Reviews

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 22/07/2005 (7443 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

GIRLS’ GUIDE

Dancing Naked Productions

Cinematheque (Venue 10) to July 30

Who knew delving into the subversive world of domination could be so funny… and sweet? In Eleanor O’Brien’s 50-minute one-hander, a woman who wants to be worshipped tries to become a dominatrix, but a day spent with doms and submissives makes her realize it’s not the kind of admiration she needs.

The Portland, Ore., actor is good with accents and a great mime — her portrayal of the plump dominatrix Equinox squeezing herself into thigh-high boots and a latex suit is wonderful. She doesn’t shy away from raunch (some of the deviance she encounters isn’t for the weak-stomached) but her frankness has a undertone of cheerfulness that’s winning.

Girls’ Guide is mostly a comedy, but O’Brien tries to make it something bigger, with interludes of “love yourself” inspiration. They’re heartfelt moments, but they feel tacked on, not seamlessly integrated.

— Jill Wilson

ANTOINE FEVAL

Chris Gibbs

Red River College (Venue 11), to July 30

It’s 1896, and The Rhyming Bandit is on the loose, preying on upper-class Londoners.

Barnaby Gibbs, a diehard fan of Sherlock Holmes, confronts a man laboring over a piece of paper in the middle of a dark, ransacked house one night, muttering words like “japhire. . . no, maphire . . . hmmm, baphire” and is quickly led to a not-completely-obvious conclusion: The man is a great detective, Antoine Feval.

In this clever one-man send-up of the Holmes genre, Gibbs (played by British comedian Chris Gibbs) is a dumber than dumb Dr. Watson (“Gibbs, in many ways a clip-on tie is a mystery to you”) who proudly relates the tale of Feval and their crime-solving triumphs. A very funny 55-minute show that everyone but Barnaby will get.

— Margo Goodhand

FREAK OUT UNDER THE APPLE TREE

Tom X. Chao

MTC Up the Alley (Venue 2), to July 29

The program for this hipster sketch comedy helpfully warns against a search for “thematic unity.” Better call off the dogs when it comes to knee-slapping comedy, too. Like many of his fellow New Yorkers, Chao is more funny-clever than funny-ha-ha, and he offers up a surreal, sophisticated, but decidedly dyspeptic kind of humour here. Imagine Monty Python after an especially bitter divorce.

Still there is droll pleasure to be had from the situations presented, including: a debauched fusion bass player in a death match with a hottie Mother Superior; a “Non-Violent Conflict Resolution” instructor advising the use of “hurtful words”; and a professional police psychic trying to get his bored assistant to pick up on his romantic vibrations. Co-performer Erin A. Leahy, who performs the titular “dramatic exercise,” mitigates Chao’s dark presence like sweet cream in coffee.

— Randall King

GROW-OP

Hiptit Productions

Ragpickers Annex (Venue 13), to July 30

This one-woman comic play about growing medicinal pot is right at home at the Psychedelic Fringe. ‘Pegger Rea Kavanagh is comfortable in her reggae-loving skin as the slightly stoned botanist Lily Sprout, firing off letters on her computer, dodging her mother’s repeated phone calls and recounting her difficulties trying to secure a license to grow her pot legally.

This is a funny play with subtle touch of pathos. The script meanders a wee a bit here and there, but that’s in keeping with its slightly unfocussed protagonist. We’re in Lily’s groove with her giddy crush on her hunky mailman and the fake household renovations which allow her to stay home and care for her beloved Rose Lights, her newly developed strain of marijuana.

But Kavanagh should excise the whole rant against Ted Nugent thing (since when do Canadians get unasked-for NRA mailers?!). It’s the only thing that doesn’t work, and it plays like it was added as a means of getting some easy laughs at the Nuge’s expense.

— Wendy Burke

THE ACE BURPEE SHOW WITH CHRISSY TROY

Hot 103

Hot 103 Studios (Venue 21), to July 29

This fringe version of bring-your-kid -to-work day involves a sell-out crowd of 12 ringing the Hot 103 studio to watch morning man Ace Burpee and his sidekick Chrissy Troy do an hour of radio. That someone thought this might be a novelty fringe festival act raises expectations that there is something special to see. It shouldn’t. There’s a reason why radio is not a spectator sport.

The show behind the show is mostly the pair reading off computers (“There’s heavy inbound over the Disraeli.”), trading news (Chrissy won a ham at meat draw in Arborg), scalping material from the papers (Brad Pitt will shoot a movie in Winnipeg), answering the telephone and playing music. Burpee never promised more, as he said on air that the fringe show would be, “The exact same thing we do every day.”

As for their performances, Burpee and Troy made it look easy, were anxious to please, and pushed coffee, muffins and parfaits on grateful patrons. Now that the precedent of work-as-performance art has been set on the fringe, maybe some accountant could have us over next year.

— By Kevin Prokosh

BITCHSLAP!

