Flying too near the sun: Scorch. A Fringe review

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Julie Niuboi Ferguson in Scorch, Blarney/ Bustle & Beast. Photo by Liam Mackenzie.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Scorch (Stage 28, The Playhouse)

This absorbing, moving little solo play, by the Irish writer Stacey Gregg, was inspired by a real U.K. court case in which a teenager was found guilty of “gender fraud” for starting a sexual relationship with a girl who thought she was a boy. And went to jail.

In Brenley Charkow’s production, a collaboration between Blarney Productions and Bustle & Beast, the stage is inhabited by a semi-circle of three life-sized translucent plastic people, lit from within. There are two empty chairs, and we’re there to complete the LBGTQ support circle. And there’s Kes.

We meet Kes (played by the trans non-binary performance artist Julie Niuboi Ferguson) as a funny, lively eight-year-old, preferring vests to dresses, trying to pee standing up like her bro. And she — who’s starting to feel like it’s pretending to even use that pronoun — takes us into the mind of Kes at 12, 13, 14. They’re the kid who’s disconcerted to wake up with boobs (“nobody asked me! Arghh, Alien!”), always choosing “dude” avatars in video games, having the hots for Ryan Gosling, in the more particular sense of wanting to be him.

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The online world, where “you can be whoever you want … “dude or mushroom,” is a liberation from the “real” world of assigned identity. “Everyone needs somewhere to live in capitals! says Kes. And that’s where Kes meets Jules, and a relationship starts: texting, then Skype, then a meeting, then more, and more.

The exhilaration of first love is captured, compellingly, in Ferguson’s performance. And then bewilderment and heartbreak, as the world, and the law, crash in, with terms like “sexual assault but penetration” and “fraud.” And the helping profession chips in “gender dysfunctional.”

True, Kes has never told Jules they’re not a boy. But for Kes, there’s a beautiful truth at work. “Jules said I lied to her. But I don’t think I did…. I’m not pretending.”

Scorch is all about gender identity, mixed signals, teenage first love. It’s a tribute to the life force, the against-the-odds something that’s unquenchable inside that’s all about joy. As Ferguson conveys, there’s a certain innocence about Kes, and a capacity for happiness in a hard world that cannot be suppressed. And at moments of extremity, they break into a wild, unclassifiable dance. 

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Surveillance and the modern corp: Contractions, a Fringe review

Posted on August 22, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

April Banigan and Kristi Hansen in Contractions. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Contractions (Stage 13, Old Strathcona Public Library)

What makes this chilling tightly-wound little Brit two-hander so horrifying is its smooth plausibility. At every step of the way, it sounds exactly like like the kind of corporate logic you hear when you step into an HR office.

Mike Bartlett’s play, originally written for radio in 2008 (the big economic downtown year), is all about the increased invasion of corporations into the private lives of their employees — with the ultimate leverage, their jobs.

You’d call it an absurdist fantasy, but is it? In a series of 14 “performance interviews,” an HR manager — played with supreme blandness and deadening professional calm by April Banigan in Tracy Carroll’s production — summons an employee (Kristi Hansen) in sales. Incrementally, step by step, the latter, and her personal life, even her sex life, become the property of the corp.

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It starts with the contract that calls for full disclosure of all personal connections between co-workers, for signs of “romantic” and “sexual” content. Emma is being monitored by the company,  always on the grounds of “safety and fair practice” or “relevant staff projections” or “a duty of care.” At every step, it’s more invasive. From questions about the dinner Emma shared with a colleague (“apparently, there was a candle on the table?”) to “how did you find the sex?.” And beyond, way beyond.

Emma is wary and hostile, even defiant, but up against it; she capitulates at every turn. She needs the job. And resistance is futile. “If we don’t have facts, we’ll go on assumptions,” warns the silky-voiced HR manager. And so the gradual ownership and humiliation of Emma continues apace, to lethal conclusions.

