Boom is a curious one-man show about a bomb-maker who is recruited by a devious multinational constructing a futuristic spaceport. Louis is unemployed and faces eviction from his apartment when an old friend, now a CEO, offers him a job as an industrial saboteur blowing up competing spaceports.

WANTED IF NOT WED

Not that Boom is a bomb in the theatrical sense. Connor, who cancelled his first three performances to appear at Montreal's Just For Laughs festival over the weekend, fills his stage with distinctive characters like Rosa, the precocious, pig-tailed teenage Louis wannabe who really is the bomb.

THE WRONG HOLE
The Rep Company
Gas Station Theatre (Venue 18), to July 27 Fast, funny and filthy are the watchwords of this sketch-comedy show from The Rep Company. As one might infer from the title, no taboo is left unfondled in the 45-minute show written by Merry Lang and crisply performed by the fearless local troupe.

There's barely a bit longer than two minutes in this collection of blackout sketches, save for the excellent longer series of skits about a woman who has a monstrously bad dating history. Even the ones that are more puzzling than punchline-oriented still score performance points -- this company can deliver any absurd line and make it zing, (witness the Mayor of Monkey Island piece).

There are a few too many sketches that end up taking the easy route to laughs through obscenity, but as a gentleman in the lobby afterwards said, "Well, that was good fun." Just not good clean fun.

SHE RULES WITH IRON STICKS
Petit Pont Productions
Onstage at the Playhouse (Venue 4), to July 26

One day, we'll be bragging that we saw Winnipeg's Brigette DePape back when she was an 18-year-old who attempted a risky baton trick -- a one-girl show -- and managed to catch it with an abundance of charm, heart and talent.

Supported by some adult artists who helped her shape her ideas, DePape brings more poise and writerly skill to the story of Sophie, a lonely baton twirler, than many fringe soloists display at twice her age. And though it would help if she projected her voice a little more, she manages it at a venue in which the audience is stretched out in extremely long rows and there's a lack of intimacy.

Drawing on her own background as a twirler, DePape pokes affectionate fun at this "very serious sport" while showing off some nifty tricks. Sophie's baton sometimes speaks to her in a taunting voice -- a device used sparingly to underline her shaky sense of self. She's so over-identified with baton, and so desperate for a friend, that she "made a sparkly bodysuit for her hamster."

There's a boy twirler in the story who carries physical scars that mirror Sophie's emotional ones. Sophie loves him from afar, but she is a prisoner of self-doubt and grief who hides under the bleachers at competitions.

FEMMENNONITE 2: I MARRIED A JEW
Red River Collete Princess Street Campus (Venue 11), to July 26

It's not quite a sequel to 2006's FemMennonite, but the material is still pulled from Winnipeg performer Leigh-Anne Kehler's real life. This time, as the title notes, Kehler takes us through her whirlwind romance with a Jewish filmmaker, from her first kosher meal to her "Jewonite" wedding.

Kehler, who was a hit at the 2006 fringe (and with consistently sold-out shows, will be a hit at this one), is a sharp performer. She lovingly skewers her own family, her future in-laws, and even her fiance, throws herself into moments of sassy comic abandon and gracefully mines laughs from her own former naivete. Even better are the more heartwarming moments of cultural reconciliation, like her fiance's hoy-hoy-hoy turn as a Jewish Santa in Japan.

There are quite a lot of Yiddish, Hebrew and Mennonite in-jokes that quite obviously flew right over this reviewer's head, and these earned the biggest laughs of the show. Still, there are enough universal truths about family dynamics and relationships that everyone will find something with which they can connect.

ZDENKA NOW!
Porcelain Penelope Productions
Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 10), to July 26

THIS one-woman show by L.A-by-way-of-Toronto actor Precious Chong (Tommy's daughter) is a daffy romp with a ton of heart. The wide-eyed Chong radiates energy, whether it's as Zdenka, the wildly blue eye-shadowed cable-access host from the former Czechoslovakia, or as Barb, the tightly wound GM auto show pitchwoman with some issues to resolve.

On the downside, the hour-long performance was plagued with technical difficulties, and the videos that give Chong time to change between characters need to be a bit more engaging. She has impressive chameleonic capabilities and startling flexibility, but a couple of the characters, like the Inuit boy from Arctic Bay, don't really resonate. However, her luminous portrayal of the wife of a man with amnesia is singularly touching, and she's quick on her feet during funny improv sections.

About that improv -- shy folks, beware: the gaudily clad Zdenka likes to pull people out of the audience and give advice "for love problem, for health problem." This reviewer came away with some self-affirmation about her sex life and a nutritious snack.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST
The Little Opera Company
Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 27

WHEN I saw the number of young children in the audience for this 45-minute opera by a six-person cast, I expected a performance marred by squirming, talking and crying. Instead, the tots were quiet and attentive -- a great compliment to this appealing production by the local semi-professional company that puts on chamber operas.

The set, including a castle wall, rose bushes and trees, has a homemade look but does the job just fine. The show opens with a useful educational warmup in which two sopranos give an introduction to opera, singing excerpts from familiar arias that could perhaps be shortened a bit.

The Beauty and the Beast tale, sung in crystal-clear English, moves along at such a clip that it misses a key emotional transition: there's no scene that communicates how love blooms between Beauty and the man-beast who is her keeper. Other minor flaws are that the piano occasionally overpowers the singers, and that some cast members seem to think we won't notice they're wearing sandals with fairy-tale costumes. Some of the singers aren't confident actors.

As the Beast, tenor Martin Duke Wilson strains on some high notes. Micheline Girardin, though, is an entrancing, poised Beauty whose lovely soprano is a treat throughout Vittorio Giannini's accessible opera. Overall, this little show is a charmer, much more beauty than beast.

THE AETHERNOMICON
The Watch & Spectacle Puppet Co.
The Playhouse Studio (Venue 3), to July 27

In the beginning ... Asa Nodelman created gothic horror puppet show The Clock in the Lobby for last year's fringe. Inspired by the success of that Best of Fest show -- and by early 20th-century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft's references to a mysterious tome called The Necronomicon -- Winnipeg's Nodelman follows that act with this big bang of a Biblical sci-fi chiller.

A cast of 13 marionettes traces the occasionally gory misadventures of over-curious futuristic protagonist Abdolos Hazirinon, whose punishment for reading a forbidden cryptic text is cruel and unusual by any measure. Horribly -- and somewhat gleefully -- disfigured, Abdolos gets a one-way ticket to outer space, but still manages to discover the secrets of all human life on Earth, which he spills in the titular tome. Four puppeteers, accompanied by local musician Erik Larsen's spooky ambient music, help unravel Nodelman's bizarro string theory, which suggests that if a little knowledge is dangerous, a lot is fatal.

The otherworldly marionettes and props are works of genius -- and yes, it's evil genius. However, the visual power of Nodelman's creations is sometimes diluted by excessive showmanship on stage. A trio of primordial beings -- whose appearance gives rise to a truly impressive birth-of-man scene -- wow the crowd with their first water-ballet dance across the stage. By the fourth or fifth pass? Not so much. Given that the mechanics of the show already require a leisurely pace in the storytelling, a little brevity on that score wouldn't hurt. Still, it's hard to complain about getting too much of a good thing.

LEARNING THE GAME
Ice Time Theatre Collective
PTE Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 27

As a girl hockey player with a learning disability, the imposingly physical actress Megan Leach gives 110 percent in this Kids Fringe entry from Regina's Ice Time Theatre Collective.

Lanni shines in athletics, but fails in academics, a condition that leaves this tough kid feeling vulnerable to her peers and to stupidly insensitive school officials. Overcoming her academic weakness is presented as one big sports metaphor in Janice Salkeld's play, contrived to educate kids about learning disabilities.

Fortunately, the strapping Leach has charisma and energy enough to transcend the "after-school special" flavour of the piece. Even in the cavernous space of PTE, Leach fills the void on the strength of sheer extrovert personality, at one point belting out Stompin' Tom Connors' Good Old Hockey Game with the gusto of a Cossack.

SEE BOB RUN
Imagine That Productions
Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 27

JODIE Sadowski is "Bob ... Roberta ... Bob," a hitchhiker with the nebulous goal of heading east "to the water" in Daniel MacIvor's downbeat one-hander.

From the makeshift confessional of the passenger seat, Bob slowly reveals the horrors of her life to random drivers, including childhood sexual abuse at the hands of her father, who transmutes into a "big weird animal" in Bob's fevered imagination.

The structure of MacIvor's play is like an intricate puzzle box, and Sadowski confidently manipulates its shifting pieces to demonstrate how ultimate parental betrayal can devastate the emotional life of the adult survivor.

THE WIZARD OF ONE
Spectacle Crutch Productions
Playhouse Studio (Venue 3), to July 26

THIS unusual children's story uses The Wizard of Oz as a starting point and veers far from Kansas, Toto.

