By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

At the Varscona Theatre (aka BYOV stage 11), an intriguing lineup of five Fringe shows are held over Aug. 29 to 31.

The Cabin on Bald Dune, the only one of the five I’ve seen, is a dexterous multi-layered thriller embedded in a comedy, by the exciting young playwright Jezec Sanders. April Banigan’s cunningly calibrated production stars Kristi Hansen and Jenny McKillop, as old friends — or are they? — who meet up on an isolated island to plan a restaurant business venture. Are they answering the siren call of profit, or is something subtler, more mysterious at work? Check out the 12thnight review.

NextGen Theatre’s revival of the haunting 1998 Trevor Schmidt play Tales From The Hospital, originally produced by The Unconscious Collective, looks at the lives of two patients and two staff members in an Alberta mental health hospital in the ‘60s. Two members of the original cast, Elizabeth Allison-Jorde and Linda Grass, are in this cast 25 years later, along with two younger actors, Janelle Jorde and Sophie May Healey. It’s been selling out its houses all Fringe.

Multi-Vs is an original produced by the Vancouver company Affair of Honor, devoted to fight- and movement-based theatre. And this is rare: the combat is all-female, in a story of two strangers hurling themselves through time, space, and universes.

Alec Jones-Trujillo in Old God, Edmonton Fringe 2023. Photo supplied.

Old God, a solo clown show starring Las Vegas’s Alec Jones-Trujillo, an eerie chalky-faced clown is billed enigmatically as “pantomime performed alongside improvisational feats of language.” By all reports he engages and interacts with the audience in entirely original ways.

Big Business, the only solo clown show at the Fringe (to my knowledge) starring a nimble clown in a business suit, stars Lee Boyes. Christine Lesiak a notable clown herself (For Science!) directs.

Full schedule of performances, and tickets: varsconatheatre.com.