Fringe reviews #10: Ready Player One

ANDREW SILVERWOOD: LOVE THY NEIGHBOUR

Andrew Silverwood

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 9), to July 26

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British comedian Andrew Silverwood starts this hour of standup dressed as a priest, offering “communion” to audience members. The costume is, unfortunately, just a gimmick — not an indication of any sharp, satirical critiques of religious tropes in Silverwood’s material.

With a high-energy delivery, the Australia-based seasoned performer casts himself as a bit of an affable curmudgeon in jokes about olives, his extended family and his brother’s wedding — all (very) loosely tied to the titular theme — and speaks on the Israel-Palestine conflict in a compelling section of the act that could benefit from greater focus and fine-tuning; the ending felt rushed.

Overall, Silverwood’s routine is well-practised. Standup comedy fans can be assured they’re in the hands of a professional (and he’ll cheekily remind you of that very fact).

— Katie May

BULLHEADED

Chronically Ch(ill) Productions

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 9), to July 26

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Winnipeg’s Hailley Rhoda returns with another feminist retelling of Greek mythology in this intense take on Pasiphaë, a cursed queen and mother of a minotaur (half bull, half man).

Within a tight 45 minutes, Rhoda, the show’s creator and sole performer, gives voice to the immortal goddess to reclaim the story of a mother’s love and loss of her child. The result is an unflinching exploration of a woman’s determination in the face of tragedy — and a searing critique of who gets to make history. The monologue writing and performance is powerful, without much comic relief to buoy the viewer; the discomfort is the point.

Skilful use of puppetry — a brilliant setup for the show’s heavy, dramatic turn — gets the audience up to speed on the myth. Get a front-row seat, if you can: some of the images and text in the puppet show are too small to be easily seen from the back of this venue.

— Katie May

CAPTAIN TED: DISABLED ASTRONAUT

Strokes of Genius

One88 (Venue 23), to July 26

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Captain Ted (Mitch Krohn) zoots around the cosmos on a spaceship, flanked by his trusty crew, battling aliens in this hour-long show with a big cast and big heart.

There are lessons about disability along the way — the synopsis identifies all of the crew as disabled — and more than a little Star Trek parody.

The jokes are light, often corny, but sweet. A few are aimed at adults, though mostly this is family-friendly stuff with a gentle moral story.

It’s probably 10 minutes too long, but overall Captain Ted works as spirited community theatre.

— Conrad Sweatman

ELEANOR’S STORY: LIFE AFTER WAR

Ingrid Garner

Planetarium Auditorium (Venue 9), to July 26

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A story of survival as timely now as ever, this devastating yet sweet post-Second World War memoir is not without hope.

Los-Angeles-based performer Ingrid Garner brings to life her grandmother Eleanor Ramrath Garner’s memories in a graceful performance that lends ease to extremely difficult subject matter. Ramrath Garner, now 96, wrote a book about her childhood experiences as an American living in Adolf Hitler’s Germany from 1939 to 1946. Her granddaughter adapted it for the stage (Eleanor’s Story: An American Girl In Hitler’s Germany) and now returns with this well-produced, engrossing sequel.

The war is over, and 16-year-old Eleanor is in high school in the U.S., going to sockhops and history class — but trauma followed her home.

Garner, who’s been performing Eleanor’s story on tour for about a decade, plays more than 10 characters with just three props and spare but superb lighting and sound cues.

Don’t miss your chance to see this standalone sequel, even if you haven’t seen the first one. You won’t soon forget it.

— Katie May

ELEVEN PLEASE

Kinetica Collective

The Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to July 25

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The program promises 60 minutes for this quirky, imaginative, but highly uneven comedy by local playwright Ryan Osodo. At 45 fast-moving minutes, it is entertaining enough, but feels truncated.

Five people are trapped in an elevator going to the 11th-floor office of a vaguely defined clothing charity/business. Complications ensue, personal secrets are revealed. There is tepid social satire around the hypocrisy of the supposed charity.

More interesting and comic is the suppressed love Ben has for his assistant, with a flower seller as go-between. The play’s best moment is a scintillating, beautifully executed song-and-dance number by the whole cast, arising out of Ben’s romantic imagination. Though some clichés pop up, Osodo’s writing is often witty and surprising.

The cast ranges from slightly weak to strong, but their clear delight in performing together might make even the most cynical fringe-goer smile.

— Rory Runnells

FINDING REM LEZAR

Rem Lezar Theatre

Asper Centre for Theatre and Film (Venue 10), to July 25.

