Vancouver Fringe Festival Part 1 (updated)

The Vancouver Fringe Festival is so clearly Vancouver, in the total lack of community or excitement it engenders, even on Granville Island, the so-called hub of the fest. Everyone here is so jaded and so cool and so indifferent. I need to move.

Myself and one of the performers at the Edmonton Fringe, couldn't help but compare the two fests and on the score of atmosphere and community, Vancouver (not surprisingly) totally loses.

There is an upside though. And the upside is the high quality of the performances in Vancouver is superior to what I saw in Edmonton. I would say, of what I've seen, about half the performances were very good, whereas in Edmonton it was more like a third. But maybe that's just luck of the draw.

I have only seen 6 of the 21 shows I am considering. So I'm less than a third of the way through, although I highly doubt my ability to afford all 20.

The first show I saw was "The Honeymoon Period is Officially Over." This is an astonishing 1 woman show by Brit Gemma Wilcox. She is extremely impressive, playing like 20 characters, including fire, a hamster, cat, as well as some humans who are the centre of the story.

Essentially, it's the tale of a couple at two different and pivotal points in their relationship, 10 years apart in time, during which they intersect with a few other characters who give them advice and have their own problems. Part of what I found interesting is how we don't necessarily know that a moment is pivotal until later, because an ordinary day can turn into something extraordinary and it was these moments of deep truth found in the mundane and recognizable that I found so telling. One of the great features is that somehow Ms. Wilcox has developed the characters clearly behind the scenes so that none come across as one dimensional or without insight, which is highly impressive considering the circumstances. It's also very funny, despite often heartbreaking circumstances. But what is really impressive is the performance. That woman must need serious pre and post show naps.

The next show I saw was "1984". This was a disappointment. For 2 reasons:
1. I think it's a hard book to translate onto stage. The overwhelming sense of Big Brother's control and the sense of suffocation do not translate onto stage where there is limited time and space and ability to express that kind of all-encompassing repression. Similarly, the division between the various segments in society, notably Party and the proletariat, was vague and confusing.
2. The cast was between the ages of 13 and 18. So, it was like kids. Kids marching around in military uniforms. Kids talking about trying to remember a life before Big Brother. And the kissing bits, omigod, super awkward.
So, yeah. They did a good job with what they had, but the above two problems simply could not be overcome.
I suddenly realised how dumb I must have looked as a teenager putting on these serious plays.
What I did enjoy was some of those old Orwellian concepts and ideas that I had forgotten about, like how language creates and destroys meaning, and how control can be exercised by manipulation of words. It was also interesting to contrast the content of this show with the play about Orwell during the period in which he wrote"1984" that I saw in Edmonton.

The next show was "Twice the Same River." This show as described as "4 adulterers and a coroner travel to the underworld to find the true meaning of death, community, and identity. They lose their bodies and souls only to find each other's." This description is actually completely accurate in ways that are unimaginable until you see the show. You're thinking, this description is all metaphor, but then you'd be wrong. It's literal. The only error in the description is that they are only actually in the underworld for a very brief period of time. The majority of the play actually takes place in the coroner's lab?, but somehow in a reality that is quite different to that which I know. Because the last time I checked, I couldn't just gut someone only to have them come back to life unscathed because they quoted the wrong line from "Othello".

Plank says: "Twice the Same River is a comic existentialist romp that tackles the meaning of love, adultery, and identity. Four faithless lovers become entangled in a web of supernatural intrigue that leaves them profoundly confused about the nature of the self and the soul." The full review can be found here: http://www.plankmagazine.com/review/twice-same-river-comic-existentialist-romp

I actually really loved "Twice the Same River" even though it ultimately fell apart under the weight of its own madness. It was very dark, totally hilarious, perverted, somber, intelligent. Each of the characters spoke to me in a way. I found myself endeared to Allison's vision of community, that is not unlike my own little fantasies, and equally absurd. Benny's love of "Othello" and self-possessed humour was wicked and impressive. Guy's bravery and single-minded assuredness in all things was impressive, while his passion and honesty were inspiring. I liked Julie least, but identified with her pathetic insecurities and reactive reasoning.

Upon leaving the theatre, I found myself sensing two competing messages. On the one hand, the play seemed to imply that people make mistakes and can overcome them, not by penance but by changing and thus shedding those past sins which prompted the change through a sort of metamorphosis. On the other hand, it asserted that you can't build community on the back of betrayal, you can never undo the things you've done, and complete forgiveness isn't possible because you will always remember and those that were there will too, and thus will never fully trust you. Deep thoughts.

