Canadian history in motion: The Flying Detective, a guest Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

The Flying Detective, Accidental Humour Co. at Edmonton Fringe 2019.

The Flying Detective (Venue 1, Westbury Theatre)

By Alan Kellogg

If there is a downside to Fringelandia, it is that economics, time and generally good sense militate against staging lavish productions, although inventive set design can spring from the most modest materials.

Well, thanks to the producing Edson & District Historical Society and a long list of sponsors, here is a bona fide production directed by Taylor Chadwick and worthy of any mainline professional regional theatre company season — complete with exceptional filmed sequences and impressive (!) props. In the latter case, I’ll leave it to you to witness the showstopper, a local take on Miss Saigon, if you will.

Yes, the provenance here might indicate to some a 90-minute of turgid, if well-intentioned, good-for-you CanLit historical fiction. But the good news here is that Brent Felzien’s The Flying Detective, if based on a true local story (with embellishments) is a lot of fun, and very easy on the eyes and spirit.

It involves the 1919 murder of an Edmonton constable, and the pursuit of his killer by an obsessed, dour Socttish-Canadian detective, one James Campbell (Cody Porter). In the trek to Edson, he’s joined by the celebrated war hero and aviation pioneer Wilfred “Wop” May (William Banfield) who is about to revolutionize transportation in Western Canada.

We’re engaged with the chase to find the grizzled killer, who escapes for a time before he meets his destiny. The filmed visuals are terrific.

Yep, there are some glitches here, in dialogue, story exposition and performance, although Porter and Banfield acquit themselves well enough. That said, the packed Westbury crowd stood up as one at the end, which only goes to prove that Canadian history delivered by the right hands can be a well-loved story worth telling.

 

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Theatre beyond words and the imaginative allure of ragmop theatre: A Can of Worms, a guest Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

A Can of Worms, Ragmop Theatre at Edmonton Fringe 2019.

A Can Of Worms (Venue 37, Auditorium at Campus Saint-Jean)

By Alan Kellogg

Here is Vancouver’s ragmop theatre – aka Nayana Fielkov and Matthew “Poki” McCorkle — returning to the Edmonton Fringe in a brand new work that will strengthen their strong catalogue including hit shows Falling Awake and the peerless Hotel Vortruba, which has happily also been reprised here this year.

The lights dim as a wormlike creature slithers out from underneath a white tablecloth, making disgusting and hilarious sounds, gradually morphing into a rather attractive dinner companion for a gent who looks a bit like an early John Phillips, for the boomers among you.

This develops into the most extraordinary series of vignettes that combine the duo’s estimable chops in a variety of wordless disciplines, from physical comedy to close magic and well beyond, with a playlist that stretches from Jobim to Ave Maria.

Here are the pieces a bit too strange for the Disneyfied post-Guy Laliberté Cirque de Soleil to perform, but should. There is nothing remotely like this act at the Fringe – a true find and cunning raison d’être for the festival.

We don’t do stars here for very sensible reasons. If we did, here is more 5-star product from one of the country’s most imaginative incubators of genuine theatre art. Don’t miss one of these.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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And the dinos sing and dance: Triassic Parq, a guest 12thnight Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Triassic Parq, at Edmonton Fringe 2019. Photo supplied.

Triassic Parq (Venue 17, the Roxy on Gateway)

By Alan Kellogg

Among other winning attributes, the Edmonton Fringe affords audiences the chance to witness previously produced shows unlikely to be staged here during the regular theatre season (if there is one any more).

Appropriately enough, this ribald (!) musical was first hatched at the 2010 New York Fringe, where it picked up a best musical award. Things didn’t go so well when, tweaked a bit, it moved on to Off-Broadway, and while taking nothing away from this production, you can see why.

The premise is very tempting –  that is, a take on Jurassic Park from the dinosaurs’ POV. In  fact, it’s both more and less of that intriguing set-up. More, and even more timely than at its creation, given the issues of gender identity that loom so large today. Less, in that the notion of the dinosaurs’ perspective on things (if you buy in) isn’t really addressed here in its potential fullness, whether silly or serious.

To wit: this theme park on an island off the coast of Costa Rica showcases a pen — surrounded by electric fences — of mostly laboratory-created (The Lab as God) female dinosaurs, who have invented a singular society. That small world is overturned when TRex 2 (Alyson Horne) one of the inmates, sprouts a penis. Chaos ensues, as they say. The people on the outside are armed.

