As a regular fringer, one of the biggest surprises for me at this year’s festival was Lupe: Undone, Melissa D’Agostino’s semi-improvised one-woman show, performed in a back alley behind Honest Ed’s. Lupe sounded like the sort of thing I’d normally run a mile from – it’s a cabaret-style performance with lots of audience participation, featuring a lead character with a deliberately over-the-top “comedy” South American accent – but it actually turned out to be a scream.
Our protagonist, Lupe, is an unashamedly romantic (and perpetually disappointed) South American immigrant, who’s fallen in love with David Mirvish. The plot is more-or-less irrelevant, though: what really works about the show is D’Agostino (a sharp comic improviser with a background in dance and clown performance), and the way she gamely integrates her audience into the show, getting them to open up about their life and loves as if they were talking to a group of best friends at a pajama party.
Several other critics have also been kind about the show. I spoke to D’Agostino on Wednesday at the Tranzac, about clowning, funny accents and David Miller’s improvisational skllls.
EYE WEEKLY: Lupe: Undone is primarily a comedy show, but you’ve also worked in dance theatre and clown performance.
Melissa D’Agostino: I started out doing dance and singing, and then went to theatre school at the University of Windsor. Theatre school’s cool, but when I got back to Toronto, I felt like I didn’t really know what to do with my training, because there were so few auditions in town. Eventually, I enrolled in a bouffon class at Dancemakers with Adam Lazarus [who directed Lupe: Undone]. Bouffon is a type of clowning. I was afraid of it, and that seemed to be a good thing. It’s scary, because a lot of the time you have to go on stage without an idea of what you’re going to do. You’re there, improvising, often by yourself, and if you can’t be funny or compelling or interesting, you get kicked off.
EW: How would you describe bouffon?
MD’A: In the legend, the bouffon are the outcasts of society, the people we find grotesque or weird, and who aren’t quote-unquote “normal.” They live in the swamps together, and once in a while they’re allowed to return to entertain the aristocracy. There’s a lot of neo-bouffon now: people like Stephen Colbert, playing a Republican right-winger, or Borat and Ali G, or the Red Bastard in New York. You play these repulsive characters, but the audience also has to find them interesting.
EW: How did you come up with the character of Lupe?
MD’A: The character started off in a totally different place. It was quite nasty and dirty. Lupe was this woman who loved threesomes, a really hot Latin chick with an STD, but she was still quite attractive. You’re trying to communicate to the audience that no one is flawless.
EW: Do you ever worry that you’re veering too closely into “funny accent” comedy?
MD’A: Sure. My background is Italian – both my parents were born in Italy. When I first went into the bouffon class to do this character, I had one my of aunts in mind, who worked in a mattress factory when she came to Toronto. I was actually dressed up in a factory worker’s outfit while I was waiting backstage.
Anyway, Adam gave us an exercise to sing a really happy song. And I was terrified, because I couldn’t think of one. All I could think of was this Carmen Miranda song, “Cuanto le Gusta,” that was on some random CD a friend gave me. When I went on stage, Adam told me to speak about Latin dancing, and suddenly it became a Latin character. Just because of a single direction from Adam, everything flipped.
I have a genuine love for South America culture, so I hope that comes through. The character isn’t meant to be mocking anything. I think there were moments when we were developing the character that it bordered on being stereotypical in a bad way, but I think the show is now about this woman, about her character specifically, rather than the fact that she happens to come from South America.
EW: There’s a video on the web of you presenting a jello to David Miller in his office. How did security let you in?
MD’A: Well, I’ve always had this fascination with Oprah Winfrey, and the weird way she has this moral superiority over the world, even though she’s just a woman with a talk show. Her rags-to-riches story seemed like a great example for Lupe, and we thought, what if Lupe had her own chat show? It gave us an opportunity to send up that whole world. One of the people who we thought it would be cool to interview was David Miller – and he actually said yes. Although it did help that my sister works at city hall.
EW: Was he a good performer?
MD’A: He was very open to it. We assured his staff that this wasn’t an Ali G-type expose where we wanted to make him look stupid. We showed him a script, and we filmed him in his office for about twenty minutes. He was great. Quite charming. He actually improvised a lot.
EW: Because Lupe is obsessed with David Mirvish, you actually manage to integrate the show with its setting behind Honest Ed’s. How did you find that location?
MD’A: It’s been used by the Fringe before, and Adam has directed two shows there in the past. But the people at Honest Ed’s were really open to us using the venue. We just called and asked them and they said yes. There’s someone from Honest Ed’s coming to see the show tomorrow. Although we haven’t told them about the David Mirvish thing yet.
EW: What’s it like working there? There are a lot of passers-by and cars driving past during the show, as well as the paying audience.
MD’A: It’s quite magical to be in that space, although in some ways it’s a lot more work, to bring in the lighting and set every day. Also, it’s not a controlled environment. The first night, somebody came out to throw their garbage in the bins by the set. We had caution tape up, but they threw it away anyway. I kind of like that as a performer – I enjoy those kind of surprises. It adds to the show, and it adds to the show for the audience, because every performance is unique.
EW: What’s it like having to do the show for eleven out of twelve nights at the festival?
I love doing it, I would do it all the time if I could. It’s exhausting, though, especially vocally because you have to shout so much in the outdoor space. I’m learning a lot about how to conserve my energy. I feel quite wired and emotional and open after the show, which can make it very hard to talk to people in the tent afterwards. I can be quite direct in a way I wouldn’t normally be, because I’m so used to being direct with the audience.
EW: There’s a lot of drinking at the Fringe. Is it possible to act with a hangover?
MD’A: It’s difficult. This year, I haven’t been able to drink much because I need to look after my voice. I have done Fringe shows and Summerworks shows in the past on no sleep, or having drunk a lot the night before. What’s hard is that it dulls your instincts – comedy, especially, is really tough to do well when you’re tired, because your whole body has to be listening very carefully, You have to be ready to respond to things in an instant, and when you’re hungover you’re just not as open to that. Fuzziness is a problem. You also have to expend a great deal of energy, just listening and being physically present.
Having said that, I’m lucky in a way, because my show starts at 8:30 every night, so if I decided to get drunk I’d have all day to get over it.
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