Fringe reviews #13: Achievement unlocked, levelling up

BLACK FISH

Raheno Art Company

Theatre Cercle Molliere (Venue 3), to Friday

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This psychological drama begins with a border crossing officer (Ohad Winkler) needlessly bullying a young woman (Sima Sheibani) trying to enter an unnamed “Western” country.

All her documents are in order. But he challenges everything she says as if deliberately trying to deny her entry. She tries again. And again.

Each exchange becomes more personal and surreal: He orders her to “forget her mother tongue” and asks her to tell a folktale from her birth country. He starts confusing her with characters from the folktale, or his dead girlfriend. The balance of power begins to shift…

Saskatoon’s Raheno has given Winnipeg fringers a real challenge: this is no sit-back-and-relax show. You have to pay attention. It becomes hard to follow and almost exhausting at times. But if you can hang in there, the most moving moment of all is delivered by the actors directly to the audience, right at the end.

— Janice Sawka

EAST OF BERLIN

Glitter & Sawdust

Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to Thursday

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This 90-minute local remount of Canadian playwright Hannah Moscovitch’s drama transports audiences to the Paraguayan study of a retired physician who’s accustomed to filling and filing atrocious orders in the names of medicine and Adolf Hitler.

Rudi (a jittery Toby Hughes, playing the character as a teen and a young man) always knew his father was a particular kind of man: he keeps his fingernails immaculate, his desk organized and his lovemaking — 16 thrusts, every time — as routine as clockwork. So when school chum Herman (a Bruno Antony-ish Paul Duncan) shares a hidden part of their shared immigration story, the fabric of Rudi’s uniform existence begins to unravel.

As Moscovitch’s script twists, the naive Rudi is shepherded to the German archives, where his familiar attempts at redemption are given a human counterpoint by way of Sarah (Cora Matheson), who’s visiting Europe to understand the splintered roots of a demolished family tree.

Searing, discomfiting and painfully perverse — Rudi’s fetishization of the Jewish Sarah swells when he asks her to sing the Mourner’s Kaddish for him — East of Berlin offers a well-executed, if heavy-handed, examination of the banalities of evil and the profound fallacy of “superiority.”

— Ben Waldman

THE GREEN GRAB

All About Theatre Adults

Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to Saturday

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In L. Frank Baum’s kid-lit classic, Kansas is a state of mind and security for Dorothy Gale, a teenage girl who gets carried away by a twister to a land called Oz. In this spirited spin, the flying monkeys are yes-men to a “little orange shoehorn” who’s been elevated to America’s highest office.

Cleverly ripped from the headlines to transport the Emerald City story to a suddenly besieged Greenland, this 50-minute musical treatment from Winnipeg’s All About Theatre exists in a political environment defined by chest-puffing, ideological suppression and financial cutbacks: the Yellow Brick Road is down to its last ingot.

Decked out in fringe-best costumes, this large, intergenerational cast gives it their all, blending dance, puppetry and impressions — the performer who dons Trump’s wig will earn a place in your nightmares — to poke fun at the weakling in Washington. Unfortunately, the sum never reaches the heights of its better parts. However, The Green Grab still showcases a group of performers who clearly love what they do.

— Ben Waldman

THE NOT-SO-SECRET LIFE OF ROWENA RIDDLE

Sherri Elle Theatre Projects

MTYP Mainstage (Kids Venue), to Saturday

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Clunky superhero Rowena Riddle (Sherri Elle) may be able to distract bank robbers and save people in burning buildings with her cache of riddles from the “Riddleverse” (at least she says so) — but she met her match in the vast space of the MTYP mainstage.

Elle’s projection was insufficient to be heard beyond the first section of rows, and kids were noticeably restless (“This is silly!” grumbled a little guy sitting near me.)

Barefoot, dressed in pyjama leggings and goofy goggles, the character was amusing as she rummaged through her giant shopping bag for her supplies. At the end of the show, when she passed around riddles and invited kids onstage to help her tell them, the mood shot up — one little girl was positively glowing.

This 45-minute act would be great in a smaller space or at birthday parties, where her rapport with children would flourish. But it falters at a distance. If you go, sit in the front rows.

— Janice Sawka

ON TIDY ENDINGS

Pilgrims’ Pieces

The Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to July 26

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On Tidy Endings is part of American playwright Harvey Fierstein’s 1980s trilogy Safe Sex. Written at the height of the AIDS epidemic, it presents a meeting between the ex-wife, Marion, and current husband, Arthur, of the man both loved intensely who has recently died of the disease.