The pacing and the sinister looping of scenes in Carroll’s production are spot on. With her usual subtlety Hansen chronicles the incremental colonization of Emma from initial perplexity and seething resentment to acquiescence and beyond. And as the impervious manager of ill-named “human resources,” the smiling blank of bureaucracy to which no argument sticks, Banigan is simply terrifying.

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A gentle, playful musical folktale for little kids: Fossegrim & Nøkk, a guest 12thnight Fringe review by Todd Babiak

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Fossegrim & Nøkk (Stage 6, Strathcona Community League)

An adventurous little girl named Saga is burdened by an unadventurous mother. All Saga can do is sing to herself, at night, about the magical world outside her bedroom window.

Until a naughty fairy arrives to take her away. The fairy’s motivation is unclear but her destination is the dreamland of two siblings of the woods.

Fossegrim & Nøkk are the names of a magical brother and sister who happen to be looking for a girl like Saga, though they don’t agree on what they should do with her.

This is a small stage for four people but it’s part of the show’s success: there isn’t a moment of inaction. The performers are members of Alberta Opera, and they sing beautifully. But the songs don’t interrupt the flow of the story. They are tied into the rules of the universe and the logic of the play.

Based on a Scandianavian folk take, Fossegrim & Nøkk is a gentle, playful children’s show — best for kids under 10.

— Todd Babiak

 

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Answering the siren call: Atlas Theatre’s Sirens, a Fringe review

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Julien Arnold and Louise Lambert in Sirens, Atlas Theatre. Photo by Mat Busby.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Sirens (Stage 12, Varscona Theatre)

It is understandable if the prospect of a comedy about a middle-aged couple off on an anniversary cruise to revive their stale marriage fills you with a certain dread. Even if it’s a cruise to the Greek Isles, which of course enhances the lighting.

It’s not as if the theatre repertoire is starved for light-hearted predictable comedies about middle-aged couples reviving stale marriages — by camping (tragic, really), by purchasing vacation homes in the outback, by purchasing how-to-revive sex manuals, by bonding with other livelier couples, by play-acting as versions of their younger selves, by dancing to ABBA, etc. It is a baleful list.

Sirens, though, by the American playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer, sets itself apart in a number of heartening ways. And so does Kate Ryan’s well-acted Atlas Theatre production. For one thing, Greek mythology is involved. You may not have seen that coming from the title (c’mon, it could have signalled a comedy about table-dancers or the impending apocalypse). Anyhow, the Sirens, you may recall, are the brigade of Mediterranean temptresses whose job (as detailed in Homer’s Odyssey) is to sing so irresistibly that sailors are lured to their watery deaths just hearing it.

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There is one of those mysteriously lethal songstresses in Sirens. And she’s pretty funny, especially since Louise Lambert is playing her and she has a smart phone from the gods. In addition to her shift work luring men to their deaths, the Siren spends her time playing Solitaire (her stats are very high) on her “little magic box” from the gods. Death? Whatever, and your problem is…? Batteries are the problem.

Back to the couple. Simon (Julien Arnold) is a song-writer who hasn’t had a hit after his first, 25 years ago, inspired by mad pash for Rose. He’s looking for inspiration from Facebook friends, who tend to be young and female. The tart-tongued Rose (Stephanie Wolfe) is having trouble getting his full attention. Are their “thrilling” days over?

Hence the cruise (and the pert ministrations of a travel agent, also played by Lambert). And it has to be special “I did not put up with you for 25 years to go to the Jersey Shore,” says Rose. Anyhow Arnold and Wolfe have an easy, convincing rapport, and, as possessors of first-rate comic timing, a convincing rapport as well with the lines. They’re real pros, and it’s fun to see their dexterity in Ryan’s production.

There are playful sitcom developments — let’s not call them obstacles because that would imply surprise — both in Greece and back in New York. And Mat Busby has a very funny cameo as a guy from high school Rose contacts back home. He gets mixed signals; the way he says” “ Long Island” is a corker, and should be X-rated. 