Down the yellow brick road we follow a bent, old man named Frank who is being ill-treated by his son's future wife. She has put down his little dog Judy and forced him into a retirement home, where she works as a nurse. There he finds three other patients who are short on courage, heart and brains, and together they set out to find the Man who can let them go home.

The children in the audience were attentive to the Oz-like tale Calgary's Neil James was telling and performing by himself. They giggled when over-medicated patients were revived with a shot of Red Bull energy drink, as well as when the cane-carrying Frank and the wicked broom-wielding nurse fenced. It's good fun.

CRIMINALS IN LOVE
Venus.calm productions
MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 27

Local George F. Walker specialists (Adult Entertainment, 2006; Problem Child, 2005) are back with another of the prolific playwright's dark comedies, this time his Governor General's Award-winning Criminals in Love.

Junior and Gail are young lovers in Toronto's working-class east end. Junior fears he's doomed to follow in his jailed father Henry's footsteps and live a life of crime. This seems fated to be true when his father informs him that his uncle needs Junior's help with a job, and if he fails to step up, Henry will be killed. What results is partly caper, partly comedy and partly something darker and more desperate.

Walker has a heap of ideas about destiny, class and love that he's trying to cover, and the production doesn't quite get at the heart of all of them. There's something slightly off about some of the portrayals: Eric Magnifico's Junior doesn't really convey his despair at his lot in life -- the sense of "the hanging shadow" of destiny -- while Susan Bohn as criminal mastermind Aunt Wineva neither seems scary nor twisted enough to be the terrifying schizophrenic she's supposed to be. On the plus side, Randal Payne's loquacious turn as the philosophical bum William is uproarious, and Ed Cuddy is utterly believable as two-bit petty crook Henry.

WOODY SED
Theatre Bagger
Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 26

Vancouver's Thomas Jones wrote and performs in this one-hour portrait of the tragedy-laced life of folk legend Woody Guthrie.

Jones's only co-star is a big acoustic guitar bearing the words "This Machine Kills Fascists," a la Woody. But with his decent impersonation and his versatility, he still manages to fill the cozy venue with big drama, recounting Guthrie's early years in Oklahoma, his radio stardom in New York and Los Angeles, and his final years, spent in paralysis in a hospital bed, at one point visited by early acolyte Bob Dylan.

It's illuminating stuff, and sometimes terribly sad. After seeing this, Guthrie fans will never be able to listen to his kids' song Howdja Do the same way again.

THE OFFICIAL NAPOLEON DYNAMITE DANCE CLASS
v-Live E
The Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 26

This show possesses the weird and utterly original creative spirit that is so often missing at fringe festivals.

It's not the best production in this year's lineup, but Vancouver actor Darren Boquist's one-man comedy, with its talking wig, might be the most seriously wacked.

Boquist plays off the 2004 sleeper movie hit about the outcast life of a nerdy teen who finds redemption by dancing in front of his entire high school. In Dance Class, Napoleon's dance instructor, Bob, wants recognition and his secret move back from his protegé.

The goofy plot is pretty thick, but we can be thankful it is interrupted by phone calls from Dynamite, whose movie voice on tape provides comic relief ("Idiot, I'm such an idiot," he complains). Kudos for Boquist trying to be as loopy as his eccentric source material.

KILLING KEVIN SPACEY
Royal Palm Productions
The Conservatory (Venue 7), to July 27

IT'S a familiar story, seen in everything from Fight Club to Office Space: cubicle drone gets some cojones and kicks some butt. This New York duo (one of whom also presents The Movies: Abridged at this year's fest) takes it a step further and uses the movies to trigger one man's transformation. (This production is somewhat abridged too, taking up only 37 minutes of its claimed 60-minute running time.)

Charlie is a going-through-the-motions office worker with a hateful girlfriend and a loathsome manager who suddenly realizes he's playing Kevin Spacey in his own life (the wimpy Spacey of Usual Suspects and Glengarry Glen Ross) and decides to take cues from Al Pacino (the take-no-prisoners Pacino of Scarface and Glengarry Glen Ross) instead. Music from The Godfather cues mousey Charlie's transformation into a tough-talking, open-shirted badass.

The very funny, flick-worshipping duo injects new life into the done-that premise, especially the nine-to-fiver cliches. There were no programs to identify the two actors, but both acquit themselves handily (although the one playing Charlie needs to enunciate more clearly during the rapid-fire dialogue). The other, who plays multiple roles, including the girlfriend and the braying blowhard of a best friend, probably scores the most laughs, but Charlie's bagel-shop blow-up is a masterful show of scene-stealing bravado. Killing Kevin Spacey deserves a solid "Hoo-ah!"

PORNSTAR
Fancy Molasses Productions
Onstage at the Playhouse (Venue 4), to July 26

"There are not that many guys in Elbow, Saskatchewan, who know where the clitoris is."

But librarian Esther Kirkenchuk (Brigette DePape), the daughter of a fundamentalist Conservative MP, finds one. And their night of secretly videotaped passion leads her to an adult video awards show in Toronto -- in the amateur category. Playwright Chris Craddock's returning fringe fave also features the versatile Anne Wyman as Esther's lover, dead sister and mother (the latter character's lecture on how female sexuality is like sticky tape is a standout monologue).

At 18, DePape is probably younger than the character she plays, but she brings an innocence to her character that serves to galvanize Craddock's heartfelt attack on the devastating neo-puritanism of the religious right.

A GIRL'S GUIDE TO CHAOS
Your Face Rings a Bell Productions
MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 26

This is an Osborne Village version of Sex and the City, wherein a trio of friends struggles with modern feminism, cheating men who are no longer sure of their place in the world and the lack of boyfriends in this town. Too true, ladies.

It starts out with an arty and fun video collage of women through the ages that goes on slightly too long, and then we get to know the ladies -- the tough-talking bitch (Susan Kurbis), the nerdy scientist (Kerri Woloszyn) and neurotic columnist (Meghan Pesclovitch).

There are some tight, funny scenes, like one where a "sweet little urban heterosexual" played by Tim Horton gets rejected by each of the women and another that involves a collage of annoying couples. And the observations about modern women are inventive and cerebral enough to elevate this above the predictable female kvetching over cosmos.

It needs an edit -- especially the overwritten parts belonging to neurotic Cynthia. There's some dirty talk meant more for shock value than real insight. And a fourth female walk-on role is redundant. But otherwise a funny, dishy and energetic exploration of pretty much every singleton I know.

PHIL THE VOID: COMEDY OVER QUALITY
Phil the Void
The Playhouse Studio (Venue 3), to July 26

California-based comic Phil van Hest is bound to appeal to Canadian fringe audiences because much of his material in this followup to his 2006 show, Nature Abhors a Vacuum, is about the stupidity of Americans.

Intentionally or not, van Hest plays to a certain smug Canuck sensibility; I know I like him.

But even off the topic of his "I-don't-want-to-think-about-it" countrymen, van Hest demonstrates a comic sensibility as playful as it is smart, on a diversity of topics, including emotionally manipulative bumper stickers, Jesus Camp, and the driving game of putting the word "anal" in front of the make of car in front of you.

PAPER JACK
Title Pending Productions
Tom Hendry Theatre at the MTC Warehouse (Venue 6), to July 25

Emilene is one hot girl, but her effect on men is downright stifling.

Well, not all men, just Paper Jack, whose emotions affect the weather. When the pair fall in love, it's nothing but blue skies and sunshine in Jack's heart, which means drought, bad crops and despair for the villagers who have been manipulating his emotions for generations as a way of keeping the seasons in order.

The 75-minute show is a cross between a fairy tale and a morality play. Ultimately, it's an exploration of love: should Emilene (played wonderfully by Kami Desilets) follow her heart or do what is right even though it feels wrong?

The story is set in the past, but the talented cast never makes the old-world dialogue seem clunky or strange, even when it is.

Don't be fooled by the boring description in the program, and most of all, don't tick Jack off -- Winnipeg gets enough crappy weather as it is.

WE IS BLUNDERSTRUCK!
Press Play Players
Gas Station Theatre (Venue 18), to July 27

Poor Motorcycle Mel died in a collision with a moose, and his favorite trio, Blunderstruck, show up at his funeral. Unfortunately, Father Ed doesn't, and these red-nosed punk clowns, literally, conduct the service.

The clueless Truckstop Trevor, Pittstop Pete and Doorstop Dave follow the traditional religious program and give Mel and his ashes a kick-ass sendoff. They mumble Latin prayers, recite a reading from the book of Rage Against the Machine and perform a musical selection that includes Wipeout, Stairway to Heaven and, of course, Mel's Bells.

The character work of Saskatchewan trio of Alan Long, Garett Long and Jules Mercer is seamlessly threaded through their raw musical talents to bring alive the funeral home. There are moments when the Blunderstruck boys' thick-headedness gets tedious, but they made sure none of the mourners sheds a tear.

