Fringe reviews #2: No cheat codes required

DANGEROUS CURVES

The Spice Boys

Shannon’s Irish Pub (Venue 30), to July 26

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Dangerous Curves is a 45-minute three-person mature improv comedy show from Kansas City that relies heavily on audience participation.

It’s safe to say you should not see this show if you don’t want to risk being booed in front of a crowd of people. The show is a live humiliation ritual inviting the audience on stage to be degraded and stripped of their dignity.

The kinky comedy is filled with innuendo, and the performers are entertaining and engaging. The show’s advertising and actors constantly stress its humiliating nature, but it didn’t always live up to the hype.

Still, it has its moments towards the end — some of which made the audience roar with laughter. Because the show relies so heavily on participation, the audience you’re with determines the wildness of the show. This one is best seen later at night, drunk, with a crowd of people.

— Tiago Resko

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ELON MUSKRAT

Indigenized Indigenous Theatre

Asper Centre for Theatre & Film (Venue 10), to Sunday

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Anishinaabe playwright Josh Languedoc delivers a funny and insightful performance in his one-man show making a short run at this year’s fringe. (It ends Sunday.)

Elon Muskrat is charismatic and smarmy con-man who is trying to convince you (the audience) to buy his over-the-top Indigenously Indigenous casino— a place that is full of exaggerated clichés, from beaded paintings (what the heck is a beaded painting?) to circular rooms because, as Languedoc jokes, “we’re Native.”

The show runs around 45 minutes and blends Muskrat’s self-serving and comedic sales pitch with a parallel tale about a helpful beaver trying to build dams for the good of the community: two very different but co-existing worlds.

Languedoc is a natural storyteller and performer. He delivers a commentary that is clever, engaging and poignant. Elon Muskrat is worth checking out, but you better hurry.

— Shelley Cook

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THE EVOLUTION OF A BROKEN HEART

Quantum Leap Productions

Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to Sunday

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Orlando’s Michelina Moen and Cristina Ramos are electric in this utterly absorbing hour-long experimental contemporary dance work that is, quite incredibly, improvised.

While the costumes, projections and music provide a loose framework for the duo, the movement is in the moment. Both deliver kinetic, fully inhabited performances; every arch of the foot to contorted face is communicating with the audience.

As the title suggests, the piece is a life cycle of love, desire, heartache, grief and rebirth. In one standout sequence, the two are dressed in prim 1950s dresses dancing to Paul Anka’s crooner Put Your Head On My Shoulder. But they seem itchy. Uncomfortable. As though raw, animal desire is threatening to claw its way out from the inside and ruin the demure facade.

Near the end, Moen and Ramos bring lights into the audience and illuminate people’s faces, and make intimate, face-to-face contact, holding their gazes in a dozen wordless conversations. It’s an uncomfortable but oddly wonderful moment of connection, a reminder of what live art can be.

Note: this production is only on until Sunday.

— Jen Zoratti

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FOOL’S GAMBIT

James & Jamesy

PTE — Cherry Karpyshin Mainstage (Venue 16), to Sunday

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The opening gambit in this 60-minute multimedia improv show is a good one.

The actors (Aaron Malkin, Alastair Knowles and Nayana Fielkov) begin by filming each other with cellphones while onstage technician Chloe Ziner mixes live sound effects. The live video feed is trippy, offering different perspectives and a skewed sense of reality.

Unfortunately, the opening night show unravelled quickly from there. There was a lot of breaking and confusion as the trio attempted to create scenes inspired by a borrowed object. Storylines started and stopped but never really finished, resulting in a multiverse with too many threads and too little cohesion.

The actors are deft physical comedians and the content is bound to change daily, but more teamwork and, perhaps, more reliance on technology is needed.

— Eva Wasney

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HAIR BRAINED

Hughes Cherrywood

Asper Centre for Theatre & Film (U of W) (Venue 10), to July 26

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Sarah Cherrywood and Geoff Hughes are veteran fringe performers who are good at their craft. Their new work, Hair Brained, gives the duo plenty of opportunities to showcase their sketch comedy talents, while also putting Hughes’ wild and iconic hair in the spotlight.

The show features a collection of quirky sketches that lean into absurdity and fun. While some parts of the show feel a little tangled and don’t always seem to comb out as neatly as intended, Cherrywood and Hughes’ experience and commitment to the material keep things moving along.

One sketch offers a modern take on Samson and Delilah, following the newly humbled Samson on an unexpected journey after a life-changing haircut. It’s an odd premise that fits the show’s offbeat and lighthearted style.

If you enjoy quirky, unconventional sketch comedy and appreciate seasoned fringe performers doing what they do best, it’s an easy way to spend half an hour at the fringe.

— Shelley Cook

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HAPPY VALLEY

Cripplethreat

Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to July 25

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Sometimes, in the grocery store, rude people see Debbie Patterson’s wheelchair and ask, “What happened to you?” The answer is lots of things. A meteor. A mining town. A multiple sclerosis diagnosis. A man in a hotel room.