 

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“Ludicrously entertaining” and at the heart of Fringehood: Gordon’s Big Bald Head, a guest 12thnight Fringe review by Todd Babiak

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Gordon’s Big Bald Head: New World Hors d’oeuvres. Photo supplied

Gordon’s Big Bald Head: New World Hors d’oeuvres (Stage 12, Nordic Studio Theatre)

It’s mysterious why Edmonton and its promotional machines have not sold the Fringe Festival more passionately outside the city’s borders. This local invention is the biggest and baddest on the continent, yet it still feels as small and strange and dirty as ever: a perfect expression of what the city and its people do best.

Word-of-mouth is cheaper, of course, and in recent years it has worked. Our basement is crammed with visitors every year, and the one show I always insist on, for first-timers, is Gordon’s Big Bald Head.

This is not news to anyone who has ever been to the Edmonton Fringe. Nearly every performance sells out, for good reason. One of the city’s finest cultural outputs is the professional improviser and here we have three of them.

Mark Meer and Jacob Banigan perform around the world. The third member in their crew, Chris Craddock, has been replaced this year by the brilliant Ron Pederson — another Edmontonian who has been discovered by global audiences.

None of the genius of the show has been lost with the personnel change. As always, they choose a Fringe show at random, read the description, and improvise it.

Is it different? Yes, it is. The good new is: it’s still the ludicrously entertaining Gordon’s Big Bald Head.

— Todd Babiak

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The fun of deduction in the theatre: 2 Sherlock Holmes Mysteries, a guest 12thnight Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

2 Sherlock Holmes Mysteries (Stage 14, Holy Trinity Anglican Church)

2 Sherlock Homes Mysteries. Program graphic.

Don’t want to be a grouch, but among other things, the Fringe is supposed to be a theatre festival, remember?

And sometimes it’s more than satisfying to simply witness a couple of seasoned pros stand on an all-but-bare stage with only two chairs and well… act, having chosen wonderful stories to tell.

That’s what’s on tap here as John D. Huston and Kenneth Brown have adapted for the stage Arthur Conan Doyle’s personal top two (look it up) favourite Sherlock stories – The Adventures of the Speckled Bird and The Redheaded League.

It’s a kick to watch the two do it with such skill and good humour, “shamelessly” switching roles, adding their own human soundscape, tossing off a variety of UK accents from plummy to Eastend to Welsh with complete aplomb and throwing in a few jokes for good measure. Of course the stories are fabulous, and among the liveliest of the canon. The packed house and your correspondent loved it, which won’t require much of a deduction.

BTW, if you haven’t noticed, handsome Holy Trinity Church has a sweet little drinks tent (after 6 p.m.) with a food truck in its charming garden. It’s a calm place to chill from one too many jugglers and beer tent critics.

– Alan Kellogg

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Violent, sexy, shocking (and fun): Macbeth Muet, a Fringe review

Posted on August 21, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Jérémie Francoeur in Macbeth Muet, La Fille du Laitier. Photo supplied.

By Liz Nicholls, 12thnight.ca

Macbeth Muet (Stage 9, Telus Phone Museum)

Imaginative, ingenious, startlingly powerful: that’s the high-impact 50-minute version of Shakespeare’s Macbeth delivered to us by Montreal’s La Fille du Laitier.

In one way Macbeth Muet (mute), the co-creation of Jon Lachlan Stewart (who directs) and Marie Hélène Bélanger, is playfully, cleverly, minimalist. Two resourceful, physically eloquent actors (Jérémie Francoeur and Clara Prévost) with chalky faces preside over a long white table. And they create the players and the violent action of Shakespeare’s swift and bloody tragedy from an assortment of simple household objects: table-cloth, knives, Styrofoam cups and plates, playing cards, oven mitts, a line drawing of a crown on a piece of paper, their own scrabbling fingers. And eggs, lots of eggs.