THURSDAY'S CHILD
Meow Mix Tango Productions
MTC Backstage at the Mainstage (Venue 1), to July 26

The life of the party in 2004 fringe hit The Year of the Panda, funny girl Vanessa Macrae is in relationship rehab this time out. Her actress character comes home to Winnipeg after a breakup and invites the audience to follow along on her road to recovery. Despite a recurring zen theme in which she repeatedly fills and empties a bathtub, the ride gets a little bumpy at times. But Macrae's gift for mimicry makes it worth the trip. She literally puts herself into other characters' shoes -- mocking a student therapist, a hapless life coach, quirky co-workers and even her long-suffering mother when she offers encouraging if unhelpful advice. There's plenty of self-mockery to spare -- she can't help wondering if she looked good to a peeping Tom, and her need to perform for the camera trumps her misgivings when her therapist wants to videotape their sessions. And Macrae tosses in a passionate tribute to idol Barbra Streisand for good comedic measure, dropping to her knees to lip-synch a scene from Yentl. She yearns to be like Babs -- "utterly tragic, yet still fabulous."

But the heart of this tale -- that failed relationship -- is missing a beat. Maybe it's because the scorned lover is the one character who is not subjected to Macrae's full range of insightful mimicry. Sure, we had a few laughs, and you can't help loving the gal. But in the end, the audience is left, like our heroine, wanting something more.

THE JOHNALD SLOW SHOW
InterVisceral Productions
The Conservatory (Venue 7), to July 25

This edition of The Johnald Slow Show finds the "legend of talk," Johnald Slow (Dean Harder as the titular radio-show host), wallowing happily in his own bombast, seeking a (raisin-free!) chocolate chip cookie recipe, and asking the questions: Is reducing pollution around Bejing just interfering with nature? And wouldn't our French-Canadian Olympians have an advantage in Bejing because public smoking is still allowed in Quebec?

Slow explores these and other stupid questions, bantering with "callers" while accompanied by his guest, a delightfully sleazy wanna-be athlete (Aaron Mercke), who feels he qualifies for the Special Olympics because of his "self-declared A.D.D."

Harder's blowhard delivery as a faux radio host seems to be channelling what might be a cross between Larry King and a young Richard Dreyfuss in either Jaws or The Goodbye Girl. Funny guy -- funny stuff. The tricky bit is that a show like this has the potential to be really uneven, but Harder is smart enough to know that 30 minutes of "hot air" is just about right.

SHADES OF BROWN
i_rose_productions
PTE - Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 27

This summer marks the second run for Shades of Brown, a play that earned high praise when it was debuted in 2002 by producer and writer Primrose Madayag Knazan, whose numerous plays have earned her a fringe following. The new cast members turn in near-flawless performances as three young women grappling with what it means to be Filipino in Canada.

There's Sienna (Diana Dizor), born in the Philippines but raised in Canada on a diet of Baywatch and 90210, Malaya (Tiffany Ponce), a later immigrant to Canada who struggled to fit in, and Sandy (Keri-Lee Smith), a Caucasian girl whose penchant for dating Asian guys developed her love of FIlipino culture, but earned raised eyebrows from skeptical parents.

The women dissect racial slurs and examine stereotypes in a fast-paced script that at times feels more like a spoken-word performance.

During scene changes, audiences are treated to brief, beautiful dances by a troupe from Magdaragat Phiippines Inc. -- a clever touch in a script that also offers some tongue-in-cheek commentary on the nature of cultural performance.

Although some stereotype-busting scenes feel a little hackneyed, ,em>Shades of Brown is, on the whole, an interesting look at the Filipino experience in Canada, with a heartfelt message of belonging and acceptance.

RUNNING OUT
Ruthable Productions
Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 26

Carolyn, who is in her 40s and desperate to be a mother, is running out of eggs -- and money to pay for in vitro fertilization attempts. Jenny, a naïve teenager from a religious family, is running away from terrifying responsibility as she finds herself with an unwanted pregnancy.

Winnipeg's Ruth Baines, the creator of this well-paced hour-long solo show, alternates between the two characters in a poignant exploration of the cruel ironies of fertility and timing. Her portrayal of the older woman is more believably fleshed out, tugging at our heartstrings with Carolyn's yearning to feel life inside her. Baines expresses that longing in dance interludes, giving heartfelt physicality to the jumble of hopefulness and emptiness felt by women who are trying to conceive.

Baines's writing and acting could both use more emotional poetry, and more character depth to avoid caricature. But there is aching truth here. Baines taps into the anguish we all feel when our bodies don't stick to the life script we've laid out. In that sense, Running Out is universal.

MORRO AND JASP DO PUBERTY
Up Your Nose (and in your toes) Productions
Ragpickers Theatre (Venue 13), to July 27

Oh, to be a teenage girl: Leonardo DiCaprio fantasies, secret diaries, and terrified shrieks of "I'm bleeding from the crotch!"

Puberty's a rough ride, and it's no different when the teens in question are clown sisters Morro (Heather Marie Annis) and Jasp (former Winnipegger Amy Lee). The red-nosed duo is at opposite ends of the hormonal spectrum: tomboy Morro is equally panicked at the thought of tampons or male attention, while Jasp is desperate to be a woman and longing for princess-style romance.

In true clown fashion, half the humour is in the visuals, from Jasp's show of forbidden passion for her favourite stuffed toy to Morro's terrific facial distortions every time the phone rings.

Morro and Jasp Do Puberty is a light and engaging hour, with lots of laughs of recognition from 20-something women in the audience remembering their own fantasies of Titanic proportions.

THE GREEN ZONE
Jolene Bailie
Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 27

Winnipeg's Jolene Bailie has earned a reputation on the fringe circuit for solo contemporary dance shows that wow audiences. As always, she brings stunning technique and presence to the stage.

A warning, though, for anyone expecting a show as delightfully accessible as last year's Private i: this year's lies way out there in an edgy no man's land, offering few signposts to help average fringers interpret it.

The Green Zone, a 25-minute antiwar piece by Deborah Dunn, is the only new work in the one-hour show. (Also included is the challenging Switchback, in which Bailie portrays a reptilian creature. It has been overexposed locally.)

In The Green Zone, Bailie is not always audible as she speaks text passages about the war in Iraq. She wears a Second World War uniform that she calls "my war outfit," implying that war is a romantic dress-up game.

At the outset, she unspools three white strings that divide the stage space at waist level, suggesting a giant game of cat's cradle or perhaps fences or borders. When one string ends up on the floor, Soldier Bailie forms it into a human being -- like a chalk murder-scene outline -- kisses it, and tries to embrace it. It's a perfect moment, capturing loneliness and grief on the battlefield.

But much of The Green Zone is cryptic. You're on your own reconnaissance mission when you venture into it.

EVELYN REESE'S FAMILY ROOM
Miss Reese Productions
MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 26

One of the fringe's favourite characters returns to talk about her family, including her gay best friend, her three ex-husbands and her deadbeat dad.

Evelyn Reese, the comedic creation of Toronto's Susan Fischer, is a hoot -- think Roseanne Roseannadanna if she came from Thunder Bay and wore A LOT of lipstick. With a refreshing lack of sentimentality, she whips us through a collection of anecdotes, with the occasional burst into song. As wacky as Evelyn is, she's also non-judgemental about her own messy life and everyone else's, which gives the broad comedy a big heart.

One problem -- the show starts with solid laughs, but it loses a lot of oomph in the middle, and I kept wishing Fischer would speak just a tad faster.

Lots of older folks in the audience, who ate this up.

IT'S A GAY GAY GAY GAY WORLD
hYsTeRiUm
School of Contemporary Dancers (venue 8), to July 26

Drag queen Nelly Furtaco, ably abetted by her fag hag buddy Hagatha and prancing minions Twink 1 and Twink 2, offers up a gay-positive spin on Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood (It's a fabulous day in the neighbourhood ... ") in this 75-minute cabaret-sketch comedy from playwright Curtis Lowton.

Nelly's bedtime stories include a too-long Emperor's New Clothes variant in which an American head of state is fitted with a designer suit made from material only straights can see. Better is a Cinderella knock-off that sees the entire cast knock 'em dead with an 'N Sync dance routine.

Gayer than a Lance Bass marionette, Gay World is ideal fringe fare for mature audiences of all stripes, assuming hetero attendees live up to the words on Hagatha's T-shirt: "Straight but not narrow."

AMERICAN SQUATTER
Aspen Comedy Works
Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 10), to July 26

Barry Smith of Colorado returns with a new episode from the colourful life of Barry Smith. It's an amusing piece of autobiography, complete with a slick PowerPoint presentation.

American Squatter tells the story of a teenage Smith, who goes to live with his father in California after his mother is killed in a car accident. Dad is a nagging clean freak, who is seen in actual family video bagging the wrapping as Smith opens a Christmas present.

