Amazing but true. A quick sidenote to Monster Theatre’s Erika The Red (my review is here). By a mind-exploding Fringe synchronicity, on Wednesday I saw improv virtuosos Gordon’s Big Bald Head, actually improvise on the Varscona Theatre stage (Stage 11) an entire production of Erika The Red, their own version of the Monster Theatre play, as part of The Art of the Steal, their annual undertaking to improvise, on the spot and in 60 minutes, any show in the Fringe program, chosen randomly.

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And amazingly, the trio of deluxe comic improvisers (Jacob Banigan, Mark Meer, Ron Pederson), actually embraced, impromptu on the spot, many of the same comic complications and themes of the original — the bloodlust for revenge, the problematic ethical complexities of (you know) pillaging and all that, gory death scenes on a bare stage, and even (hilariously) the language gap between the Celts and the Vikings. With added layers from Marvel. How do they do it? GBBH is one of those great Edmonton mysteries, unequalled anywhere: an astonishing achievement in concentration and smarts, and spontaneous literate wit.