The next play I saw was "Tape." This show is the Stephen Belber play that Ethan Hawke turned into a movie in the1990's. It was performed in a hotel room at the Waldorf Hotel, so the audience consisted of only 18 people and the performance was extremely intimate. It's the story of three "friends" from high school who are getting together 10 years later. Vince and John were best friends in high school, Amy was Vince's girlfriend who slept with John. Fast forward a decade and Vince is in town to support John who's movie is being shown at a local film festival. Amy happens to live in the city where the film fest takes place and Vince calls her "for old times' sake." Various laughs and confrontations occur in Vince's hotel room, where he hopes to dig up some dirt and stir things up. He is disatisfied in his life and wants answers or vengence or something. They are all traumatized from shit that went down a decade prior and their various complicated relationships with each other. All trying to move on and yet tied to what happened before. It was excellent. Truly excellent. Funny and disturbing and honnest. These tangled webs and all of that.

What I found most confusing and then compelling was trying to decipher the motivations of these three characters. The events between them had, in some fundamental way, pushed and moulded them, causing them to ultimately become who they are in the present. How and why that happened is one issue. The converse question is why they chose to react to each others' presence in the manner they do in the present. There was a picture of a yellow rose in a frame in the room that said "Frienship is forever" that I kept looking at throughout the show. Big questions were asked in this play, about friendship and forgiveness and what we hold onto and why.

At this show I ran into Laura Harris, creator and performer of "Pitch Blond", which I saw at the Edmonton Fringe Festival. She was truly lovely and sweet. We had a nice little chat about the festival and festivals in general, her show, and this one. I feel bad for not offering her a ride, but I needed to get some stuff from the Gourmet Warehouse.

The next show was "The Cork Screw". I was really looking forward to this. I interpreted it as a remake of the "Casque of Amontillado", my fave Edgar Allan Poe story. It was nothing of the sort. Unfortunately. Instead of being a wicked and clever tale of revenge, it was an awkwardly produced story of two girlfriends, one of who has a history of stealing the other one's boyfriends because she's hotter. This is told in a series of stage splits and a big screen that was moved on and off the stage at various intervals. It was painfully awkward and ultimately pointless. Not just the staging (and I'm a fan of stage splitting when done well), but also the entire story. What was the big message? This one chick is a good friend who puts up with this bitch who treats her like shit and disrespect, but ultimately it's okay because she ended up with a nice man while the bitch got an asshole. Great. Thanks. Fully worth $11. Or not.

I was hoping to salvage the night by then going to see "The Lesson." This is a rather famous one act play by Eugene Ionesco. A description can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesson To my great disapointment I found it boring and tedious. The version I saw was a gender swap, so the professor was played by a woman and the pupil by a man. Apparently this changes the power dynamics. I dunno. I was hoping for something interesting, maybe "Oleanna"-esque. In fact, it was a play about a professor trying to teach a guy math, so lots of frustration over addition and subtraction. When that fails, she starts going on about languages in a manner that makes absolutely no sense, while the student complains about toothaches, headaches, etc. The professor becomes increasingly irate and ultimately does bad things to the pupil.

Subsequently, I was talking to a friend of mine about this play. His friend directed it. He said Ionesco is very difficult to produce. I can totally understand that. The story entails someone, who is clearly insane, becoming frustrated to the point of murder because someone else is dumb. The majority of the script centres on "5 minus 4 is what?" and prolonged rants along the lines of "When a French man says to a Spaniard 'I am from France', he understands because 'France' is translated into 'Spain' in Spanish", and other nonsense. So it becomes very hard to put that onstage in a manner that is not tedious and exhausting. He said it was supposed to be weird and that the risk is that it will be boring. I said it was totally fucking boring to the point where I wondered if anyone would notice if I pulled out my book. To be fair, I have limited patience for plays who simply centre on frustration. It's such a base human emotion and so easily evoked. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a teacher, but I appreciate that trying to force someone who is dumb to learn must indeed be very frustrating. Conversely, I also appreciate that trying to get someone who is talking incessantly to listen is also frustrating. I'm told that this is a play about a power dynamic. I suppose, with a lot of imagination, it could be. The professor starts out "I'm at your service, blah blah", but the pupil doesn't accept the power granted, and it quickly turns into the professor simply lecturing endlessly about drivel. Why does anyone think this makes for good entertainment?

That being said, I don't think the production in any way helped itself. All of the players appeared to simultaneously over-act, in ways that were farcicle but not comical, while also under-performing the truer aspects of the roles. The effect was simply stupid. The maid, whom I assume was supposed to provide comic relief was just dumb. The pupil was utterly unrealistic. The professor was the only one who provided a good performance, except that her decent into total madness and murder was too sudden to be almost out of character. Whatever, not my cup of tea.

So that's where I'm at in the festival. I have a fun week planned. I've discovered that seeing plays is good, but seeing plays with friends is better. That said, these shows have given me a lot to think about, not that I don't already have a lot to think about. Sometimes, it's creepy actually, the relationship between what I've seen and where I'm at. But then maybe that's the way I've selected my picks.