Smith rebels by taken up skateboarding, dropping LSD and squatting in abandoned London buildings. Smith's hour-long, coming-of-age story wraps with the idea that he and his father are not so different, a conclusion that is only quietly satisfying.

BALLS
Ten Foot Pole Productions
School of Contemporary Dancers (Venue 8), to July 26

Balls is Rob Salerno's theatrical tribute to a close buddy who died of testicular cancer several years ago. He celebrates male testicles with a story about two inseparable boyhood pals who suffer a low blow to their friendship.

The discovery that 19-year-old Paul (played by Salerno) has testicular cancer stuns Bastian, but it does nothing to deter their constant repartee, replete with gallows humour. Bastian (Adam Goldhamer) has a similar health scare but is left to go on by himself to contemplate the nature of masculinity.

What Balls lacks in nuance and subtext is made up for with its heartfelt tone. The image of a saddened Bastian picking up the string-can phone with which he once spoke to Paul as a kid nicely communicates his devastating sense of loss.

A BRIEF HISTORY PETTY CRIME
The Roodie Pancake Experiment
Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 27

JIMMY Hogg has committed every petty crime in the book, from shoplifting pesto to breaking and entering a tea parlour to driving under the influence of cider without a driver’s licence. This guy was bad news. And so was his equally awkward buddy Chili.

Fifteen years later, the U.K. comic not only lives to tell the tales of his misguided youth but also finds the hidden humour in his family's history of not always telling the whole truth.

Hogg is a capable storyteller who delivers more than a few laughs on stage. Periodically, however, he breaks out of character to ask the audience questions and to engage in a familiar back and forth. And while this helps Hogg form a rapport with his audience, it sucks the energy away from his already inconsistent story momentum.

Afterwards, the former lawbreaker encouraged people who didn't love his show to meet him in the beer tent at midnight for a fight. I decided to go home instead and turn on my alarm system.

WOOSTER SAUCE
By the Book Productions
Red River College (Venue 11), to Sunday

Fans of P. G. Wodehouse will appreciate John D. Huston for bringing to the stage the foppish man-about-town Bertie Wooster and his unnaturally all-knowing valet Jeeves.

Huston has a well-earned reputation for creating sterling character sketches (Underneath the Lintel, Shylock) and is on top of his game in his new solo show, Wooster Sauce. His jowl-jiggling Uncle Willowby and his demanding fiance Florence are almost as good as his spot-on Jeeves, who always saves the day.

What is lacking in Wooster Sauce is some spice to mix in with the meagre plot, the dry humour or to counter the overwhelming restraint that reigned in upper-class England in the early 20th century.

BARISTA! A CABARET OF CAFFEINATED PROPORTIONS
Chi Chi Manfred Productions
MTC Backstage at the Mainstage (Venue 1), to July 27

This frothy brew of music and comedy is getting a whole latte love from average Joe fringers, thanks largely to a strong opening number and a hobo who steals the 30-minute show.

The four female cast members -- Katherine Dow, Nikki Duval, Connie Manfredi and Chanty Marostica -- belt out a ballsy rendition of Black Coffee and take it over the top with faux soul-sister shout-outs and a prolonged round of vocal theatrics worthy of Christina Aguilera.

All of the six cast members -- University of Winnipeg theatre students -- get a spotlight song that's at least vaguely in tune with their characters, with varying degrees of success. And each is at the centre of a short scene.

There's a cartoonish villainess who's out to destroy the romantically challenged coffee shop manager (Travis Maclean), a geeky girl who is secretly in love with the hunky latte boy (Tristan Carlucci), and the titular barista who continually drops pop culture references that nobody understands.

The sketches are hit-and-miss, but if a few land off the mark, their short duration is a saving grace.

The one constant in the show, at the fringes of the action, is Phoebe the hobo (Marostica). If the other characters are sugar, she's the cream. A mellow philosopher, the gravel-throated Phoebe is an outsider who knows more about the coffee shop insiders than they know themselves. In a deft performance, she provides sage advice to the characters and narrative commentary to the audience, along with a few slyly funny and profound thoughts about human nature.

FEAR OF A BROWN PLANET
Third Man
Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 10), to July 26

It's not often you see the Rwandan genocide or dictator Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe worked into a comedy routine, but then again, Toronto-based Nile Séguin refuses to be fitted into boxes.

Séguin's incisive remarks about being a bi-racial entertainer in the Canadian entertainment scene are frank, thoughtful and usually laugh-provoking.

Sprinkled with historical and pop-culture references, Séguin mines his jokes from the unlikeliest of places. (Why is Black History Month the shortest month of the year, February? According to Séguin, it's because there's only so much righteous anger society can take -- a nice zinger.)

Séguin's wry observations on the narcissism of the comedy industry and comedians themselves are superb, but the comedian's bashing of the usual political targets like George W. Bush or Condoleeza Rice is less funny. It's been done before. Also, if you aren't interested in hearing some humdrum penis/sex jokes, then you may tune out on Séguin's riffs on his bedroom experiences. Yawn.

A step away from usual fringe fare, Séguin's brave intellectualism in his routine is the meatiest part, even if it sometimes elicits thoughtful chuckles rather than gut-busting laughter.

THE SPY
Epicworlds - Jonno Katz
Exchange Community Church (Venue 12), to July 27

Even the unshakeable James Bond would likely have a heart attack (or laughing fit) if he saw this giddy parody of 1970s British Secret Service intrigue.

Australian Jonno Katz is hysterical as a member of the Secret Service who's on a global chase of a mysterious Russian double agent, sending up every cheesey stereotype and gratutious fight scene he can along the way. Most of Saturday night's full house was in constant uproar over Katz's exploits as spy Seymour Fogg, and you'll especially enjoy the show if you're a fan of physical comedy and miming, at which Katz is undeniably great. Suited up in ultra-suede and sweating profusely, Katz plucks out his material from the audience and tosses it into the mix.

Unfortunately, then, that mix sometimes became incoherent as the spy plot veered off track and small side sketches became completely incomprehensible.

While some material might be funny due to Katz's improvisational delivery, it didn't always make sense. Spy films have never been totally about plot, but they need some semblance of a story arc -- and Katz could use more of one here. A performer can't let his audience get away from him, even if he's got them in stitches.

SPINNING THREAD
Prancing Pickle Pony Productions
School of Contemporary Dancers (Venue 8), to July 26

Pharmaceutical account manager Lily likes to keep a positive attitude. She has her power song, she can tap-dance her sorrows away and she's looking forward to a wonder pill that can cure loneliness (just don't ask about the side effects).

Naturally, there's more going on underneath the surface, and as this solo show progresses, Lily's fragile house of cards begins to fold in on itself. This could be old hat, but writer-performer Nicole Ascroft is so vivacious and gleefully physical that it becomes fresh again. As a flighty woman nervously navigating a rigidly constructed world, Ascroft hones in on Lily's essential goodness, and makes her character glow. (She also has a knack for hilariously spontaneous comic bits.) Ascroft hits the end message too hard -- the theme of humanity versus consumer anxiety isn't so subtle that we need it laid out for us -- and you can accurately predict the script's crisis point in the first five minutes. But it's the character more than the script that charms here.

72 HOUR SURVIVAL GUIDE
Three Sheets Productions
MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 26

This Toronto production offers up a slice of post-SARS endemic paranoia in a speculative look at an entire city placed under quarantine lockdown.

Here, the citizens infected by a strain of avian flu transform into birds. Given that fantastic conceit, you might think the play is satiric or comic in intent, but in fact the trio of actors keep the tone dead serious, bouncing between the varied coping mechanism of a brother and his agoraphobic sister, a pair of Platonic roommates on the cusp of a deeper relationship, and a survivalist vlogger who goes online to tell the blogosphere, "I told you so," before embarking on a more radical campaign of survival.

At 90 minutes, this might have seemed a strain on the patience of fringe-goers, but the three actors are capable, the avian musical soundtrack is effectively unsettling, and the staging is clever. A less solemn tone might have really made this play take wing.

THE MOVIES (ABRIDGED)
Wolf Productions
MTC Warehouse (Venue 6), to July 26

THE video store franchise Bigbuster offers a management training film to its managerial recruits with its own corporate revisionist history of cinema.

That wraparound plot device is just an excuse for a series of genre-by-genre sketches on cinema from the Fort Lauderdale-based company that gave us The Bible (Abridged).

Hence, we get Robert De Niro vs. Daniel Day-Lewis in an "act-off." We get all four Die Hard movies distilled to their shared essence. We get Adam Sandler contemplating death as his next career move. (Warning: There is not one viable impersonation in any of these sketches.)

Ultimately, we get a ringing defence of the indie movie as a curative to the money-grubbing Hollywood epic, and if that seems a simplistic raison d'etre for a fringe play, well, it is. It's a good thing we also get a decent share of laughs.