It’s all a bit much, and I have to say years of analysis have failed me in taking balloon male appendages seriously. Or comically, if that’s the idea. That said, there is real talent on the stage (kudos for the live band!)  and while the book is weak-ish, there are some quite likeable songs here, matched by strong individual performances and ensemble work. Velociraptor of Innocence Mark Sinongco’s vocals were particularly impressive, and he wasn’t alone.

The packed audience loved it. It’s been a good year in Canada for raptors.

 

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We are all predators: The Trophy Hunt, a Fringe review.

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Elena Porter and Graham Mothersill in The Trophy Hunt, Broken Toys Theatre. Edmonton Fringe 2019

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

The Trophy Hunt (Stage 17, Roxy on Gateway)

Life is a safari. Tracking, stalking, embracing the thrill of danger to go in for the kill … this new play, a very odd triptych of monologues by Trina Davies, seems to want to locate the multi-dimensions of the hunt in frequencies built into human nature. I say “seems” because, I must admit, I don’t quite get it.

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The play extrapolates from the case of Cecil, a magnificent Zimbabwe lion killed by an American trophy hunter dentist, with ensuing international outcry.

The powerfully acted Broken Toys production directed by Clinton Carew is the third in a series of premieres by different companies at five Fringes across the country this summer. The production opens with a choreographed sequence that brings together the three characters — as we learn a hunter, a guide, and an exotic local — in a sort of dance of death.

We meet first the outsider. Graham Mothersill is a bitter American (by his accent from the South) who’s paid big bucks to cross the world and bag a lion. The hunter has ended up being stalked (“tracked through the Web!”) and trapped himself by global public outrage. He blames the guide. “How was I supposed to know it was a local hero?” he says, reduced to a hysterical state somewhere between laughter and tears. “I should have checked Trip Advisor….”

There is, evidently, such a thing as bad publicity. From behind the bars of another kind of zoo, he airs his grievances about the “bogus trial” and its aftermath.

Next we meet a world-weary, practical local guide, played by Natasha Napoleao. She has grievances of her own about her chosen line of work, and “the assholes” who pay her handsomely for “the experience of a lifetime.” She has to guarantee a convincing illusion of danger, and a kill. 

And what of the lions themselves? The third character, played with seductive feline languor by Elena Porter is a local, who operates on the principle that “I’m never going to be hungry again.” She talks about karma, and exudes a kind of velvet determination.

The performances are boldly set forth, and very watchable. But I couldn’t quite get past the obvious  — the distasteful contradictions built into trophy hunting — into something more involving and dimensional. The hunter’s argument that everything and everyone dies anyhow is so specious. So is the guide’s point about an industry in poor places built on selling death and blood-letting to well-heeled people from somewhere else. The most interesting character, carnivorous and amused and, I guess, doomed, is the last. 

The play is over before you know it.      

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Touring Moscow with the Devil. The Master & Margarita: The Remix, a Fringe review.

Posted on August 18, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Jennifer Faulkner and Teague M. Parker in The Master and Margarita: the remix, theatre simple at Edmonton Fringe 2019. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

The Master & Margarita: the remix (Stage 35, La Cité francophone theatre)

It can’t possibly be by coincidence that Seattle’s theatre simple has returned after 22 years to their vivid stage version of The Master & Margarita, the vast underground ‘30s novel by the Russian renegade Mikhail Bulgakov.

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After all it’s a new adrenalized age of improbability and craziness in the world; it’s harder than ever to separate the mad and the sane, hallucination from reality. And the forces of orthodoxy that banned the novel right through the ‘60s seem to be re-gaining traction. The moment is right for “the remix.”

Bulgakov’s satire is a phantasmagorical whirl, backwards and forwards at speed, through the Moscow of the ‘30s, its asylums and its writers’ guild salons, its fancy balls and burlesque cabarets. The Devil (Monique Kleinhans as the  mysteriously worldly foreign Professor Woland) has showed up in Moscow to assess  whether Stalinism has fundamentally changed human nature. He’s also there to recruit a hostess for his annual Devil’s Ball; the distinguished guest list includes the murderous likes of Lucrezia Borgia, Lizzie Borden, Caligula.

