Tuesday Fringe reviews, part 1

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/07/2012 (4798 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

MATT & BEN

Bananafish Theatre

Alloway Hall (Venue 4), to Saturday

WHILE Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are doing a lame job of adapting Catcher in the Rye for the big screen, the script for Good Will Hunting falls from the sky.

In this send-up of Hollywood’s most famous friends, the duo then grapples with the moral dilemma of taking credit for a script they didn’t write and how their differing talents — Matt has the depth, but Ben’s got the charm — threaten their friendship.

The script — by The Office’s Mindy Kaling and Brenda Withers — was a huge hit in New York and it’s the real star. It’s gossipy and gleefully petty. The performances by two Winnipeg women are less even. We get snatches of Ben Affleck’s splay-legged cockiness from Victoria Popp, but Matt Damon is less recognizable in Kristen Einarson’s performance. Much better is her turn as reclusive author J.D. Salinger. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö

— Mary Agnes Welch

SOUND & FURY’S ‘DIRTY FAIRY TALES’

Sound & Fury

Gas Station Arts Centre (Venue 18), to Sunday

THE insanely popular sketch comedians are back this year with a hodgepodge of fairy tales, be-smutted by sex and pop-culture references.

The plot at Friday night’s sold-out show doesn’t much matter, since the guys will rotate through different fairy tales every night, porning them up like 13-year-old boys. As usual, the guys ping-pong between finely tuned bits of parody and audience interaction when lines and costumes get flubbed.

The Los Angeles-based trio is reliably funny, charming and energetic, so it seems uptight to criticize them for being exactly as billed — stupid, musical and dirty. But this show isn’t nearly as smart and subversive as last year’s take on Dr. Faustus. This year, it’s a lot of wiener jokes — funny wiener jokes, but wiener jokes nonetheless. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö1/2

— Mary Agnes Welch

THE SEDUCER’S DIARY

Little Light Theatre

Rachel Browne Theatre (Venue 8), to Saturday

THERE is lust, and there is love, and then there are the games of control that wounded people play: who seeks it, who keeps it, and who can just walk away.

Those are the forces on display in The Seducer’s Diary, an elegant work by Winnipeg playwright Michael Nathanson. Loosely inspired by the Soren Kierkegaard work of the same name, this Diary takes a storytelling twist: three intertwined monologues are used to tell the tale of sleek but smarmy David (a riveting Ryan Miller), who seeks to lure restless Cordelia from her honest lover’s hands.

The actors are razor-sharp throughout; the script starts and ends a little slowly. But the rest is an intoxicating and sometimes darkly comic look at the games that lovers play. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö 1/2

— Melissa Martin

MR. FLATLAND COMEDY

Flatland Comedy

Rudolf Rocker Cultural Centre (Venue 21), to Sunday

THIS 45-minute sketch comedy show barely tickles the funny bone, eliciting more indulgent smiles than belly laughs. But Winnipeg’s Jon McPhail, Nick Janusz, Aaron Zadworny and Christian Goulet throw so many jokes at the wall, a few have to stick.

A Snakes on a Plane spoof almost takes off, thanks to Goulet’s spot-on flight attendant, and a recurring Métis character, also played by Goulet, delivers a few good puns during a date with a convincingly girlish McPhail.

But most bits fall flat. The quartet relies too heavily on scatological humour and crude, sophomoric punchlines that might aspire to be offensive if they were less lazy and obvious. ‘Ö’Ö

— Pat St. Germain

THE TOURING TEST

Treading Water

Alloway Hall (Venue 4), to Saturday

A GROUP of actors are touring a play about a robot world-takeover, but the tour is really an artificial intelligence experiment. One of the actors is secretly a robot, kind of like Big Brother meets 2001: A Space Odyssey. It sounds confusing, but it isn’t.

