Vancouver Fringe Festival

I saw a total of 11 plays:

TJ Dawe Box Set by TJ Dawe: TJ Dawe enunciates so clearly and so quickly, it is worth going just to see him speak. Good circular book ending, where all the lose strings are nicely tied up... well, the loose strings you were able to process out of the high speed narration, anyways.

One Frigid Shiny Knight: Starts slow, but picks up nicely. Glad to see an older gentleman perform--reminds me of dad. Not that much singing, as some reviewers wrote (it's not a musical), but some soothing guitar playing. Overall, enjoyable!

Saltwater: Can't say i enjoyed this piece too much. The parallel stories were not parellel. The idea was a failed attempt at profundity--that always comes out tacky. But the girls who performed the swimming did a great job. They really looked like the were in water.

Lazy Susan: Really meaningless, in a poststructuralist sort of way--one idea links to another one, on and on, not going anywhere in particular. Actually, it resembles the product of a really good class assignment. The actors are given a scenario (i.e. they find a dead body), what do they next? A chain reaction of reactions, on and on... until necrophilia emerges not that far down the line. But it's really funny! lots of laughs, cause it's so ridiculous. Sit in the front row. Good show.

Self-Storage: When we don't know what to do with something and we don't want to throw it out, we send it to the storage center. But what if that something were life itself? So, we are intorduced to our narrator who has just moved into her local Storage Center. She can't pay rent anyways. But storing life just isn't possible, cause time keeps ticking away. But the metaphor certainly is engaging (refer to "Pause" for structural detail.)

Confessions of a Class Clown by Ryan Gladstone of Monster Theatre: I saw Monster Theatre's production of "Fringe Show: A Love Story" last year at the Edmonton Fringe Fest, and I would consider that the best fringe show I've seen yet to date. That's why i went to see "Confessions." Both of these shows belong to the category of men's writing. "Confessions" is well performed and funny, good jokes, great laugh (refer to "Pause" for structural detail.)

Pause: "We're presented with a narrator, we see that s/he's suffering from some memory of the past, some misdeed, some sadness. Who is this character? Why is s/he here? What's bothering him/her? What's his/her story? And so, we are launched into his/her life shuffling between the past and present. Until finally at the end of the hour, we have the answers to the questions posed at the very beginning. This seems to be a very popular formula for story telling nowadays, and fringe shows make this pattern so obvious. It can be found in three shows i've seen so far: "Confessions of a Class Clown," "Self-Storage," and "Pause" (it's also in Atwood's Blind Assassin--but i'm just midway through the book).

Pause presents a very innovative analogy to life (I'm not giving it to you--so you have to watch the show). The analogy is made about the way we make choices: fight, flight, or.... Thematically, it is simliar to "Self-Storage," where the narrator is really at his/her wits end about choices for the future."

Boygroove: Excellently performed, great singing, great orinigal songs. Loved it. This would be the best show of the Vancouver Fringe 2006.

Patti Feddy in Lover's Rock: Can't believe this made it into the Pick of the Fringe.

Cuppa Jo: Enjoyable, but not quite my cuppa tea.

Troth: meh.