The Master (Teague M. Parker) has been working on a novel about Pontius Pilate; Llysa Holland conjures the latter as a world-weary, exasperated sort whose job is giving him a headache. The Master’s muse, the lovely Margarita (Jennifer Faulkner), becomes invisible, and flies through the air, naked, to the devil’s big bash. A poet (Nathan Brockett) goes mad, leaps naked into the river and gets taken to an asylum. A magical talking black cat performs at a cabaret. There are crucifixions and beheadings. Heaven and hell get discussed; side trips are arranged. Never let it be said there’s nothing to do in Moscow; it’s busy. 

The low-budget theatrical stage savvy of the troupe propels a dexterous five-actor ensemble (along with two real live onstage musicians armed with an original score) through three intersecting story lines, and populates them with three dozen-plus characters (and minimal exposition).

There’s stagecraft to match. And it still strikes me, after all these years, as pure Fringe. Zippered elastic screens open and get reconfigured. Characters are thrust forward or yanked back through the openings, to emerge transformed. In nightmares heads bulge through the walls and become skulls; shadows flickers behind them. Lamp posts get tilted and carried, to change the scene. The action almost never pauses. 

The story is intricate to the point of chaos, and there are moments when the scrambling loses the narrative. But the storytelling has the kind of theatrical liveliness that rewards ingenuity. That’s what the Fringe is for.

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A clown in the gender war: Larry. A Fringe review.

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Candice Roberts in Larry. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Larry (Stage 36, La Cité Auditorium)

Larry is one of those shows that will make you laugh, out loud and often, for reasons that you will never be able to quite explain to others. Or even to yourself.

Larry, the title dude from Moose Creek B.C., is the centrepiece of this solo comedy by and starring the fearless Candice Roberts. And, honestly, if anyone had told me I’d be using the term “riotous” for a satire of the old-school macho dude-ism Larry embodies so fully — a target you’d think would be officially well past its best-before date — I’d have smiled ironically. OK, I’d have thought about using the word “trope” (but, hey, resisted since it’s so pseud-y).

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At the Fringe, clown shows come in every size and shape, with or without the proverbial red nose. Even by these elastic clown standards, Larry is an outsider, looking in at the artsy world of showbiz. “How hard can it be to do a show?” he wonders, wading in with a cheerful audience participation demo of headbanging “to start things off right.…”

“Holy shit, the sound guy’s a girl.… Hey sweetie, want me to show you how to press PLAY?”

Call me crazy, and maybe it’s the frankly fake beard, but there is something about Roberts’ performance that is very funny. She’s a highly skilled physical comedian, and, as you’ll see in the course of Larry, her bravery is virtually unlimited. The portrait she creates is not exactly affectionate, of course. But it recognizes and savours absurdity, and a kind of dumb-ass innocence, in Larry’s zest to engage.

Larry has caught glimmerings of the notion of self-improvement. To attract the approbation of  a smart, cool, artsy lady he feels is clearly out of his league, he’s willing to consider change — a big risk for a guy whose focus on his penis is, well, fierce. He’s given up drinking (everything but beer); he airs his political views (perhaps surprisingly he’s anti-Trump). He’s eager to share: “who here is fucked up?” He’s moved to pick up a guitar, and have a go.

Meditating, and Larry’s discovery of the feminine principle, will have a startling effect on him. The dramatic moment that his mind is blown actually is actually touching. As the man himself would say “I kid you not.”

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They do! Chase and Christina tie the knot, in a Fringe show

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Chase Padgett and Christina Garies, in Chase Padgett Gets Married, at Edmonton Fringe 2019.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

It’s a love story for the ages. They met at the Fringe after the late-night cabaret. On Aug. 23 2017, “I yelled at him outside Steel Wheels,” says Christina Garies of her fiancé Chase Padgett (Chase Padgett: Heart Attacks And Other Blessings, Six Guitars, Nashville Hurricane).

Exactly one year later, Aug. 23, 2018, “in exactly the same spot,” Chase Padgett proposed to Christina Garies.

On Aug. 23, 2019, at 8:30 p.m., Chase Padgett and Christina Garies are getting married at the Fringe, in the Garneau Theatre (Stage 20). Their wedding is a Fringe show, Chase Padgett Gets Married, and (no pressure) it runs for one night only. Of course it does. It’s a wedding, for gawd’s sake.  

You don’t need to buy them a blender (my go-to all-ages vegetarian-supportive wedding present), check out the bridal registry for their cutlery pattern, or get blotto with a bridesmaid. But you do need to have a ticket.