They “tidy up” his estate while showing us through their interaction the grief, fear and edgy despair of society at the time.

At his best, Fierstein’s plentiful wisecracks become aphorisms, while his on-the-edge sentimentality transforms into small but real tragedy.

Any production of this 45-minute intimate drama must manage the volatile, knife-edged confrontation at the play’s centre without tipping it into uncomfortable pathos. For the most part, the local group Pilgrims’ Pieces avoids its pitfalls and admirably conveys the quiet beauty of the play, with strong performances from Kim Kay as Marion and especially Scott Pilgrim as Arthur.

— Rory Runnells

SAVING THE STATION

Saving the Station

School of Contemporary Dancers (Venue 7) to July 25

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“I loved radio as a child,” says Jim Priebe. The sound was warm and so was the machine. “The tubes got hot — ouch.” It wasn’t the last time this host got burned by something he loved.

Throughout this hour-long live broadcast, Priebe recounts the rise and supposed fall of a community radio station he helped start in Ontario’s York Region that came to be known as WhiStle FM.

The upswing of the station, which launched in 2005, was routinely called miraculous, and in Priebe’s passionate telling, the community was eager to do what it could to help. But the radio couldn’t glow without “the dull machinery underneath the dream.” Things fell apart, paving the way for a boardroom mutiny: according to our narrator, hardly anyone was interested in doing the grunt work necessary to keep the station afloat.

Saving the Station mostly becomes an occasion for the airing of grievances, rather than for meaningful insight into what Priebe might’ve done differently. With a bit more introspection, the work would sound a lot better and ring a lot truer.

— Ben Waldman

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

Indifferently Reformed

Dalnavert Museum (Venue 28), to July 26

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Welcome to Padua U, home of the Fighting Shrew!

Winnipeg’s Indifferently Reformed troupe is having fun with Shakespeare again, setting the story in a loud ‘n’ lewd university setting. (Actors wear contemporary clothes but speak Elizabethan English.) They’ve also transformed Shakespeare’s classic Battle of the Sexes into a “Battle of the Ages”: Older spectators sat quietly, putting up with the segments of frat-boy humour, while those closer to the age of the actors lapped it up.

All eight cast members had at least one shining moment apiece. But with this play, the focus is always on how to reconcile hellcat Kate’s strong personality with her closing monologue urging women to be sweet and obedient.

Here, Kate (Krista Austin) has found a way. Watch the unnatural smile/smirk on her lips as she delivers the text. Methinks this Kate will not go gentle into yonder marriage bed after all.

Final tip: Take heed, a overall merriment may depend on thine birthdate.

— Janice Sawka

TENDERLY: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF NAT KING COLE

Duane Forrest Productions

MTYP — Mainstage (Venue 21), to July 26

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Montreal-based actor/musician/playwright Duane Forrest, who electrified fringe audiences last year with his tribute to Bob Marley, returns, this time with an all-new, tender homage to American jazz icon Nat King Cole.

The charismatic performer is a natural-born raconteur, charming us with his buttery-smooth vocals and easy guitar licks as he delivers such perennial Cole classics as Sweet Lorraine, Straighten Up and Fly Right and The Very Thought of You, seamlessly weaving them into his compelling narrative.

The 75-minute musical also juxtaposes his own experiences of being racially profiled with those affecting Cole in 1950s America. His deeply felt performances of Strange Fruit, Smile and Nature Boy give true meaning to Unforgettable.

More archival slide/film projections would be welcome. A tiny vintage radio propped on a speaker feels weirdly superfluous. But these are mere quibbles for this otherwise arresting championing of dignity, grace, vision, and mostly, the power of resilience.

— Holly Harris

WHERE WE FLY FROM HOSPITAL BEDS

Cy-Fi Studios

Tom Hendry Warehouse (Venue 6), to July 26

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Two young Star Trek-obsessed sisters, Agnes and Margot, roleplay in the sci-fi world but all is not well. Agnes has cancer and the prognosis isn’t encouraging. Considering their mother died of cancer, and their father is somewhat overwhelmed, the real future seems less optimistic than the show they love.

Though it is only 45 minutes, local playwright Cyan Gargol’s piece has more imagination and cool fluid style than what is offered in many longer plays dealing with how families deal with life and death.

Gargol ingeniously weaves the inspiring appeal of the sisters’ favourite show with how they come to terms with cancer. This works brilliantly when, during one part of their roleplaying, sock puppets appear as dangerous aliens only to become the cancer cells invading Agnes.

The cast is variable but is able to deliver the key moments of the play with clarity and fervour. Gargol is a playwright to watch.

— Rory Runnells