Guys in Disguise

PTE- Colin Jackson Studio (Venue 17), to July 30

Bitchslap! remembers the titanic feud between screen giants Bette Davis and Joan Crawford that climaxed in a last hurrah appearance together for the first in the 1962 drama What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Edmonton playwright Darrin Hagen presses the point that both Oscar-winning leading ladies earned the bitch label for the kind of sexual conquests and contract demands for which men were admired. Having two males in drag play Crawford (Hagen) and Davis (Trevor Schmidt, also the director) underscores it all the more.

The first half of the witty 75-minute bio-comedy has the two begowned actresses trading insults and put-downs via gossip columnist Hedda Hopper (Davina Stewart). Baby Jane rehearsals allow them at last to go toe-to-toe in an enthralling game of one-upmanship that ends with slaps and worse. Real film footage and an effective simulation of shooting Baby Jane scenes juice the sense of reality.

Schmidt does an excellent haughty Bessie, most notably with a voice that sounds like an old door creak, while Hagen’s cunning La Crawford offers a glimpse of the future Mommie Dearest. Both, as well as Stewart, stumbled over lines but the slip-ups did not detract from this swell silver screen slapdown.

— Kevin Prokosh

TALES FROM ANOTHER ENGLAND

Screwed & Clued

Onstage at the Playhouse (Venue 4), to July 30

England’s Screwed & Clued seem to be about to complete a disappearing act. Since the popular troupe made its memorable debut here as a quartet in Shooting Up Shakespeare in 1998, the company ranks have thinned until Justin Sage-Passant is performing Tales From Another England by himself.

In it, he takes a walk around jolly old England, and finds things aren’t like they used to be. Instead he discovers “bad food, bad breath, bad politics.” You can’t buy a good cup of tea any more, the yobs have taken up karaoke at the pub and the country’s best soccer player David Beckham plays in Spain. There’s even a banker who likes to be spanked. Pity.

Sage-Passant makes a genial travel companion but where he is leading the audience is not clear. “I need to figure this out,” he says, during a performance at the Montreal Fringe Festival. “The tide is changing. Am I to get with it or fight it?” It sounds like he’s not clear either.

— Kevin Prokosh

CHASING BLISS

Jolene Bailie/Cuppa Jo Solo Dance

WCD Studio Theatre (Venue 9), to July 30

Winnipeg’s Jolene Bailie, who calls her solo company Cuppa Jo, pours a generous cup of challenging contemporary dance that ain’t no wimpy decaf. Bailie is usually barefoot. But the highlight of this diverse five-work show comes when she dons black shoes and digs into a muscular, streetwise blues, After Words, by Gaile Petursson-Hiley. Accompanied by John Cale’s blazing slide guitar, Bailie becomes a scrappy urban survivor whose deep, deep backwards bending is soulful poetry.

This slender, long-haired brunette — a chameleon who transforms her look for each piece — delivers not just stellar technique and compelling stage presence, but an actor’s performance from the neck up. An intense new piece of her own making, Bell/Anti-Bell, is weird enough to be off-putting, alternating the frustration of telephone-hold hell with the blissful calm of yoga. And a political-themed excerpt from the five-piece Dances For Isadora lacks power in the absence of the four other dances.

Despite such clouds in the coffee, this is THE solo dance performance to catch at the Fringe. Like a mug of java brewed by an expert, Bailie’s artistry is potent, flavourful, complex, and will force your eyes open to her excellence.

— Alison Mayes

JOLLY ROGER

Epicworlds.com — Jonno Katz

School of Contemporary Dancers (Venue 8), to July 30

One man’s search for God, his father and his holy self is the subject of this clever metaphysical comedy from Australian monologist and puppeteer Jonno Katz.

Katz, 35, has a likable presence — imagine Woody Allen crossed with Tom Hanks. But anyone who saw his hit from last year, Cactus, may be disappointed by this year’s outing. It’s as though he’s still searching for his punchlines (which can be a tad sacrilegious), and his thick, speedy Aussie accent makes his spacey ramblings hard to follow.

As he admits himself, the 50-minute show conjures up equal measures of joy and confusion. Too bad it’s easier to spot the confusion.

— Morley Walker

A CANADIAN BARTENDER AT BUTLIN’S

Big Sandwich Productions

PTE-Mainstage (Venue 16), to July 30

Recalling his crappy job in an English holiday resort chain is the main subject of Vancouver-based fringe regular T.J. Dawe’s latest torrent of words and free associations.

But anyone who has witnessed Dawe’s previous comic monologues, such as The Slip-Knot and Curse of the Trickster, knows that this is only the lip of the beer mug.

With his only prop a simple piano bench, Dawe spins anecdotes on everything from being locked out of his parents’ cabin in December to the difference between Canadian and British swear words.

This solo show, new to our fringe, dates from 2003 or earlier. At 85 minutes, it remains a tad exhausting. But despite his endless digressions, Dawe ties up most of his loose ends. How does he manage to memorize so many words?

— Morley Walker