And it dispenses with Shakespeare’s words altogether.

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In another way, though, Macbeth Muet is surprisingly ample. It’s brutal, violent, and sexy. The production actually does mayhem, viscerally; it doesn’t just report the aftermath of mayhem. And, weirdly, it’s emotionally fulsome in a way you rarely see in Macbeth. The idea of falling in love and sex and families and children — the Macbeths, the Banquos, the Macduffs — gets special attention (and a series of “prologues” interspersed throughout).

The eggs: In Macbeth Muet, the violent brutality is imagined back to the thought, played out, that the Macbeths have been changed, forever, by their own tragic loss of children. As the ex-war hero and his wife opt for a murderous campaign to get their mitts on the crown and keep it, more eggs meet terrible ends. The horror and the heartbreak of it will stop you in your tracks in ways you can’t anticipate.

It’s a messy show; gore splatters over the actors, the table, the screen at the back. In a ritual at the outset, Prévost and Francoeur assist each other into white fitted barber smocks (à la Sweeney Todd).

It’s an inventive kind of found-object puppetry, and the human agency of it is the point. Macbeth’s BFF Banquo is a paper plate with black eyes (his son is a small dessert-plate size version). The stalwart Macduff is a hockey glove, and his wife is an oven mitt. And those eggs….

It all begins with the witches, folded-up black paper, and a haunting — assisted materially by the lighting and the shadow play on the screen.  And the banquet scene in which Banquo’s ghost appears and unnerves the assassin king, who is gradually reducing himself to mindless barbarism, has its own ingenuity, too.

You won’t be able to take your eyes off Macbeth Muet. Or your ears. It may be wordless but it’s not soundless. Lachlan Stewart’s rich sound design samples widely, and wittily, from pop and rock, vintage and modern jazz, be-bop, ragtime, musical theatre, dissonant classical riffs — all precisely timed to the high-speed volley of events and mood changes.

Macbeth Muet is a big, juicey theatrical experience in a tiny package. Exactly what the Fringe, at its best, is for. Take advantage. Don’t miss.

 

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What is theatre all about? Stephanie Morin-Robert Performance Society: Bushel and Peck, a guest 12thnight review by Todd Babiak

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Stephanie Morin-Robert and Alastair Knowles in Bushel and Peck. Photo by Thadeus Hink

Stephanie Morin-Robert Performance Society: Bushel and Peck (Stage 4, Academy at King Edward)

Audiences can be so demanding. Before a piece of perfectly absurd performance art you can almost smell the question roasting in their brains: “What does it mean?”

It would be uncharitable to call Bushel and Peck meaninglessness. It is, instead, a funny and winning and kooky search for meaning in a world — even a theatre tradition — that makes meaning too easy.

Or something.

To describe Bushel and Peck too rigorously would ruin its charm. Stephanie Morin-Robert and Alastair Knowles are Fringe stars who push themselves, in Bushel and Peck, to the fringes of the festival with a good, unanswerable question: what is theatre all about?

They take it apart in inventive costumes, with playful use of sound and light, with a script flying everywhere, with Muppet voices, small appliances, and a hunk of plywood that deserves an award for “prop of the festival.”

Now that we are a few days and, hopefully, several shows into the festival, Bushel and Peck is a refreshing slice of pickled ginger between heavy slabs of theatrical sushi, a reminder of what we’re all here for.

— Todd Babiak

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“Peculiar and unusual beauty”: a unique “multi-threat talent” strikes again in Balls of Yarns. A guest 12thnight Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Paul Strickland in Balls of Yarns. Photo by Dan R. Winters

Balls of Yarns (Stage 2, Backstage Theatre)

Rummaging through my Fringe-necessary man-purse, I happened upon a small piece of blue yarn. I was about to huck it in my ever-bulging waste paper basket, when I stopped. It’s now safely draped over my favourite desk thing, a Talavera pencil case I bought in México.

I may never move it.

