Yet another wave of fringe play reviews

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 19/07/2024 (760 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ABSOLUTE MAGIC WITH KEITH BROWN

Keith Brown
PTE — Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 28

London, Ont., magician Keith Brown is personable and instantly puts people at ease — which is crucial if one relies on a lot of crowd work, which Brown does, in this hour-long magic show that entertains but sometimes feels a little light on the razzle-dazzle.

Audience members are involved in nearly all the tricks and illusions, which range from amazing — such as the one involving a knife and a card — to underwhelming, such as the rubber band trick that is set up by a sweet but sort of who-cares story about the first lady of Iceland. But when Brown’s on, he’s on.

The final illusion, involving a piece of fruit and the power of suggestion, will leave you questioning your own reality. (Fellow performers could take a page from Brown; he delivered the most thoughtful and sincere land acknowledgement this reviewer has ever heard.)

🐟🐟🐟

— Jen Zoratti

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BUTTERFLY DREAMS

Rem Lezar
Theatre Son of Warehouse (Venue 5), to July 28

It’s difficult to pull off an ethereal experience when your venue smells a bit like the lifting of a dumpster lid after a hot humid weekend. So it is with this locally made experimental physical theatre piece (the program deems it “unclassifiable”) that mercifully clocks in at 30 minutes. If the venue weren’t challenge enough, the show is one of those truly fringe experiences where you’re asked to interpret the mysterious action onstage.

The cast spends much of the time walking in circles in what can only be described as a forced wedding march, emitting peeps, chirps and swooping whoops while accompanied by a pianist and percussionist playing lovely Erik Satie tunes, among other things. A ballerina provides some more conventional breaks in the action before joining the forced march.

It’s … mysterious, but on the plus side, the show embodies true fringe spirit, even if it tests indulgence.

🐟🐟 ½

— Randall King

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DARK HORSE THEATRE’S “THE SOCIAL”

Curtain Call Collective
Centre culturel franco-manitobain (Venue 4) to July 28

With 11 characters, this is one of the larger casts you’ll see at the fringe. Even rarer, every player is equally strong. It’s the night of the social for soon-to-be married Danny and Chloe. One by one, we meet the family, guests, bridal party and staff as they take refuge in the cloakroom. Danny (Jordan Bourquin) is nervously awaiting the arrival of his fiancée, while dealing with his comically drunken friend Buck (Hayden Maines), controlling future mother-in-law Edith (Judy Arnason) and an assortment of guests in disarray.

The set, with six full coat racks and tables of door prizes, convincingly creates a cloakroom. Snippets of party music play each time the door opens, denoting both the passage of time and the action happening just beyond.

Over the course of the evening, facades are dropped and secrets are uncovered, all leading to a surprise reveals. Penned by fringe veteran Mike Seccombe, this serio-comedy will keep you engaged right down to the unexpected conclusion.

🐟🐟🐟🐟 ½

— Janice Sawka

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ESCAPE FROM WINNIPEG

Plisskin Productions
MTYP Mainstage (Venue 21), to July 28

A love letter to movies about mullets, motorcycles and misogyny, Escape from Winnipeg starts with a credits sequence and includes a director’s DVD commentary. In the “future” (1997), Winnipeg has been turned into a prison city. Snake Plisskin must pull off the titular breakout to clear their record, and if they feel like it, save the world.

Tamlynn Bryson plays Snake, the candy cigarette-chewing hero who loves one thing: a word we cannot print. Bryson’s physicality is highly impressive, as is the shadow puppetry that allows the “movie” to include special effects and stunts such as a motorcycle jump and a plane crash: standard ‘80s movie staples.

Rod Peter Jr. joins as Steve Buscemi guy, random guard and the babe (portrayed as a long-haired blond puppet dressed like Rod). The multiple shoutouts to other John Carpenter works are a fun Easter egg, but go for the multiple legit laugh-out-loud moments.

🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Sonya Ballantyne

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FAMILY MAGIC SHOW!

Evan Morgan/The Magic of Evan Morgan
MTYP Mainstage (Kids Venue), to July 28

With the audience in the palm of his hand and plenty of fun tricks up his sleeve, Winnipeg magician Evan Morgan wows both kids and adults with some seriously funny magic. This is Morgan’s first show at the fringe, but he’s got 25 years of performance backing him up and it shows.

Family Magic Show! has polish, pacing and patter, sprinkled with plenty of cheeky kid humour. Morgan even delivers some brief but nifty ventriloquism with a walk-on from his slightly naughty puppet Buddy. Featuring a problematic wand and an impressive finale, this is a well-designed, skilfully executed show.

🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Wendy King

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FAKESPEARE

American Vaudeville Co.
Red River College Polytechnic (Venue 11), to July 28

“This is not the show. It’s me getting to know you,” Patrick Hercamp says before the start of his retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet.