THE ROAD LESS GRAVELLED
Outport Productions
Son of Warehouse Venue 5, to July 26

Maritime writer-actor Wanda Carroll turns up the Corner Gas shtick full blast in this comic monologue about growing up rustic in the outback of Newfoundland in the '60s and '70s.

Her 75-minute show, a combination of the old Codco TV show and a Wayne Johnston novel, consists of a non-stop series of anecdotes about the lack of plumbing, jobs and other civilized amenities one must live without in the Canadian version of backwoods Tennessee.

If there was a hatching, matching or dispatching that took place in her outport village during her first 18 years, the now 42-year-old brunette, a gentle version of Mary Walsh, gives us the gory details.

Much of it is charming and funny. Without music, props or any real staging at all (besides a table with two glasses of water), she declaims in a broad Newfie brogue about her "mudder," her "fadder" and her auntie's lime-green "bat'room" in the metropolis of Cornerbrook, which she drove to on an actual paved road.

She could cut 15 minutes without noticeable loss. She also muffs the odd line.

But even if her delivery were impeccable, her monologue would still be missing any conflict and tension. Coming from Newfoundland is not drama enough.

ANATOMY OF A YELL
Red River College (Venue 11), to July 27

This occasionally amusing one-hander charts the ups and downs of a 30something Colorado blonde who is desperate to find a man.

Johanna Walker, the show's writer and star, might not put it quite so bluntly, but that's what it comes down to. This being the 21st century, her dating club of choice must be online.

Despite being a free-spirited artist and a gal who is not afraid to get dirt under her fingernails, she can't seem to find Mr. Right. She has been brainwashed by her mother, who cries herself to sleep at the thought of her daughter being alone for the rest of her life.

Walker has an attractive and outdoorsy presence. Her production boasts several clever theatrical devices. She uses classical music as the voice of her mother and a teapot as a kind of romantic oracle.

She also employs a picture frame as a visual metaphor, perhaps of her conscience, but exactly what it signifies is unclear.

The main problem with the 60-minute show, though, is that it treads ground that has been worn to dust by a hundred shows before it.

IDENTITY.COM
Stupid Gumball Dispenser Productions
MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 27

THIS well-acted Internet Age relationship drama has a split personality.

Half of it comments on the foolishness of using the emotionally distancing tools of dating websites and the like to find someone to get close to. The other half recirculates old ideas about being 25 and still mixed up.

Winnipeg writer-actor Brent Hirose stars in his own script, taking on the two roles of young men with very different personalities. This works out well because it depicts how the line between not enough self-confidence and too much often can come down to simple attitude.

Caught between the two men is Gwendolyn Collins as a mixed-up waitress who lies to herself when she says she's not looking for commitment.

What makes this cliched triangle interesting is the metaphoric use of computer games like Sim City and the videotaped scenes of the characters posting their online profiles.

The action on-screen is supposed to be mirrored by the action onstage, but the obvious mismatches become distracting. Worse, the second half of the hour-long show ignores its modern premise and becomes just another tale of anxiety-ridden 20-somethings trying to find love.

HIGH INFIDELITY, RELATIVELY SPEAKING
Run Ragged Company
Red River College (Venue 11), to July 26

HIGH Infidelity starts slowly as a middle-aged woman packs away some of the belongings of her recently deceased husband John. Nancy is alarmed to discover evidence that John might have been carrying on an affair.

That is the first plot twist of many in a storyline that an hour later looks like one of those snake balls during mating season in Narcisse. Just when you think you have it figured out, Winnipeg writer-director Dale Watts springs another outrageous revelation about who has been sleeping with whom.

The local amateur cast occasionally stumbled with the frivolous material but people in the sold-out house were probably laughing too hard at the soap-opera antics to notice.

WHAT ABOUT LUV?
The Crosswalk Players
The Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 27

HARRY'S had enough of life and is about to jump off a bridge when he meets his old college buddy Milt, who happens to be on the same bridge to kill his wife Ellen so he can run off with a colleague with whom he's having an affair. Milt sets Harry and Ellen up and everyone is happy for a year, until they realize the grass isn't always greener on the other side.

Harry is played with a goofy charm by Mitch Krohn, while Scott Plett is perfectly smarmy as Milt. But it's Alana Penner as Ellen who steals the show with her dynamic soprano and the ability to switch from uber-bitch to sexy and sweet in mere moments.

The show is an adaptation of a New York musical, but there are some songs that could have been dropped and replaced with a line or two of dialogue to cut the show from 90 minutes to a leaner 60-to 75-minute production. Still, fans of musicals will want to give Luv a chance.

COUNTERPART
Saucy Fops
The Gas Station Theatre (Venue 18), to July 27

Sex and the City fans disappointed by the lack of social insight in the recent film, I have some excellent news: you have here an often-witty theatrical play where modern relationships are neatly sliced and diced. For theatre-goers who aren't fans of the romantic comedy genre, however, you might find this overly sentimental and a tad saccharine.

The one-hour play by Cayman Duncan nicely captures a multitude of quirky characters in their quest for coupledom, with some truly comedic moments, like a single woman's sneezing fit when she encounters a pet-loving pediatrician with whom she's smitten. Actress Terri Runnalls is particularly real in her role as a neurotic singleton looking for love with all the wrong men. These winners include a rocker she twists tongues with who promptly forgets her name and a cute journalist who just can't forget his ex-girlfriend, both played by actor Stephen Sawka, who bounced back in Saturday's performance after collapsing on stage earlier last week for medical reasons.

Though the writing is sharp, sometimes delivery of these clever lines by the British Columbian troupe is too quick.

The actors and actresses would be well-served to pause a bit before tossing off the neat turns-of-phrase.

Also, the view of love delivered by the script is an unsophisticated version that lacks the deep complexity true partnerships have.

Oh well, rom-commers, you'll enjoy this guilty pleasure. Too bad you can't watch with a big bucket of buttery popcorn or a bowl of ice cream, and snuggled in your pajamas.

It's that kind of play.

EVIL DOERS
TLS Theatre
Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 27

This high-concept exploration of evil started with Winnipeg playwright Melanie Murray canvassing friends and strangers for tales of true evil. She turned those stories into (appropriately) 13 shorts that cover everything from an abusive mother to a drug fiend to a troubled soldier.

It's never boring, the performances are polished (if somewhat stilted and actorly) and there's a good variety of humour, drama, creepy tension and little kids, so it isn't all as heavy as the title suggests. The two comic-book parts are a bit tedious and not every vignette makes the audience really think about the moral intricacies of evil doers, but there's enough that's provocative to make this a worthwhile 45-minutes.

STRANDEAD
Classic Us! Productions
Ragpickers (Venue 13), to July 27

Speak up, people!! There were probably three dozen good lines and funny, Winnipeggy moments in this energetic jumble of a show, but I just couldn't hear most of them. And that' a shame, because the bits I did hear were a cheeky romp.

It's the story of eight strangers stuck on a rooftop with a dead lady on Canada Day -- kind of a Breakfast Club thing. They scream and fight and break up and confess and get drunk and try to remember the Superman theme song.

There's too many characters and none are particularly well developed. There's too much aimless shuffling around on the tiny stage, and too many scene changes. And the dead-lady device wasn't needed at all.

But it just barrels ahead full-tilt with a hip cast that is well-rehearsed and really gives 'er. The painted skyline backdrop is cool, and rickety old Ragpickers is the perfect urban venue.

If the cast members could just quit mumbling and speed-talking their way through their lines, they'd have a pretty fun, post-beer tent show on their hands.

HAMLET: BACK IN BLACK
The Spastics
PTE-Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17), to July 26

There are no original ideas anymore -- not in Shakespeare's time and not in Hollywood. That's the theme of this sketch comedy that melds the Bard with the box-office blockbuster. It's actually pretty inventive, playing off the ancient rumour that playwright Christopher Marlowe penned all of Shakespeare's masterpieces. Fast-forward to a modern Hollywood studio, where a scriptwriter is being bullied into creating a lame Hamlet sequel.

Fringers Karl Eckstand and Mike Seccombe give us lots of nerdy film references, an obligatory Sean Connery impression and some sword-fighting, but it actually hangs together better than most sketch comedy and there are some laughs, if you're in a good mood and don't expect too much. One incongruous surprise: The final scene between Marlowe and Shakespeare is totally touching and finely-written.

BLADE
Theatre Anywhere
Ragpickers Theatre (Venue 13), to July 27

Short, sharp and straight to the point, Yvette Nolan's 1990 fringe drama gets a timely remount in the wake of B.C. serial killer Robert Picton's first trial.

The powerful 35-minute production from Theatre Anywhere director Eileen Longfield (So Far From Eden, 2007; Montana, 2006) is a snapshot of a Winnipeg university student who, following a fight with her boyfriend, makes a fatal decision to accept a ride from a stranger.