In this hour-long standup-meets- storytelling show, the veteran Winnipeg artist generously gives the long answer, deftly braiding all those themes together in an observational piece that will make you both laugh out loud and gasp in horror. We begin with the “angry desperation” of Happy Valley, Ont., the heavily polluted mining town her family is from, and from there explore all the ways in which the theft and destruction of land so often results in the theft and destruction of bodies.

Patterson’s delivery is chatty and informal, her social commentaries often delivered as passionate asides as though she can’t keep up with her buzzing brain and all the connections it’s making. The effect is sometimes dizzying but always dazzling. And no spoilers here, but suffice to say: Patterson’s depth of empathy for a hurt person who hurt her is extraordinary.

— Jen Zoratti

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LIES OF A PROMISCUOUS WOMAN

Darker Bright Theatre

MTYP Mainstage (Venue 21), to July 25

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With Cole Escola’s campy reimagining of Mary Todd Lincoln the current toast of Broadway, fringe audiences in Winnipeg will be saying “Oh!” about a different Mary.

Originally mounted at the fringe in 2014 — where it was met with protest, vandalism and bullying by unruly mobs of the supposedly devout — Lies of a Promiscuous Woman casts the Virgin Mary under revealing and compelling candlelight. Theresa Thomson, who adapted Audra Lesosky’s 12-year-old script, comedically and skilfully embodies a historical figure only named six times in the New Testament, despite her very famous son.

Far from blasphemous, this gospel variety hour — enlivened by interludes (including Little Star, Four Minutes, Like a Prayer) from Madonna Louise Ciccone’s iconic catalogue — looks upon its subjects with an empathetic, contemporary eye, especially during solo prayers from a devoted follower (Maggie Koreen) struggling with what it means to be faithful.

Featuring top-notch choral work from operatic performers Christopher Dunn and Carlynn Graff-Czehryn, Lies of a Promiscuous Woman is a display of votive confidence and a call for kindness in a brutally patriarchal world. This mother delivers.

— Ben Waldman

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MR. LOOPY PANTS: THE ART OF F*CKING UP

Mr. Loopy Pants

Shannon’s Irish Pub (Venue 30), to July 26

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This bass-comedy-loop-rock performance is making its debut this year and is presented by one man and his loop pedal named Peater.

Throughout the show, local musician Jeremy Williamez gives a presentation akin to a TED Talk that suggests through music how different types of mistakes can be beneficial.

Laced with political comedy, it’s enjoyable stuff. Williams loops many melodies, grooves and vocals together to create catchy songs that are all funny and unique in their own right. The show ran a little over an hour, which was a bit too long and could have been cut by 15 minutes.

Still, the show is an overall fun and refreshing experience.

— Tiago Resko

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A PETE SEEGER TRIBUTE

Woody’s Choice

West End Cultural Centre — Ventura Hall (Venue 26), to July 25

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The musical tribute to Pete Seeger from Winnipeg’s Woody’s Choice returns for a second year, showcasing folk-revival staples such as If I Had a Hammer and Turn! Turn! Turn!

Jim Waterous (bass), Linda Cassell (percussion), Bev Solomon (guitar) and Gary Watkins (banjo, guitar) share stories about Seeger’s activism and his many Winnipeg visits. They encourage the audience to sing along, but with only song titles projected rather than full lyrics, casual listeners struggle to join in.

Does the quartet always sing in tune? No. Remember all the words? Also no. But their hearts are clearly in it, and there’s a certain charm in that. Their tribute to “America’s greatest folk singer” is a sweet reminder that music is universal at any age — though the audience skewed almost entirely baby boomers.

The show also ran nine minutes over on opening night, stretching an already long hour. Leave extra time to park, as construction has wiped out parking on Sherbrook Street.

— Jeffrey Vallis

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TYMISHA HARRIS, A CABARET OF LEGENDS

Dynamite Lunchbox Entertainment

PTE — Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17), to July 26

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Come for the voice, stay for the charisma, costumes and potent storytelling.

Orlando entertainer Tymisha Harris makes a triumphant return to Winnipeg after wowing fringe audiences as the groundbreaking artist and activist Josephine Baker nearly a decade ago.

In her new one-woman cabaret, Harris takes on a bevy of Black female icons, from Ella Fitzgerald and Nina Simone to Tina Turner (again, wow) and Beyoncé, while letting her own brand of sharp comedy shine through.

She introduces each legend with brief history lessons and personal stories that paint a picture of race relations in America past and present. Between powerful ballads, Harris glows and glitters through smart, smooth costume changes.

Harris is a comfortable and confident performer who makes excellent use of the space provided, shifting around the stage and mingling in the aisles during the 60-minute performance. The only criticism? This show deserves a bigger venue.

— Eva Wasney