No wonder Garies is in speed-up mode. She’s pulled the plug on her NGO job. Her lease is up at the end of the month, so she’s packing up her Edmonton apartment to move to Vancouver. 

This “pre-honeymoon summer” Garies has already driven from Padgett’s home turf in Florida (“Chase showed me his high school in Naples”) and the Orlando Fringe back to Canada, and then from Edmonton to Winnipeg for Padgett’s “other” Fringe show, the one that includes him getting a heart attack whilst performing on a cruise ship. “Vancouver (Washington) is our ‘purgatory’ until my visa comes through.”

You see what can happen when the question “wouldn’t it be funny if…?” floats through the air — and, like Garies, who’s a long-time Rapid Fire Theatre improv fan, you’re very apt to say Yes! to promising comic suggestions. Heavens, you could find yourself directing and producing your own wedding. And the flowers, the pedicure and the right underwear for your dress will be the least of your problems, way down the list from getting the posters printed.

Romance, as we all know, is a delicate cosmic arrangement of near-misses, as the ebullient and good-natured Garies concedes. “We met at a not-good time for either one of us,” she says. “I was unavailable. He was not ready to date…. But it was only a matter of time.” The universe, for example, had to cough up a BYOV. Does BYOV really mean Bring Your Own Vows?

There are four flower girls. One is an adult. “She just wanted to be one,” says Garie of her friend Beatrice. It didn’t even occur to Garies to demur.     

The wedding entertainment features Padgett and Garies’ friends, some of the Fringe’s most dexterous and accomplished performers, They’ve very connected: God will host (as Garies points out, “it’s only right”). The MC is Mike Delamont, of God Is A Scottish Drag Queen fame (in fact, his show God Is A Scottish Drag Queen VI happens at the Garneau post-wedding at 11:15 p.m.). The cabaret after the ceremony features such Fringe stars as Christine Lesiak and Ian Walker of Here’s To Science, the sketch comedy duo Marv n’ Berry. “Chase’s Auntie Ann, who used to be a lounge singer, will sing something.”

“Six minutes of vows, then a cabaret,” says Garies cheerfully. “And all our friends get to be part of it…. Very silly and very us. But I’m still getting full bridal stress.” She permits herself a sigh.   

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“Do you know who I am?”: 13 Dead Dreams of “Eugene,” a Fringe review

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

13 Dead Dreams of “Eugene” at Edmonton Fringe 2019.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

13 Dead Dreams of “Eugene” (Stage 1, Westbury Theatre)

The story that spawned 13 Dead Dreams of “Eugene” is downright unnerving. A man is found dead in a ditch in small-town Ohio; his unidentified unburied corpse is then put on display — for 35 years. And — this pretty much defines creepy — the townspeople find themselves sharing recurring bad dreams.

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What gives this cool this little ghost story its extra shiver of unease is that it’s true. Paul Strickland and Erika Kate MacDonald, confidential and persuasive Cincinnati-based story-spinners (witness Balls of Yarn, Evacuated, Papa Squat), have the vintage documentary evidence from local newspapers and a locked archive to back them up.

Can an entire town be haunted? And what of the haunt-er — the ghost who haunts them, and infiltrates their nights with his pleas to solve the great mystery of his identity? “Who am I?” wonders an eerie amplified voice, over and over. The body the ghost has exited has died alone, unclaimed by friends or family. 

What enhances the quivery reverb of the story is the theatrical way Strickland and MacDonald set the tale forth. It’s artful, but it’s ingeniously low-tech. The illusion of something homespun gives the show credentials in reality. Shadows flicker, both the human and the puppet kind. The performers, who sing from time to time, are stalked by elongated shadow versions of themselves. The songs are spooky and smart.

The lighting is from hand-held, improvised sources — flashlights, lightbulbs. And the imagery lingers in the mind. Thousands of moths swarm out of an old suitcase. A bullet wound lights up inside a body. Moonlight shines through the holes in the ceiling of a derelict theatre. Tears collect in a glass. Severed skulls become whistles in the wind.

Dreams, after all, are contagious. The mind sees to that. Get a grip. Just saying.   

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A winning homage to one of the greats: Coat of Many Colours, a guest Fringe review by Marc Horton

Posted on August 17, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Gianna Read-Skelton and Andrea House in Coat of Many Colours. Photo supplied

Coat of Many Colours (Stage 41, CKUA Performance Space)

By Marc Horton

In country music there’s Patsy and Loretta, Emmylou and Reba, Kitty and Skeeter, Naomi and Winonna, Tammy, Shania and Trisha.