Blond suburbanite Angela (Stephanie Moroz) knows there's a killer on the loose, but he preys on prostitutes and most of his victims are aboriginal women on the fringes of society. She should be safe, right? But death puts Angela in the same league with the killer's past victims. The media suggest she was a hooker, which seems to imply that she didn't have the same right to life as women in the social mainstream.

A friend visits a local newspaper columnist in an effort to restore Angela's reputation, only to be asked how many men Angela had in her life. And Angela's grieving mother (Cheryl Soluk) wonders if the killer (Dan Gilmour) would have been caught sooner if police were looking for "a man who killed women instead of a man who killed hookers."

Toronto-based Nolan, who was on the original Winnipeg fringe committee in 1988, wasn't prescient when she wrote Blade. But isn't it a sad commentary that the issues she raised almost two decades ago are still relevant today? Discuss.

BAT BOY: THE MUSICAL
Black Sheep Theatre
Tom Hendry Theatre at the MTC Warehouse (Venue 6), to July 26

Weekly World News (R.I.P.) readers know all about Bat Boy, the half-bat, half-boy discovered in 1992 who made the headlines ever since for all sorts of adventures, from leading police on a high-speed car chase to travelling to outer space. But it's safe to say they've never seen him like this.

The rock opera about his "life" was first staged in Los Angeles in 1997 and now makes its way to Winnipeg courtesy of Ottawa's Black Sheep Theatre. The company gets help from some local talent who only had a week to learn the show, which results in a few bumps along the way.

The plot revolves around the discovery of the Bat Boy in a cave by residents of a small West Virginia town who are convinced the mutant is responsible for the deaths of 23 cows. They want to see the freak of nature dead. The town's veterinarian and his family fall for the strange creature and teach it to speak, dress sharp, do accounting and sing like an angel.

At a lengthy 105-minutes -- and featuring a cast of 12 and a five-member band -- this is one of the most ambitious shows of the Fringe, but it still hadn't found its wings on the second night, as some of the harmonizing and choreography from the chorus was a little off at times. Expect it to get some added bite as the run continues.

THE OVERNIGHT
Mur-Folk Productions
MTC Backstage at the Mainstage (Venue 1), to July 26

Mark has a problem. Despite the obvious one of being an overnight DJ for pirate radio, he's also in love with the pizza delivery girl. She, of course, is playing hard to get.

Oh yeah, this is a romantic comedy, if you hadn't already guessed, complete with all the usual elements of a 20-something TV sitcom. But all is not lost. Some snappy writing, a solidly rehearsed cast and a couple of sex-crazed morning show radio hosts keep this melo-comedy afloat.

You won't get tired of watching these spunky Edmonton actors, led by fringe favourite Matt Alden (BoyGroove), bounce from one zany character to the next. What you might get tired of, though, is waiting for the three of them to get to their all-too-predictable conclusion. However, if you enjoyed the movie Knocked Up and the last episode of Friends, well, then you're in luck.

The use of a comical soundtrack and a screen to reveal the silhouettes of radio callers were sound directorial decisions.

WANTED IF NOT WED
Zinnia Productions
Red River Community College Princess Street Campus (Venue 11), to July 25

This one-woman show explores the reasons why some women do not marry. Toronto actress Jennifer Gillespie met with 30 single women of different ages and recorded on tape their explanations for why they chose to remain unmarried.

The play is an interesting series of character studies, and Gillespie gets to show off her stage chops as a character actress. She has strung all the interviews together and simply becomes each person in turn with virtually no segues between. The interviews themselves offer no new revelations (unless a woman is a lesbian, remaining single, for the most part, seems to boil down to not finding the right man) but would provide some really good raw material for a more conventional play.

Otherwise, is like sitting in a coffee shop and overhearing various conversations. It's fascinating but not challenging enough to allow the audience to come away with something new.

TAKE IT BACK
Solid State Breakdance
MTC Warehouse (Venue 6), to July 25

Anyone who enjoys breakdancing should check out this show from Montreal. Three dancers -- one female and two male -- mix tricky footwork with impressive displays of the street-bred style that includes spinning on heads and shoulders, tireless dropping to the floor, flipping around and popping back up, bits of gymnastics and feats of strength, flexibility and balance.

The show is supposed to explore the question, "Why don't we dance in couples anymore?" It does deliver, as indicated in the program, a fresh mix of the partnering style of swing dance with the movement style of breakdance. The music is well chosen, often merging vintage swing with hip-hop beats. There are some great gender-reversing moments.

But it's not always clear what choreographers JoDee Allen and Helen Simard are getting at in terms of their theme. There are mystifying stretches and static bits. It appears that the show was meant to feature two couples, and that the unexplained absence of the second female may have forced last-minute reworking.

Although the three are strong movers who can surely tap, funk and lindy hop, they never bust out in a show-stopping, blow-the-roof-off number to really wow the crowd. The talent is there, but the show's structure could use some refinement.

DEMONS OF THE MIND
Theatre on TAP
Onstage at the Playhouse (Venue 4), to July 26

Fringe veteran Talia Pura (Metamorphosis, 2007) is on a precarious footing with this dark drama about madness, murder and religious fanaticism, and not just because she spends much of the show performing aerial acrobatics.

One false move on her silks could send her crashing to the stage. And when she's on the ground, she treads a fine line in her role as a woman whose postpartum depression has escalated to full-blown psychosis.

A few false notes in the script take her sympathetic mad housewife dangerously close to unintentionally funny crazy lady territory. But for the most part, the Winnipeg writer and actor's disturbing story hangs together. A mother of six who home-schools and cares for the kids with no help from her husband -- their fundamentalist religion is big on adhering to strict gender roles -- she's watching TV one day when Jesus tells her to commit an unspeakable act. Her defence lawyer (Harry Nelken) finds plenty of evidence that Marie is not entirely to blame. Her husband has known for years that she needed help and their cult-leaderish pastor is cruelly critical of her skills as a mother.

There are obvious parallels to the case of American mom Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in a bathtub in 2001, but Pura says only that she was inspired by true events. Her story is provocative and at times poetic, thanks largely to her athletic forays. But while they most often serve the play, some of her antics are distracting. We're betting most of the audience couldn't tell you how this case wraps up. In what may well be the ultimate act of scene-stealing, Pura returns to the silks for a daring display of high-flying acrobatics while Nelken performs his closing monologue.

SCRATCH
Rapid Fire Theatre
Ragpickers Theatre (Venue 13), to July 27

You need only to prompt Rapid Fire a bit to get the Edmonton improv troupe to embark on an outlandish, 50-minute comic lark.

At a recent fringe performance, the duo of Kevin Gillese and Arlen Konopaki took three audience topic suggestions -- a kitchen, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man and the movie Tombstone -- to create, on the spot, a crazy yarn about a heroine-addicted cat named Condor, a cancer patient whose treatment turns him into a giant Hulk-like creature and a lab mouse into Chris Farley, as well as a sick gunslinger named Doc Vacation.

The agile improvisers proved to be quick on their feet, but their ad-libs were not as inspiring as they attempted to being the dissimilar threads of the three storylines together for the climax. They also improvised the ending at the 50-minute mark, 25 minutes earlier than the stated show length.

HOW TO FAKE CLINICAL DEPRESSION
Daydream Productions
Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 26

Oregon-bred Steven Marrocco tells us that he moved to Los Angeles to make it as an actor, but got stuck working in a tanning salon. The lack of drive the slacker-ish Marrocco invests in his one-man show suggests he's not likely to make the Hollywood A-list anytime soon.

He could get bigger laughs if he spoke up and delivered his lines with a sense of ownership. That said, his tale of faking depression in order to take part in a paid drug study does land lots of satirical jabs, particularly against the makers of drugs like Prozac, Celexa and Paxil and their sanitized ad-speak about feeling "down, sad or blue."

Marrocco switches characters well, painting funny little portraits of his much-medicated family members and the eccentric researchers. With the running joke of approaching his trumped-up illness as a well-researched movie role, he pokes smart fun at actors' pretentions.

His story turns conventionally touchy-feely at the end, as he learns life lessons about real depression and trots out the over-simplification that people on antidepressants are numbed-out, incapable of feeling emotion. Overall, the show propels one to neither an exhilarated high nor a crushing low, just to a zone of mild amusement. Marrocco needs to up the dosage of fierceness and originality in this prescription.

This hour-long story based on Cervantes' classic novel is a surprising misfire from perennial fringe fave Erik de Waal, the South African storyteller who's been captivating local audiences for years.

Setting aside the mush-mouthed delivery, hesitations and muffed lines as opening-night kinks (although one doesn't expect them from such a seasoned vet), de Waal's story of the windmill-tilting Don Quixote, as told from the perspective of his faithful servant, Sancho Panza, largely fails to transport the listener into another world. Alone on a stage that's bare except for a chair, a bucket and a mop (props that could get a little more use), de Waal recounts the adventures of the dreamer knight errant and his more grounded squire. But their mishaps are mostly less than captivating, told in quotidian language and with a lot of huffing and puffing for nought -- instances that should be humorous fall flat. The moment when Sancho fully enters into Quixote's deluded world is magical, but it doesn't last.