He’s back after six years with so much pent-up enthusiasm for putting the Bard’s work into commonspeak that not even the previous day’s food poisoning (by his own hand, cooking chicken curry in the dark so as not to wake his billet host) and a karaoke-related back injury could dampen his storytelling power.

The audience was a healthy mix of English majors and those, as one confessed, who know nothing about Shakespeare. “That’s OK! That’s why I’m here. It’s a classroom” — a super fun classroom that calls on everyone to participate, but where even the audience’s failure to launch an enthusiastic response amps the enjoyment.

This night’s performance came in at a quick half-hour rather than the estimated 45 minutes, but factoring in the pre-show show, it was well over an hour (come early). Money and time very well spent.

🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Denise Duguay

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INGIE’S FINGIES

Snafu
PTE — Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 28

In this new hour-long family-friendly show, debuting in Winnipeg, Victoria, B.C., puppeteer Ingrid Hansen again lets her fingers do the walking to stunning effect.

Fans of Snafu’s recent raunchy fringe hit Epidermis Circus will be pleased to know the mischievous Baby Tyler — an old-timey baby-doll head sat atop Hansen’s bare hand, which acts as the body — is back, along with household items turned puppets, including a pair of mischievous gummi bears, a hunk of Play-Doh and more. A long set of tables is the stage for Hansen’s pint-sized “puppets,” some nothing more Hansen’s fingers (hence the title).

The hilarious five-ish minute miniature vignettes are projected onto a large overhead screen, where Hansen’s dazzling puppetry skills come to life, all delivered with little discernible dialogue (beyond incredibly cute gurgles) and occasional background music.

Letting the audience see how it’s all done heightens the magic of how Hansen transports the audience into her strange and endearing world, as the micro storylines, ever more visually dazzling, converge. She’s dynamic onstage, a perfect companion to the breathtaking, immersive and beautiful scenes she creates on the screen.

🐟🐟🐟🐟🐟

— Ben Sigurdson

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METEOR SHOWER

Hill Party Productions
PTE — Colin Jackson Theatre (Venue 17), to July 28

It’s 1993 in Ojai, Calif., when we join two wildly different (but equally dysfunctional) couples who have gotten together for drinks and to watch a meteor shower. With shades of Edward Albee’s play Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? , Steve Martin’s somewhat absurdist comedic play invites audiences to spend an evening (about 75 minutes, in this case) with these mismatched couples, deftly portrayed here by Winnipeg’s Hill Party Productions. Norm and Corky are a tame, sort of dorky couple working hard on their relationship.

Enter the brash, conniving Gerald and Laura, swindlers Norm recently befriended. They’ve popped by to watch a meteor shower together — and in the process destroy Norm and Corky’s lives.

The play flashes from couple to couple (and various combinations of the pairs), repeating parts of conversations, sometimes with different outcomes, until it’s not always clear what version of the story is the truth — and maybe it doesn’t matter.

Martin’s name will have appeal, but it’s the actors’ fine work that gets his slightly uneven play over the finish line.

🐟🐟🐟 ½

— Ben Sigurdson

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QUEEN SHMOOQUAN THE END TIMES SHOW!

Queen Shmooquan
PTE — Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 28

It’s clear Seattle cult icon Queen Shmooquan (the wackadoodle alter-ego of performance artist Jeppa Hall) is a character, with her neckbrace and what can only be described as a unicorn-mask codpiece, tossing slices of Wonder Bread into the crowd.

What’s never clear is who exactly this character is, or what this largely disjointed mess of props and ideas vamping as a cabaret is about. End times? Dystopian futures? Who can say? There are kernels of real greatness, here; Hall is an amazing singer, oscillating between a deranged version of Disney’s 1937 Snow White — if Snow White wore used-tampon pasties — and a warbly, silver-throated folksinger.

But those gems are too often buried under cringe crowdwork — such as sharing a single Ritz cracker with an audience member Lady and the Tramp -style — “shocking” costumes, and a tedious ongoing bit involving Kenny G (performer unknown).

Weird for weird’s sake just isn’t enough to hang a full-length work on — especially not one that times out at a punishing 90 minutes.

🐟🐟

— Jen Zoratti

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RAGTAG CABARET

Old Cat Parade
Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to July 27

If the spirit of fringe is to test the waters before launching experimental works, this particular piece needs far more robust examination before a real-life audience is subjected to it. It’s hard to see the point of the rambling affair, clocking in at 39 minutes, which kicks off with a stream-of-consciousness monologue on veganism before meandering down paths that to lead nowhere.

Billed as a cabaret, its only saving grace comes from an entertaining tap routine slotted between a mishmash of acts that includes songs, storytelling and a vague sketch about ecological possibilities. If they were indeed channelling the spirit of fools, as they claim in the program, mission accomplished. Otherwise, it’s more a case of making fools of an audience who have to sit through this exercise in self-indulgence.

Unfortunately, disparate skits strung together on an invisible premise without anything to anchor them does not entertainment make.

🐟

— AV Kitching

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