher Bange) decides to do something different and tell the “truth” about his life, much to the consternation of his wife, Bess (Tara Travis).

 

There’s an obvious sense of urgency in his desire to switch gears and tell his own story … Read More

Add comment      more in Theatre     |     posted Aug 4th, 2011 at 11:54am

Dying Hard

Posted by Kathleen Renne in Fast Forward Fringe Blog

DYING HARD

VENU 1008

 

August 2, 2011

 

Dying Hard strips theatre down to its core – storytelling.  It serves as an excellent example of theatre that doesn’t need any bells and whistles, just a powerful story - and a talented actor to tell it - to make for an absorbing, gripping production.

 

Mikaela Dyke has taken excerpts from several interviews an anthropologist conducted with Newfoundland fluorspar miners and their wives who were affected by the mining industry in 1960s Newfoundland.

 

Mining has always been – and will always be, it seems – dangerous work, and the stories of illness and death these people tell prove it.  Tales of dehabilitating accidents, hardship, cancer, silicosis, suffering, strong men wasting away to nothing, and slow … Read More

Add comment      more in Theatre     |     posted Aug 4th, 2011 at 11:45am

This is Our Youth

Posted by Kathleen Renne in Fast Forward Fringe Blog

THIS IS OUR YOUTH

Alexandra Centre

 

August 2, 2011

 

If you’re looking for a gritty, angst-ridden piece of theatre, then This is Our Youth is the show to see.  It’s the grittiest, angstiest play I’ve seen at the Festival thus far and, because of its subject matter, feels like a more stereotypical Fringe show than some of the others on the bill.

 

The play focuses on a couple of young men living in New York City who hide their pain and family troubles in a haze of drugs and alcohol, trying to fool themselves they’ve got their shit together.  But they don’t.  Both come from rich families who are seriously messed up and one of the two, Warren, is haunted by the murder of his sister.

 

The action starts when Warren shows up at his swaggering, drug-dealing buddy … Read More

Add comment      more in Theatre     |     posted Aug 4th, 2011 at 11:40am

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