The twist de Waal puts on the tale is clever, furthering the moral that it's better to see the world as it might be than merely to accept it as it is. It would be nice if the rest of the production lived up to that enchanting premise.

THE MISSADVENTUROUS PERILS OF PAULINE
Echo Theatre
School of Contemporary Dancers (Venue 8), to July 26

This 45-minute Kids Fringe outing tells a clever and lively tale of a feisty girl who must save an Oz-like town from a series of comic bad guys.

The Winnipeg company, composed of actors in their 20s, has mounted several other children's plays, including one at last summer's fringe and another at last winter's MametFest.

Writer Charlene Van Buekenhout, who plays the title character, looks like a gamine out of a French art film. She gets able support from her male co-stars, Tom Keenan, Matthew TenBruggencate and Glen Thompson, and director Kevin Klassen.

The production boasts several funny props and some cute musical interludes. The script would not be out of place on some well-meaning weekday morning children's TV show.

ORDINARY MAY'S EXTRAORDINARY WAYS
Fickle Pickle Productions
The Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 26

There's nothing ordinary at all about May -- she just needs a little nudge to see how very special she is.

A great cast of women carry this too, too cute production that teaches children to look within themselves to find that unique gift that makes them extraordinary. Cheesy songs and dance numbers reinforce the lessons unfolded in each one of May's adventures, which include helping a frog queen and a magical mouse realize how incredibly important and well loved they truly are.

If this sounds a bit too sweet for your palate, it just gets more and more adorable. The problem is that there isn't much to keep parents engaged and the local production pigeonholes its target audience as being about 3 to 6 years of age. Having said that, the itty-bitty ones will love watching this charismatic company led by Andrea Rhynard as May, and narrated by Erin Hammond, who could make just about anyone smile.

RETAIL
M.P.M.M. Productions
Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 10), to July 26

The trouble with Retail is that it doesn't have much to sell.

Writer/performer/director Joel Passante promises to swing open the staff-room doors in stores to expose what's really going on. What we learn is what we already suspected, that working in retail can be crappy if you have to clean up after slovenly shoppers, be verbally assaulted by idiot customers or hunt for anything in the stockroom.

Passante proves to be a pleasant people person on stage, probably the result of seven years in the retail trenches. But his act, despite some funny moments, comes across as a 40-minute bitch session that is hard to buy into.

KALIBAN
Reliquarium Productions

Shakespeare devotees in particular will be intrigued by this 40-minute monologue by a B.C. performer who invents a future for one of the Bard's allegedly abandoned characters.

In The Tempest, Caliban is the only human inhabitant of an island that is otherwise "not honour'd with a human shape." He is usually played as a wild man, a beast or the devil himself.

Providing sympathy for this devil is the goal of Andrew Hamilton, a 40-something actor who resembles an overfed hobbit from The Lord of the Rings.

Stripped to the waist for much of the play, displaying a luxuriantly hairy back, he speaks in dense Elizabethan-style sentences to explain why Caliban, a creature of impressive appetite, is no worse than the humans he encounters in the wider world.

Hamilton's material is reasonably ambitious, though perhaps too obscure for most. On the plus side, he makes cannibalism sound like a tasty option.

GLORY DAYS
Prairie Boy Productions
The Conservatory (Venue 7), to July 26

Regina writer-actor Rod McDonald plays an aging boxing coach who recalls his youth rising up from the working class streets of East Vancouver to become the only Canadian to fight George Forman, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali.

This 50-minute one-hander has undeniable crowd appeal, though there is no sentimental cliché that McDonald is too proud to exploit.

His boxer has an idyllic Irish childhood, loyal Italian and Chinese friends, a gruff but well-meaning coach and a saintly wife who dies of cancer to the strains of Dylan's Knockin' on Heaven's Door.

Overall, the soft-hearted piece is much closer to Sylvester Stallone's Rocky than to Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull.

McDonald, a fleshy fellow of about 60, is convincing enough as the boxer. When he's not making his punching bag jump, he milks his share of laughs and tears from what is pedestrian material.

WONDERBAR!
Sansregret Productions
MTC Backstage at the Mainstage (Venue 1), to July 27

Certified fringe goddess Alex Dallas has star billing in the official program, but she's been a no-show on the fringe tour, leaving Winnipeg producer, playwright and -- thankfully -- actress Celeste Sansregret to take this show on the road. Stepping up to ably perform her own monologue, Sansregret adopts a German accent to weave a rags-to-riches-to-rags tale about a middle-aged woman who is, coincidentally, also the author of her own fate.

Born in a German refugee camp after the Second World War, Katrina suffers hard knocks early and often, but still wants to believe in fairy-tale endings. She marries at 18 and moves to Canada where, a few decades later, a series of tragedies and tawdry twists of fate leave her divorced, childless, penniless and seriously envious of wealthy women she meets at her job in a designer clothing store. Enter a rich Prince Charming, who whisks her off on an extravagant vacation in France and Italy, and it looks like Katrina's dreams have finally come true. There are hints aplenty that her lover is trouble with a capital T, but like a modern-day Marie Antoinette, Katrina loses her head, ignoring glaring warning signs as she wallows in her lavish new lifestyle. Her blind love of luxury may be understandable, given the depravations she's suffered, but a few too many meticulously detailed descriptions of expensive gourmet meals, jewels and designer swag betray a greedy heart. In the end, the lovers may get what they each deserve, but after an overlong 90 minutes, the dramatic payoff for the audience is on the meagre side.

LETTERS @ LARGE
R.S.T.N.L.E. Productions
Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 10), to July 26

Letters @ Large is the result of one-man, guerrilla letter-writing campaign by Winnipegger Jeff Sinclair. For years, Sinclair has penned hoax letters, sent them off to unsuspecting businesses and waited for quirky new material for his one-man stage show to arrive by post.

Sinclair's act is essentially reading the responses to his outrageous correspondence and waving his arm to a technician who will change the image on the screen. His best is a reply from the American Philatelic Society, to which he sent a made-up story about acquiring a taste for eating expensive stamps. The serious reply referred to stamps as being like fine wines, with distinctive flavours, and suggested that he consume less costly stamps.

Despite Sinclair's quirky hobby and his brilliantly concocted letters, the hour-long recitation never pushes the envelope beyond the level of a truth-is-stranger-than-fiction side show.

THE BIG STUPID IMPROV SHOW
The Probable Cast
MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 26

What we have here is a fine one-hour show that's well-known to experienced Fringers, but hasn't hit its stride this year, at least yet.

This time-honoured Fringe tradition featured a seasoned all-male improv ensemble on its opening night, and included outlandish plot points for which the show's famous, like a vigilante environmentalist gone wild planting trees in suburban Winnipeg and a blind dentist who calls himself the Tooth Whisperer.

Fielding suggestions from the audience, the improv players built comedy that often entertained, but sometimes veered into the incomprehensible.

Some of the impersonations opening night were hysterical -- like a swaggering cop trying to impress two terrified Charleswood residents who found their no-flyers mailbox stuffed with papers.

Others fell flat, like a sketch that involved two heavily accented men trying to grow giant worms. Still, the show's a very worthwhile see that may heat up as the fringe goes on.

THE RED HANDKERCHIEF
Aztec Theatre
Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 9), to July 26

Emily and Eddie, who have been living together for over a year, are growing irritated with each other. He's a nerdy academic who finds himself vulnerable to an affair with a student who worships him. She's a fretful creative type who is tempted to get re-involved with a sensual artist. The handkerchief of the title is a scarlet symbol of possible adultery.

As they prepare for a costume party, Emily and Eddie separately confess to the audience, with the opposite actor taking the role of the seductive outsider. The most appealing aspect of this hour-long relationship comedy is how it plays with truth, as each partner amusingly fibs to the audience.

Real-life Winnipeg couple Alison Vargo and Chris Sabel are confident actors, and Sabel's switching between geeky and sexy characters is especially fun to watch. As the playwright, though, Sabel has bitten off a little more than he can chew. The tense dialogue between Emily and Eddie often rings false, and the ending is perplexing in its attempt to say something about fantasy, disguised desire and coupledom.

FRANK EINSTEIN & TANGO FIASCO
The Rogue Elephants
Onstage at the Playhouse (Venue 4), to July 27

Relive your headbangin' youth at this original rock opera written and arranged by Winnipeg's Geoff Taylor and performed with gusto by defiantly cool, middle-aged rockers the Rogue Elephants.

As T.R.E. wend their musical way through this two-part show, the audience can follow along with a screen that projects both lyrics and accompanying images. The first half, Frank Einstein, begins with the re-telling of the Frankenstein story. The second half, Tango Fiasco, begins by using the "rocked-out" rhythms of the music and form of the tango dance as a metaphor for male-female relationships.