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After a three-year hiatus, Rem Lezar is back at fringe.

A sequel to Creating Rem Lezar, this 60-minute child-friendly original musical follows the same characters, Zack and Ashlee, and features members from the 2023 production.

But instead of taking down the bad guy, as they did in the first iteration of the series, the kids tackle the difficulties of growing up, fractured personal connections and the grief of losing a parent. Though it deals with some sensitive material, the musical goes about discussing topics like loss and grief in a positive and reassuring way for a younger audience.

While the show did suffer from occasional mic issues, out-of-time singing with the live accompaniment and pitchiness, the passion of the performers was evident.

Alex Schaeffer, who plays Zack, is credited on the composition and lyrics on almost all the songs and gave a standout performance.

— Tyler Hodgson

HAYDEN MAINES: EMERGENCY OPS!

Illustrium Creations

Aceartinc (Venue 24), to July 26

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AI-assisted Microsoft Team meetings, a coffee mug stencilled with a Michael Scott punchline, petty HR rules, an annoying high-pitched co-worker named Kelly, small-town civil servants bumbling around after an emergency involving a train crash and pig poop — this one-hour, one-man show is a parody of white-collar office politics with obvious influences from Parks and Recreation and The Office.

The problem is that young local writer-performer Hayden Maines, for now, lacks the theatrical range to juggle five characters. We strain to engage.

There’s probably something to this overlong script, versions of which have been mounted in Winnipeg before. We sense the underlying intelligence, the satirical eye for Prairie and Canadian politics that gives it a more original edge. It might work with more actors — or with narration, to help guide us along.

Or it might be time to try something brand new with collaborators.

— Conrad Sweatman

JIMMY HOGG: MASHED

Jimmy Hogg

PTE — Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 26

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After sold-out runs at the last two fringes, and an incident involving a daycare, a nursing home, and a popular British insult, comedian Jimmy Hogg set out to write a show without any swearing. In this brand-new performance, he succeeded. Well, almost.

There is a story at the heart of Mashed, drawn from Hogg’s past as a verified Cool Young Man. But let’s be honest: the story is just a backdrop for the comedian to let loose his talent.

Hogg is a master of his craft. From the second he takes the stage, he owns it. He’s relentlessly energetic, rakishly charismatic, and just the right amount of deranged. The main thrust of his tale is woven with sharp asides, tangents tacked onto tangents, and uproarious pops of crowd interaction. (Don’t forget, Jimmy: you promised more pickerel next year.) Every bit of it is funny, and not a moment goes to waste.

— Melissa Martin

JON BENNET: AMERICAN’T

2Hoots Productions

Aceartinc (Venue 24), to July 26

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The engineering of a top-notch fringe show is a funny thing.

Some are high concept or fancifully produced. But just as often as not, touring successes seem to follow a formula: accessible material tightly executed by a small cast. The economics of the fringe circuit may dictate this.

The one-man American’t by the U.S.-based Australian performer Jon Bennett is such a play. It’s about nothing so much as a veteran fringer displaying his strong storytelling and comic chops over a meandering hour-long monologue about messy one-night stands on the road, his bogan brothers in Australia, his dad’s penis and awful American airport security.

But the most potent moments are the ones where things get more vulnerable. Where we learn just how gruelling it is to be an international fringe success: the financial precariousness, the homelessness, the alcoholic temptations. They’re played very effectively for laughs, but something darker and richer is below the surface.

— Conrad Sweatman

NOW, DON’T GET UPSET

Hunter Dance Project

Centre culturel franco-manitobain (Venue 4), to July 26

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Rachel (writer/performer Rachel S. Hunter) arrives onstage carrying a huge armload of colourful bags and suitcases, wryly comparing them to the emotional “baggage” we all carry with us. What follows is a sweet-and-bittersweet look at the relationship between mothers and daughters.

“I was the ‘Oopsie’, the unexpected child,” she relates, before recounting how her mother occasionally used sarcasm to “add a nice layer of guilt on top of the bed we already lied in.”

Hunter uses the large space at CCFM well, intersplicing her lines with dance moves as we listen to (re-enacted) voicemails between her and her mother. Why don’t they ever talk directly? The mother sounds nice and normal. Is Rachel possibly the problem? There’s an uneasy undertone, and you wonder how this will end…

At the conclusion, spectators were invited to share their own anecdotes. Many did, some astoundingly pouring out their life story to a woman they’d only met 55 minutes earlier.

“It’s the most beautiful thing,” Hunter revealed afterward, “to have that connection.”

— Janice Sawka