Because, you see, it will forever remind me of this wondrous solo performance piece by Paul Strickland. The piece of yarn was handed out to each audience member in a packed theatre before the show as “the press kit.” If that strikes you as odd and intriguing, even endearing, press on. As he said in a cheery aside to a patron early into the story, “it’s going to get a lot weirder.”

True, and this is a good thing.  The central story — among many, over an hour that flew by – involves visiting a strange town. This is a place where hotel guests can engage in spirited two-way dialogue (and duet) with a creaky door, peruse the fun house mirrors resting against trees in the park, sample the delights and denizens like 3-Tooth Tony at Patsy’s Perspective diner, and most importantly, sort out the differences between the library and “truth-braries.” Birds are in the mix, too. There are these balls of yarn on the shelves, you see, and when connected to a tin can listening device spin amazing (!) — believe it — stories.

And while there are plenty of laughs here, there is also a sinister presence you can’t quite can’t get your metaphorical knitting needle on, which deepens the broth.

Strickland, an über-sympathetic figure onstage, lives in Covington, Kentucky, a suburb of Cincinnati at the confluence of the Ohio and (yes) Licking rivers. He’s a multi-threat talent who has become a multi-kudo’ed Fringe tour favourite of late. The storytelling — call it what you will, but it’s artful, funny and moving — is enlivened by skilled guitar fills and vocals. We’re even treated to a self-effacing dream ballet sequence.

There’s no one out there (a small joke for those who have seen the show) like Strickland. The only comparison I could summon was (very) early Biff Rose in live performance, before he ran off the rails.

The word is out. Balls of Yarns is a hit and deserves to be. If you are prepared to appreciate “peculiar and unusual beauty” — and why not? — snap up your tickets now.

–Alan Kellogg

 

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Touching and tuneful: Sweethearts of the 49th, a guest 12thnight Fringe review by Alan Kellogg

Posted on August 20, 2018 by Liz Nicholls

Sweethearts of the 49th by Andrea House, Stardust Players. Photo supplied.

Sweethearts of the 49th  (Stage 39, CKUA Performance Space, Jasper Ave. downtown Edmonton)

With a provenance including the bright lights Andrea House (playwright), Davina Stewart (director) and Erik Mortimer (musical director) the chances are excellent that a smart and entertaining production will follow.

Proof positive is this touching, tuneful story set in Lethbridge, 1943.

Joanne’s (Gianna Read-Skelton) father, owner of radio station CIRK, has been taken off to hospital with heart attack symptoms. It’s up to the young daughter and her vocalizing pals Pixie (Madelaine Knight) and Lacey (Etta George House) to keep the station broadcasting. Avoiding “dead air” is no easy task though, since the trio hasn’t a clue what to do and CIRK’s programming resources are wartime meagre.

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Enter a talented stranger named Maxine (Michelle Diaz) and everything changes. For the better. The Girls Next Door, a shaky  vocal trio, morphs into a solid quartet. And Maxine (an homage to an Andrews sister perhaps?) is also a clever and enterprising dynamo who discovers other materials at hand, including a radio play script. All is well.

Ah, but of course it isn’t. There are secrets here, large and small, revealed slowly to us.  Among other intrigues, we are confronted with Canada’s dark Second World War past regarding the shameful internment of Japanese-Canadians and — rarely explored — the very real grief-borne passions that inspired it.

Interspersed with the drama are a variety of well-executed period hits, including the likes of At Last, Straighten Up and Fly Right, Buffalo Gals and This Little Light of Mine. I confess to a tear or two witnessing Joanne’s lovely reading of I’ll Be Seeing You.

As you might expect from these pros, everything is properly in place here, from sensible direction and solid performances to costumes, set and house (small joke) sound and design. Too bad the otherwise decent performance space is downtown and sunlit, but what can you do? For, seeing this worthy effort at CKUA makes a great of cosmic sense given its proud, pioneering history.

– Alan Kellogg

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