Both operas eventually morph into something more political, and the lyrics and images start to reflect a (seriously) post-adolescent dissatisfaction with the "establishment" as characterized by capitalism, nuclear weapons, and love gone wrong.

Jo Gretsinger was born to rock, and her voice drives the show, with admirable turns on lead guitar by JT Scavenger (the winner of this year's Jerry Garcia look-alike contest), Matt Chaput on bass, and with terrific percussion by drummer Rodney Struss.

Ear plugs are being handed out at the door. Take them. Use them. The venue is just too small for the Rogue Elephants' big sound and it can be overwhelming sitting that close to the band.

MORTEM CAPIENDUM
Four Humors Theater
MTC Backstage at the Mainstage (Venue 1), to July 26.

Three men from Minneapolis, all in their 20s, play Depression-era snake-oil salesmen in this broadly satiric comedy about materialism and consumerism.

In tone if not content, imagine an anemic version of the movie There Will Be Blood.

Adjusting their script to a Winnipeg audience (save for an easily fixable reference to a newspaper called the Winnipeg Star), the three attempt to bamboozle us into paying $4 for a bottle of green-dyed corn syrup, which they promise provides the taste of immortality.

There are some clever bits in the writing. The title is Latin for "capturing death," and the performances of Matt Spring as the fast-talking Prof. Jonathan St. Miracle, Brant Miller as his thick-headed assistant, and Jason Ballweber as the soulless ringer are nothing if not energetic.

Still, Daniel Day-Lewis does not have to lose any sleep.

On the positive side, this is likely the only production in which an actor holds his breath in a bucket of water -- the actual wet stuff -- for at least 20 seconds. Now that shows commitment.

PUSS IN CAHOOTS
Loonissee
The Conservatory (Venue 7), to July 26

The farm has been sold to an evil agri-business conglomerate run by ogres, the farmer has decided to pack it in and head for the retirement home, and his teenage son is out on his ear. All is not lost, however. The lad has a talking cat who only needs a hat, a sack and a pair of boots to help his master find his fortune.

Written by Sue Proctor and Paul Langel, Loonissee's cast includes four confident teens who can act and carry a tune or two with enthusiasm. Langel's charming original songs put the "folk" into this re-imagined telling of the folk tale Puss-In-Boots.

Veteran performer Proctor is so very comfortable on stage, and she has a gas doing turns as the daffy narrator as well as other minor characters in the play. The rest of the troupe is well-rehearsed, but Loonissee's overall style is relaxed, and everyone on stage is clearly having some fun being there.

The script really needs a couple of re-drafts, though. There are just a few too many loose threads, and the ending needs to come to a more resounding conclusion.

All in all a nice performance, and kids up to age 10 will quite enjoy this Winnipeg production.

QUEENS OF ROME
Peg City Kitty
The Conservatory (Venue 7), to July 27

Smart writing carries this two-hander from locals Libby Lea and Theresa Fawcett, penned by Jeremy Bowkett, much farther than its funny but slight premise might otherwise warrant.

It's the 8th century BC and Tarpiea (Lea), a vestal virgin, and her BFF Amelia (Fawcett), the daughter of the king of Rome, are the original (toga) party girls. To pulsing dance music, the two indolent, entitled bad girls do drugs, shop and sleep around (well, not the V.V, who attends "veev" functions instead), all the while engaging in very modern, hilariously obscene, bitchy banter (with the occasional Latin lesson thrown in). Little do they know, these Paris Hiltons of Rome are about to change history.

Fawcett is a commanding stage presence -- her talk-to-the-hand way with a diss is enviable -- but Lea is less so (her many little line flubs add up). The hour-long play is divided into too many short little scenes, which disrupts the flow, but the climax has surprising emotional heft, coming as it does from two such shallow girls.

THE SPUTNIKS
Ko-peeka Jo-sla
Exchange Community Church (Venue 12), to July 26

This low-key, one-woman monologue orbits a Jewish-Russian family called the Sputniks. The narrator, Katusha, the daughter of two academics, relates how after her father is pressured to join the Communist Party, the trio decides to leave Russia and begin a long, soul-sapping search for a home.

Written and performed by the barefoot Elison Zasko, formerly of Moscow, The Sputniks mixes an authentic voice with a bittersweet flavour that is quite winning. It is hard not to empathize with any refugee who would agree to a one-month sanitorium stay in order to land a visa for Sweden.

The bumpy road to freedom for immigrants is not a new story, so Zasko ups the ante by injecting a last-minute plot twist that is more unsettling than satisfying.

MATING RITUALS OF THE URBAN COUGAR
Firebelly Performance Poetry
Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 26

Andrea Thompson's spoken-word show is constructed around her public persona as a so-called cougar, the unflattering label attached to older women who date younger men.

Stories about the 41-year-old Torontonian's love life are interspersed with verse and songs. Short-lived relationships are punctuated with the wordsmith's kiss-off: "Got a poem out of it so it's not so bad."

Thompson has an engaging stage presence. She opens with a lovely poem and ends her hour-long performance with a cover of Dinah Washington's They'll Be Some Changes Made. However, Cougar is so laid back that you wish it would show more bite.

CIRCUMFERENCE
Awkward Moment Productions
The Playhouse Studio (Venue 3), to July 26

Comedic tales of life in the fat lane are Amy Salloway's bread and butter. The Minneapolis-based performer, who brought summer-camp frolic So Kiss Me Already, Herschel Gertz!, to the fringe in 2006, serves up more of the same humour and heartbreak in this well-rounded sequel. Back in pigtails and intentionally unflattering baggy gym gear, Amy recounts a battle of the bulge that began in junior high school gym class and may end on a gastric bypass surgeon's table. As a teen, tormented by a sadistic gym teacher and cruel peers, Amy declares she is divorcing her body, but years later, she still can't shake the fat -- or the self-loathing and public mortifications that accompany it.

Longing for love, but convinced she's unlovable in her current state, she's finally driven to consider an extreme surgical remedy that would stick a knife in the heart of the notion that self-acceptance is the only theatrically acceptable happy ending. But first, she makes a fateful foray to a gym, where she meets a man who is even more physically damaged -- and he's fresh from a coma, to boot. We should all be so lucky. But will this prince save Amy from herself? Will she make peace with her body at last? Stay tuned. The story takes a few side trips, some uncomfortably painful and filled with raw emotion, others painfully funny and filled with raw vegetables.

This is not the most substantial meal at the fringe, but if you're grazing for a tasty one-hour morsel, Circumference is a sweet treat.

BUSTY RHYMES WITH MC HOT PINK
Penash Productions
Ragpickers Theatre (Venue 13), to July 26

There is nothing subtle about Busty Rhymes, who is apparently big in her native New Zealand and everywhere she takes her R-rated fringe act. To prove it, she fits her entire head into one of the G-cups of her bra. Badda-bing, badda-boom.

It's not the first time that Busty, a.k.a. Penny Ashton, is pretty rude in her pink, full-length ball gown. Much of her spoken-word act focuses on her breasts, her Rubenesque figure or her sex life.

So it is ironic when Busty has to significantly pad her hour-long performance in Montreal with some lame audience participation, in which a couple of goofs are pulled up on stage to audition for the role of man-hos. Now there were a couple of boobs.

CRUDE LOVE
Big Smoke Productions
PTE Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17), to July 27

Crude Love looks to a future when the American military is occupying Alberta tar sands in the interest of protecting its oil lifeline. It's 2012 when a rogue eco-warrior named Abbie chains himself to a super-sized dump truck driven by former Newfoundlander Phyllis.

The pair are no strangers, having performed in A Streetcar Named Desire together, and they slowly find common ground -- ground that has yet to be destroyed by strip-mining -- to take a chance on love. Just as the tar-sands development is hazardous to the boreal forests and local birdlife, it also proves a romance killer.

While Crude Love is no theatrical gusher, what the plot lacks in sophistication and originality, it makes up for with appealing performances by the Vancouver husband-and-wife acting-writing team of Russell and Gillian Bennett.

TELEGRAMS FROM THE CANADIAN CINEMA
North Country Cinema
Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 26

Lost among the almost 139 plays at this year's Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival is Telegrams, a screening of new works by emerging Canadian filmmakers. Each evening a different selection of movies, ranging in length from a 60-second short to a 42-minute work, is presented with live introductions by the filmmakers.

The central movie -- because at 42 minutes, it is by far the longest -- is Alexander Carson's Lucy James Part 1, which focuses on the young revellers at a wedding reception and the late-night game of hide-and-seek they play in a hotel. While the craft is competent, the story is hardly compelling, which doesn't bode well for Part 2.

Some of the briefer pieces, like Daniel Beirne's Beth, work up more interest. Somehow for his first post-graduate film, Beirne landed Cara Pilko (TV's This Is Wonderland) to star in his five-minute character study about a woman who has just found out she's pregnant. It shows promise, as does Telegrams, as a welcome break from all the theatre.