There are three important rules that all fringegoers should remember: (i) If you’re not a performer or producer, assume no one will talk to you at the beer tent; (ii) Never willingly buy a ticket to a show about a fatal skin disease; and (iii) Never, ever ask
Derrick Chua how many show’s he’s seen. The answer will make you feel very small indeed.
I bumped into Chua at the Factory Theatre on Monday, after a performance of one of the shows he produced, the very enjoyable
Nursery School Musical. Chua (who’s also the president of the Fringe's board of directors) told me he'd been to about twenty to thirty performances so far. My number was far less impressive, and I wilted flaccidly into the corner like
Richard Ouzounian in the back row of a Theatre Passe Muraille play. I had to catch up – and fast.
Well, so far, so consistently quite good. I’ve yet to see any real humdingers, though I have seen several excellent performances, albeit in not-quite-outstanding productions. Some of the venues aren't so hot, though. This year, I was assigned by my editors at EYE WEEKLY
to review all the shows at St Vladimir’s on Spadina. It’s a weird joint. For a theatre, St Vladimir's would make a terrific factory floor. There's just no atmosphere there.
Nevertheless, lack-of-atmosphere or otherwise, I did see one very impressive performance at St Vlad’s:
Scott Sharplin in
Inferno Sonata, a show about the nervous breakdown of playwright August Strindberg. Sharplin camps it up like
Cesar Romero in the old
Batman TV series, all shrieks and giggles and sudden movements – but there's a method to his madness. It's overacting, for sure, but unlike a lot of the
grand guignol poseurs at the Fringe, his over-the-topness actually seemed appropriate to the character and script, which Sharplin based on Strindberg’s journals. (Strindberg, who was fascinated with the secrets of alchemy, sounds like a bit of a Batman villain himself.)
Word of mouth at the festival seems to be focused on a number of different shows, rather than one specific must-see. (So far,
Now magazine
hasn’t given a
single five-star rating; over here at EYE WEEKLY, we’ve been a
little sluttier with our stars, giving our top rating to 13 productions.) There’s certainly buzz around
Kate Hewlett’s relationship comedy
The Swearing Jar – which I haven’t seen yet – and I’ve heard a lot of people recommend
Gemma Wilcox’s solo show
The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over. The omnipresent
Uncalled For improv troupe from Montreal – who had their Saturday show canceled, and then uncanceled – have also been getting plenty of mentions for their
Blastback Babyzap.
I’ve seen two superb one-woman comedies.
Sarah Hennessey is very funny in
Sara Hennessey Time, although I missed the flat-out filth of her usual stand-up performances. (Perhaps it had something to do with her parents being in the audience the afternoon I saw her.)
Melissa D'Agostino also puts on an impressive turn in
Lupe: Undone, a Dame Edna-ish interactive cabaret show performed in the back alley behind Honest Ed’s. I’ve rarely seen a performer so warmly integrate her audience into a show, without the usual crowd-participation cringe factor. (There’ll be an interview with D’Agostino up at
Toronto Notes tomorrow.)
Last year, in EYE WEEKLY’s 2007 Fringe Festival preview, I wrote that if
TJ Dawe’s show
Maxim & Cosmo was bad, I’d “eat my laptop.” I’ve been shitting out computer chips and USB cables ever since. Fortunately TJ’s new production
Totem Figures is a lot better – almost classic Dawe. As usual, the show follows a number of different strands simultaneously – Dawe’s life on the Fringe, his childhood love of
Star Wars and
Watership Down, and some autobiographical material about the guitarist John Fahey – but it’s a lot more self-referential and less joke-heavy then his previous shows. (Yes, it's possible for a TJ Dawe show to be
even more self-referential than usual.) A couple of years ago, Dawe produced
The Power of Ignorance with
Chris Gibbs, a satirical swipe at self-help gurus. At times
Totem Figures, with its Kurt Vonnegut-like inspirational non-sequiturs, feels like a self-help seminar itself. Dawe’s still a remarkable performer, though, and I’d definitely recommend seeing his show.
Incidentally, a couple of commenters have
queried my methodology for choosing the top ten Fringe best bests in last week’s issue. I’m afraid to admit my methodology isn’t much more than educated guesswork. For example: I gave a shout-out to
Sky Gilbert’s
Ladylike with
Nina Arsenault, saying that it was “highly unlikely to be dull, at the very least.” My partner saw the show last night. Her thoughts? “It was dull.” So it goes.