Fans are on a first-name basis with them all: they know the names of husbands, moms, dads, kids, lovers. They know hometowns, albums, band members, record sales, tour dates. They know song lyrics by the wagonload.

But there is only one Dolly, the magnificent, inspired, funny, brilliant, bewigged country singer with the tumbling cascade of blonde hair and the figure that redefines ”hourglass.” (She’s cleverly self-deprecating too, and once happily confessed, “It’s expensive to look this cheap.”)

You can also add “mysterious” to the list of adjectives that apply to Dolly Parton, one of the greatest songwriters in any genre, anytime and anywhere. Other than the barest of facts —  no kids, a hubby named Carl in a marriage that’s lasted five decades and counting — people know very, very little about Dolly, and it’s clear she likes it that way.

I suspect, however, a playwright is presented with some unique challenges when putting together a show celebrating the genius of a woman who is so guarded. It is a challenge happily met and overcome by actor/singer/playwright Andrea House in Coat of Many Colours, her winning and wonderful homage to Dolly Parton and her long, celebrated career as country star and crossover hitmaker.

And although House and fellow vocalist Gianna Read-Skelton don blonde wigs, this is by no means an impersonation. It is a tribute show, pure and simple, but with crystal clear harmonies from these two superb singers who know they have struck gold with the songs of Dolly Parton. If personal details are scarce, there is always the music, heartfelt and often tender at times, edgy and confrontational at others.

In its own way, it is revealing. In its own smart way, it is enough.

We learn of Dolly’s profound affection for her home state when House and Read-Skelton blend their powerful voices in Tennessee Homesick Blues. We understand heartache with the ballad Jolene, where a wronged woman pleads with another that she leave her man alone. Lifelong yearning is made clear in I Will Always Love You, written by Dolly after she left the Porter Wagoner Show, a television production that lasted an astonishing 19 seasons.

And I have always felt that 9 to 5, a song that earned Dolly an Oscar nomination, is one of the greatest working class songs ever written.

But call me a sap, Coat of Many Colours always gets me. Always. Every time. House and Read-Skelton got me again with their outstanding take on this unforgettable song about a mother’s love for her daughter, a daughter’s love for her mother and the pain of crushing poverty. It’s also autobiographical.

A word here, too, about the back-up players. Mitch Watkins, a Texan who played guitar in Lyle Lovett’s band for over a decade and also played with the likes of Leonard Cohen, Jerry Jeff Walker and K.T. Oslin, joins Harley Symington, resident guitarist at the Mayfield Theatre, and composer/improviser Erik Mortimer on piano. They are flawless.

— Marc Horton was a long time film reviewer and books editor at the Edmonton Journal. He first saw Dolly Parton in the old Edmonton Gardens in the early ‘70s. He was initially bewitched by the wig and the figure but when she opened her mouth to sing, a lifelong fan was born.

 

 

 

 

 

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A brilliant solo tour de force: Fear and Loathing and Lovecraft. A guest Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 16, 2019 by Liz Nicholls

Fear and Loathing and Lovecraft, starring Mark Meer as everyone. Rapid Fire Theatre at Edmonton Fringe 2019

By Alan Kellogg

Fear and Loathing and Lovecraft (Stage 13 (Old Strathcona Public Library)

If there is a Fringe godhead, surely Mark Meer and P.J. Dawe are part of it, floating somewhere in the ether. Or perhaps….below, somewhere, in this telling.

Master monologist Dawe directs the always-estimable multi-threat Meer in Meer’s solo tour-de-force/adaptation of The Damned Highway: Fear and Loathing in Arkham. Here, authors Brian Keene (The Rising) and Nick Mamatas imagined a 1972 cross-country journey from Colorado to Massachusetts mingling the gonzo-ness of Hunter S. Thompson and Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

Along the way, via Meer’s peerless chops, you’ll experience the likes of “Jack Kirby” LSD, bags of magic ‘shrooms, cases of Wild Turkey and handguns, men in fezs at a literally wired-up Committee to Re-Elect the President meeting (CREEP – true!), a discourse on the pineal gland, scary tentacles, Richard Nixon himself and J. Edgar Hoover, too – not to mention a brain-exchanging apparatus.

It’s all very entertaining, occasionally hilarious, occasionally scary and while we’re at it – very much a story for our time —  vividly told by a master.

 

 

 

 

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