It’s an all-star assembly of Winnipeg’s best talent (Tracy Penner, Andrew Cecon, David Gillies and Glen Thompson) directed by Ross McMillan, and every performance is deft, with flashes of funny. The trouble is, Winnipeg playwright Scott Douglas has penned an unabashedly nerdy play, cerebral and inventive but lacking in heart. Until the end, that is, when the stern scientist (Stefanie Wiens) powers down the robot actor and punctuates the play with one very moving line. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

— Mary Agnes Welch

TONIGHT ONLY

Crumbs

King’s Head (Venue 14), to Saturday

TO write this review, we turn to the wisdom of the well-lubricated women in the back row of the King’s Head on Friday night: “It’s already funny!” they squealed loudly, fully three minutes into the 60-minute gig.

No doubt. Laughs flow as freely as the taps at the fringe’s licensed venue, and it’s easy to see why. After 15 years together, Winnipeg’s own Lee White and Stephen Sim (with a soundtrack by DJ Hunnicutt) are masters of the long-form improv craft. We even suspect they’ve established a comedic Vulcan mind-meld. How else to explain how fluidly they spin audience suggestions (on Friday night: hot springs, a lawyer) into a gut-busting comedy adventure?

Oh, and no matter which night you go, count on a sold-out show. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

— Melissa Martin

THE ANGER IN ERNEST AND ERNESTINE

Inspired I Theatre

Alloway Hall (Venue 4), to Sunday

THIS hilariously rocky romance follows a familiar trajectory. When Ernest and Ernestine vow their love will last forever, we smell blood. And their fate is sealed when they move into a tiny “perfect” basement apartment.

But the 75-minute Winnipeg comedy, directed by Debbie Patterson, doesn’t take the easy way out. The lovers are in for a battle royal and their audience is in for a treat.

Colin D. Connor is a laugh-riot as Ernest — a gangly neatnik whose orgasmic breakfast ritual is a work of comedic art. And his slobbish Ernestine, Allisa Watson, matches him blow for blow as their simmering rage builds to explosive levels.

Screamingly funny, this is an all-too-true love story for the ages. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

— Pat St. Germain

THE WITCH

Erik de Waal

Aqua Books (Venue 20), to Sunday

THIS South African folk tale isn’t the spooky story described in the fringe program, but beloved kids fringe storyteller Erik de Waal bewitches his audience nonetheless.

Spinning a tale as old as time and as big as the universe, de Waal is a dynamic narrator, imbuing a large cast of characters with passion, tenderness and despair. The mundane and supernatural worlds run parallel to one another in this 50-minute yarn about the nature of love and intolerance.

The title character is a foundling, an outsider with a physical limitation that sets her apart from other people in her village and leads to tragedy. Rumours that she’s a witch are groundless, but in de Waal’s hands, she’s touched by magic. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

— Pat St. Germain

IMPROVISION: VOODOO BURLESQUE

ImproVision

WAG — Muriel Richardson Auditorium (Venue 12), to Saturday

WELL, those short-form masochists are at it again. Leave it to local improv duo George McRobb and Alan MacKenzie to leave the audience cringing. Laughing, too, but cringing.

After a neat (and at times, even kinda nice) opening skit about a lonely man haunted by a ghostly dog, they deftly turned an audience suggestion of “knife sharpening” into an educational slideshow at Serial Killer School. But then the real pain started, as McRobb endured having wooden clothespins fastened to his nose, ears and lips by an audience member.

And for the big finish, both men performed blindfolded and barefoot… while walking (and sometimes falling) on a stage covered with mousetraps. It’s more endurance test than comedy. ‘Ö’Ö

— Janice Sawka

TUTTI FOOLI: A COMMEDIA DEL’ARTE

Poor Theatre Company

Shaw Performing Arts Centre (Venue 9) to Saturday

AS you arrive at MTYP, the characters greet you and escort you in. Welcome to the wedding of lovesick Isabella and Emilo, the union of which will unite the feuding cites of Winnipeggio and Transconia!

Yes, the plot is slight, the jokes don’t all work as the cast mixes current pop culture with Renaissance Italy, and some of the actors confuse Spanish accents for Italian — but it’s meant to be goofy, and it’s fun. And when some spectators leave singing the wedding song, you know the company has connected with its audience. ‘Ö’Ö’Ö’Ö

— Janice Sawka